Music Producing & Engineering
Course 6: Form

A good song requires a solid foundation to support the body of work as the listener is led along on a sonic journey. A good foundation allows you to organize the various elements of your composition so that you can create a coherent story that surprises and inspires along the way. In this course, you’ll learn the various sections of a song: pre-chorus, chorus, hook, verse, bridge, and outro.

You’ll learn how to build your song using different forms or sections of a song. We’ll use the analogy of a house: From the yard to the front door, to the different rooms, and eventually the backyard, you’ll understand how the different forms work together in unison, along with transitions from room to room.

Upon finishing the course, you should be able to identify the different building blocks of modern songs, understand the importance of proper arrangement, create your own arrangements, and actively critique your own work as well as the works of others.

The course 6 assignment will have you create a new instrumental with an eye toward using the forms that were discussed during the course. In addition to the different sections, it should include drums, bass, chords, and a melody. The course comes to a close with the usual review, blog entry, and quiz.

Objectives:

• Build an understanding of the building blocks that make up modern musical forms.
• Understand the importance of separate sections in a proper arrangement.
• Begin to construct their own works in an arrangement that serves their artistic vision.
• Gain the ability to actively critique their own pieces and other pieces when it comes to their choice of form.
• Be able to develop a piece into a proper modern form.