pop song structure

  • Thread starter Thread starter jamesburrell98
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jamesburrell98

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Hi guys I came here to ask more about pop music/beats and how to structure them properly. I have been studying beyonce/katy perry records but I notice the structures are different alot. I need to know if I am suppose to count in double time or normal 8? How many bars for each section? Thank you guys, I really appreciate it (;
 
there are no set number of bars for any section of any pop song ever

there is a preponderance of the powers of 2 approach (2-4-8-16-32) where a section will be one of those lengths, but just as often you can add 1 (or more) or subtract 1 (or more to get a length that is different or you can combine 2 of those lengths to get a composite length 4+8 = 12 bars (12 bar blues) 2+8 = 10 bars (a less common but still oft found length)

you might want to read through this tutorial - Bandcoach ~ Beginning Theory 3: Song Structures to get a better understanding of the historical structures and how they apply to today
 
The way I do my songs is 8 bar double verse, 4 bar pre-chorus, and 8-16 bar chorus (depending on what's going on). A lot of pop songs kind of follow this structure. Don't forget about the bridge/middle 8 though
 
Someone on FP posted a link to a site that broke down popular songs into "Intro-Verse-Bridge-etc", and explained how many bars of each were used in the specific songs. I've been googling for 10 mins, but can't find it... Maybe someone else around here bookmarked it or something. It was a useful site. I'll keep searching.
 
no idea about that site ipm, but I occasionally do that on request (could make money from it but hey, boredom is cured by doing)
 
There is a formula of some kind. There are slight deviations between each Pop song, of course. But a lot of radio songs are edited to right around 3:30 running time. At 120 bpm, you can basically count on a bunch of songs having the same # of bars in them.
 
Mostly, you count in common time (1 2 3 4) for each bar.
From what I've heard it's basically the following : Intro 16 bars, Verse 16 too, Pre-Chorus 4 bars, Chorus 8 bars, Transition : 2 or 4 bars, then a verse again, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge 8 bars ("middle eight"), chorus, Outro can vary from 2 (even 1 when the rest of the song is long enough) to 8 bars.
 
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