Article: Song Forms

Enhance your own songwriting by learning about the building blocks from which songs are made.

What makes a great song? A catchy melody? Memorable lyrics? All of the above? A great song can be simple or complicated, but one thing all songs (good or bad) have in common is some kind of form. If you're interested in writing your own songs, it's a good idea to get familiar with the traditional building blocks that make up a song's foundation.

Throughout this article I'll refer to a lot of "classic" pop and rock tunes to highlight how each song section works, because these are songs that most people recognize and can say, "I know how that goes." We'll look at the components of popular songs and ...

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