Peterik Chapter 3 Getting Your Song Into Shape: Song Forms
Introduction
Today we'll continue with our reading of Peterik's book. We'll learn more about the forms that songs can take, and explore what forms my previous tunes fit before I come up with another new song.
Rapoport Question of the Day
Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
What percent of natural numbers less than or equal to 100 are prime?
Well, here's the set of primes with at most two digits:
{2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97}
This set has 25 elements, so 25 of the first 100 natural numbers are prime. And of course, 25 out of 100 is 25% -- that is, exactly one-fourth of the numbers are prime. Thus the desired percent is 25% -- and of course, today's date is the 25th.
Peterik Chapter 3 Getting Your Song Into Shape: Song Forms
Chapter 3 of Jim Peterik's Songwriting for Dummies is "Getting Your Song Into Shape: Song Forms," and here's how it begins:
"When you hear a new song on the radio, the average listener will probably not turn to his friend and say, 'Wow, awesome pre-chorus -- I love how it sets up the hook!'"
This chapter is all about the parts of a song and how they fit together to form common basic patterns.
"Before we start looking at song forms, it's important to understand the terminology songwriters use when they're talking shop. Here are the main terms for the various sections of a song."
Of course, I'm not going to list all of Peterik's terms here, but just some of them:
Intro: This section, which starts out the song, is typically an abbreviated instrumental form of the chorus or sometimes the verse. Its purpose is to get the ear ready and introduce all that is to come. Listen to any radio station. The majority of the songs you hear will have some form of intro, and your "tune-out factor" will be directly affected by how effective the writers and arrangers are at catching your attention right off the bat.
Bridge: The bridge, sometimes called the release or middle eight (referring to the eight musical measures the bridge tends to occupy), comes after the second chorus in the majority of pop songs. It's not a necessity in all songs. It can either contain lyrics or be instrumental in nature. Whether the bridge contains words or not, its main function is to give the ear some fresh real estate to land on.
Coda: A special ending section, also called an outro or a tag that can be added to the end of a song. It's typically a kind of grand finale.
The author now explains his notation:
"The sections of the song are each designated by a letter, the first melodic section you hear (generally the verse) is 'A.'"
Of course, the second section is called "B," the third section "C," and so on. But the first form that Peterik describes here has only verses -- AAA. His example of an AAA song is "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," performed by Glen Campbell, written by Jimmy Webb:
"Webb also has a clever use of lyric elsewhere in the song -- for example, 'She'll just hear that phone keep on ringin' off the wall' is followed by a simple 'That's all.'"
Other examples of AAA mentioned here are "Amazing Grace," (written by John Newton), "Turn, Turn, Turn" (Pete Seeger), "Subterranean Homesick Blues," (Bob Dylan), "Born in the U.S.A." (Bruce Springsteen), and "On Broadway" (written by Barry Mann and others, performed by The Drifters).
The author tells us that some songs have only two verses, AA, like "Hello" (Lionel Ritchie, not Adele):
"The second verse is usually a musical repeat of the first, but in some songs the second verse resembles the first, beginning the same way, but wraps up differently musically."
Other examples of AA mentioned here are "Moon River" (Henry Mancini), "In My Life" (The Beatles), "White Christmas" (written by Irving Berlin), "Stardust" (written by Hoagie Carmichael), and "Walk On By" (written by Burt Bacharach).
Peterik now moves on to the AABA form. Here the B section serves as a bridge, such as in "The Christmas Song" (written by Mel Torme). And yes, I know I keep giving Christmas examples even though today is June 25th -- exactly halfway to Christmas:
"It provides an interlude between verses, which can be very effective if it's done well. In the classic AABA song, the A sections are usually 8 bars in length and constitute the main melody of the song."
Other examples of AABA mentioned here are "Something" (The Beatles), "Blue Moon" (written by Richard Rogers), "Save the Last Dance for Me" (written by Doc Pomus), "Just the Way You Are" (Billy Joel), and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" (Carole King).
The author also mentions an extended AABA form, or AABABA. This is quite common in Beatles songs such as "Yesterday," "Hey Jude" and "Hard Day's Night":
"Things get a little more complicated in a few of Paul McCartney's songs. 'Michelle,' for example, has a form of AABABABA."
Peterik now moves on to the ABAB form, where A is a verse and B is the chorus. He takes an extensive look at "Fallin'" (Alicia Keys):
"The progression that toggles between E-minor and B-minor has never sounded more elegant. The structure is the verse-chorus form with a very simple chorus."
The author includes the entire lyrics of "Fallin'," but of course I won't post them here. Sometimes a song has two verses before reaching the first chorus:
"This form variation would be described as AABAB, and you can look up the lyrics to some (or all) of the songs listed in the following table to help learn about two verses before the chorus."
Examples of AABAB listed in this table are "Daniel" (Elton John), "Helpless" (Neil Young), and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind" (written by John Sebastian).
Other examples of AABAB mentioned here are "American Pie" (Don McLean), "The Wind Beneath My Wings" (written by Larry Henley), "Foolish Games" (Jewel), "Amazed" (written by Marv Green), "If You Have Forever in Mind" (Vince Gill), and "I'll Never Break Your Heart" (Albert Manno).
Peterik now moves on to the ABC form, where B is a pre-chorus before the chorus at C:
"A pre-chorus -- a short section that leads up to the chorus -- is a great device that you can use when writing a verse-chorus song. The Beatles' 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is an excellent example of a song that uses a pre-chorus with great success."
And as the author explains, a pre-chorus can almost serve as a mini-bridge:
"Often a good pre-chorus will have some fresh chord changes that haven't been used in the verse, especially if the chorus is in the same key as the verse."
Peterik now moves on to the ABABC form, where B is the chorus and C is the bridge. His example here is Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want":
"The repeat chorus changes into the first person, however. Weaving in and out of the song with a magical, moody guitar motif."
Other examples of ABABC mentioned here are "Here Comes the Sun" (The Beatles), "As Long As You Love Me" and "I Want It That Way" (both written by Max Martin), "I Turn to You" and "Un-break My Heart" (both written by Diane Warren), and "Hands" (Jewel).
And finally, we reach the ABCABCD form, with both a pre-chorus B and a bridge D. The author himself has written songs in this form, such as his "Hold on Loosely":
"Take a look at how the song builds as you sing along and you'll see why it has become a staple at classic rock radio."
I won't reproduce the entire lyrics of Peterik's song here. Instead, I'll mention a variation that he uses in another of his songs, "I Can't Hold Back." It starts out straight but changes at the third pre-chorus:
"Next, instead of going into a chorus, the song returns to a reprise of the verse, 'There's a story in my eyes....' then it skips the pre-chorus and goes directly to the out-chorus."
Other examples of ABCABCD mentioned here are "Standing in the Shadows of Love" (The Four Tops), "My Girl" (written by Smokey Robinson), "I'm Looking Through You," and "We Can Work It Out" (both The Beatles):
"'Drops of Jupiter' (written and performed by Train) is one of those songs that makes an immediate impression."
But as the author points out, this last song doesn't follow the above rules exactly, so the songs we write don't need to either:
"If your song becomes confusing and unfocused when playing it for others, it's time to go back to the drawing board."
This takes us to the next "Practice Makes Perfect" section -- it's time for me to write a song now.
A Song for October
In our last post, we looked at what Math 8 Unit 1 would have looked like at the old charter school with these songs. Let's look at the ideal Unit 2, spanning Weeks 5-8 of school. The math standards to be covered are the EE standards on radicals and integer exponents
Notice that Week 5 here is the field trip to the LA County Fair, and so the song for that week is "Meet Me in Pomona, Mona" no matter what the math or science lessons are that week. This song is, of course, the first parody that I perform -- it's based on "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis."
Parodies, of course, inherit their forms from the songs of which they are parodies (provided that I include every part of the song in my parody). "Meet Me in St. Louis" has a simple ABAB form with two verses, each followed by a chorus -- and hence so does "Pomona." The chorus is easy to identify because it starts with the title "Meet Me in..." (followed by either St. Louis or Pomona).
With the field trip on Friday, I perform "Pomona" on Tuesday and Thursday of Week 5. I don't need any other songs this week. Let's fill up the rest of this unit with some progressively more complex songs. So we should start with a simple verse form (AA or AAA) in Week 6 and proceed from there.
During the actual Week 6 (that is, back in 2016), I sang "Show Me the Numbers" on Tuesday. This song focused more on classroom rules than actual math. I like to believe that on this timeline (with a more structured classroom based on interactive notebooks), I'd have much better classroom management and thus not need "Show Me the Numbers."
Instead, we might replace this with "Roots," a song about square and cube roots that actually matches the math lessons for Week 6. On the original timeline, I performed this later in October, but here we're compressing the lessons so that we can get through the whole book. Whichever song I sing, both "Show Me the Numbers" and "Roots" are simple tunes with two verses, AA.
As for Thursday and Friday of Week 6, we note that Week 6 Thursday is Back to School Night. On the original timeline, I chose "Nine, Nine, Nine" from Square One TV, for two reasons. First, I wanted to impress parents with my musical performances, and I preferred an already-completed song than one that I'd composed. And second, I was singing the song on its YouTube anniversary (that is, the day that it was posted online).
"Nine, Nine, Nine" has two verses, so it's ABAB. But some might question what to consider the talking part (where the female singer asks, "This works for bigger numbers too?"). Here I'm counting it as part of the second verse since without it, the second verse ("9 times 10 is 90") is much shorter than the first ("9 times 2 is 18"). But some might prefer calling it a bridge instead (even though the first verse doesn't end with such a bridge), or perhaps not even part of the song (it's just a conversation).
There is a science project for Week 6 (that I didn't give on the original timeline until February). While, there is no song for this science project, there's a way to introduce it to parents during Back to School Night -- give them some of the mystery substances and have them try to identify them.
As for Week 7, there's another Square One TV song, "One Billion Is Big." And this one actually fits the math lesson as powers of ten are covered in Week 7, not 6. On the original timeline, I performed this later in November. "One Billion Is Big" begins with its title as the opening line, but this is more like an intro than a true chorus. Also, the last vocal part of "Billion" ("If we multiply one million by ten...") is considered different enough from the verse to be thought of as a bridge instead. So this is ABABC.
"Billion" could be performed on Thursday and Friday of Week 7 with another song for Tuesday. It might be better to do "Billion" on Tuesday and something else on Thursday. Learning Centers are scheduled for this Thursday, and there's already an activity that fits in this unit -- one where tiny squares are used to estimate square roots of two-digit non-perfect squares. So perhaps another Square One TV song fits here, such as "Round It Off" (though it's in ABAB form with no bridge).
That takes us to Week 8. The first of October is a Saturday -- in 2016, this started a three-day weekend for Rosh Hashanah (observed in LAUSD and nearby charters). On the original timeline, I sang a parody of "Hava Nagila," and did a science lesson on "Earth, Moon, and Sun" (in order to explain lunar calendars and why there was no school on Monday). While "Earth, Moon, and Sun" is indeed part of the eighth grade curriculum, I should have waited until later in the year. As we see above, the actual science lesson that week should have been physical and chemical changes, which means that there shouldn't be an "Earth, Moon, and Sun" song.
Of course, there's nothing stopping us from having a "Hava Nagila" parody anyway, except about physical and chemical changes instead of "Earth, Moon, and Sun." But the three-day weekend provides us another opportunity to open October with a new song. Besides, we haven't written an ABCABCD song with a pre-chorus yet, so let's do it today in this post.
By the way, only a few of the songs I ever performed had pre-choruses. In January of my charter year, I had a "No Scrubs" parody. The line that begins "No, I don't want your number!" (in both the original song and my parody) could be considered the start of the chorus (and indeed, I labeled it as "Chorus" when I first posted it on the blog). But since it doesn't contain the title of the song, perhaps this part is better described as a pre-chorus instead. (The Hidden Figures song "Runnin'" by Pharrell Williams, which I also performed in January, could be considered to have a pre-chorus starting with the line "Runnin' from the man!" But since its first word is the title of the song, this is more likely to be thought part of the chorus proper.)
"All About That Base and Height," a Meghan Trainor parody, definitely has a pre-chorus. The part that begins "Mama she told me don't worry about your size" (and changed to "Mama she told me to worry about your grades" in one version of the parody) can only be considered a pre-chorus. The song begins with a chorus, "Because you know I'm all about that...," and the chorus is played twice more, each time after the pre-chorus. (I never played this song during the charter year -- instead, I discovered the parody on YouTube years after I left the charter.)
OK, so let's get to the new song. I decided to run my short TI program four times, one each for the A, B, C, and D parts of our song. Each part will have eight bars (as suggested by Peterik). I decided last week that while we're going to enter 2/4 as the time signature, it really made more sense to interpret this as alla breve (or cut time, 2/2), where the sixteenth notes span two time units in Mocha. (I'll make a more coherent rhythm plan after we reach the rhythm chapter in Peterik.)
Also, I was torn as to which EDL scale to use. The chorus produced here sounds better in 16EDL, but the bridge sounds better in 18EDL. I decided to make the whole song in 16EDL except for the bridge.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.8.EE.A.4
Perform operations with numbers expressed in scientific notation, including problems where both decimal and scientific notation are used. Use scientific notation and choose units of appropriate size for measurements of very large or very small quantities (e.g., use millimeters per year for seafloor spreading). Interpret scientific notation that has been generated by technology
Here is the Mocha code for the song. As it turns out, it's easiest to program Mocha to go ABC, ABCD, and then ABC for the third and final verse:
10 N=8
20 FOR V=1 TO 3
30 FOR X=1 TO 91.5+(-1)^V*16.5
40 READ A,T
50 SOUND 261-N*A,T*2
60 NEXT X
70 RESTORE
Here the line numbers in the 100's are the A part, the 200's are the B part, and so on. As usual, press Sound before you RUN the program. The complicated formula in Line 30 works out to be 75 notes in Verses 1 and 3 (ABC) and 108 notes in Verse 2 (ABCD).
Here are the lyrics, for the verses (A) and other parts of the song (BCD):
The song contains the instructions for doing operations with numbers in scientific notation. So here the "little numbers" are the exponents, and the "big numbers" are the mantissas. The pre-chorus reminds us that there should be only one digit before the decimal point in scientific notation. The chorus shows us how to put a number into scientific notation -- either move the decimal point to the left and place a positive exponent (as in 123.45 = 1.2345 * 10^2), or move the point to the right and place a negative exponent (as in 0.012345 = 1.2345 * 10^-2).
And the bridge shows us that the exponents must be equal before we can add (for example, in order to add 3 * 10^4 + 3 * 10^5, write 0.3 * 10^5 + 3 * 10^5 = 3.3 * 10^5). This is why I placed the bridge before the last verse, on adding.
Conclusion
Today is the death anniversary of one of the most famous musicians of all time -- Michael Jackson. I point this out because many of his hits contain some of the parts mentioned in Peterik's book:
"Billie Jean": https://genius.com/Michael-jackson-billie-jean-lyrics
This is probably one of the most well-known songs with a pre-chorus ("People always told me"), before the chorus ("Billie Jean is not my lover"). And according to the Genius lyrics link above, it also ends with an outro.
"Remember the Time": https://genius.com/Michael-jackson-remember-the-time-lyrics
This song has both a pre-chorus ("Do you remember, back in the fall" -- which becomes "spring" after the second verse) and a bridge ("Those sweet memories"), so it really is ABCABCD. For some reason, instead of an "outro," Genius lists this song as ending with a "breakdown."
"The Girl Is Mine": https://genius.com/Michael-jackson-the-girl-is-mine-lyrics
Michael Jackson performed this song with Paul McCartney (mentioned earlier in this post). It has four verses as well as other parts, including a hook (with Jackson and McCartney each singing a hook). As it happens, Peterik will write about hooks in his next chapter.
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