No Rules only Tools – Part 1

When writing a song no one can really tell you what to do or not to do. It limits your ability to truly be creative. That being said, there is certainly some helpful tools and guidelines to keep your songs in line with what the listener typically expects to hear. We like to say that there are no hard and fast rules only tools to guide the writer in the right direction. Let’s look at some of these handy tools.

Song Structure

A song consists of more than one part with repeating sections. If every line were different for 3 minutes long one would find it very difficult to remember the song and there will be no sing along opportunities. Therefor it became standard practice to have sections in a song namely intro, verses, chorus, bridge, solo, interlude, outro. These can all go in different configurations. There are however more popular and well used combinations that stood the test of time.

The Hook Line

It is also good practice to have a very strong tag line / hook line for your song. This will be one sentence inclusive of a few words that encapsulates your entire song theme in a smart fresh way. This line could be repeated as many times as needed to sink into the listeners ear and stay there for a long time.

The rule of two

Some say a line or progression can only be repeated two times before it becomes boring and therefor needs some variation before going back to that section. In some cases, this rule can surely be ignored if the song calls for that third, fourth or eight repetition.

The rule of three

A known fact is that the human ear can only focus on three interesting parts in a song at once. If the drummer, bassist, guitarist, pianist and vocalist all solo at the same time it will be to confusing for the listeners ears and be perceived as a mess. Therefor it is wise to adhere to this approach where only one to three elements be forward at one time and the others take a backseat holding the backbeat unconsciously pulsing.