How Song Structure Works: Intro, Verse, Chorus, and Bridge Explained

[00:00:00]All right, so now let's move into just talking a little bit about pop music.

[00:00:04]And pop music is a big, huge, generic term. Sometimes people think well pop music means like you know, Pharrell or you know, whoever it might be. Uh you know, the the latest and greatest of the month and then there'll be somebody else next month, right? Ariana Grande, whoever it might might be. Uh Taylor Swift, right?

[00:00:28]All of these people could be under the pop umbrella.

[00:00:31]But then you also think like people like The Beatles would be under there often times, too. Sometimes they'd be under the rock umbrella.

[00:00:38]And that was the beauty of a lot of artists back in the day is that they would do all kinds of different things.

[00:00:42]You know, they would record um just quirky, crazy little songs and then they'd have rock songs and then they'd have whatever. They would just do all kinds of different things. So, my point is is that when we talk about the pop um form, this form could go to blues, this form could go to rock, this form could go to metal, but the form, thinking about intro, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, and outro, right? These are the possibilities of things that you would have in your song is an intro that's bringing the song in, right? Uh >> [music] >> whatever it might be. It could be anything.

[00:01:27]Now, there's a there's a million things like that that we could look at.

[00:01:35]So, an intro and then that leads into the verse. Now, the verse is where the singer starts telling the story. For a guitar player, the intro and the verse might be different, but they might not be.

[00:01:47]Okay? So, in the case of uh Sweet Child o' Mine, there's an intro melody, often referred to as the head, the beginning, right? And then it goes into the verse.

[00:01:58]She's got a smile that seems to be whatever. And then that's gone. And then it it keeps coming back, but it's gone for the verse. So, as guitar players, what we have to understand is is the structure or the form is really twofold for us. The first thing I always do is I I listen to a song and assess the the structure of the song. I'm not worried about what I'm doing yet. I'm thinking about this is the beginning, and then the verse goes four times, and then there's a little pre-chorus or whatever we want to call it, a bridge or pre-chorus. Again, some of these terms they're kind of interchangeable for me, but a pre-chorus would be a car part before the chorus, right? And a bridge is or an interlude, bridge and interlude I usually use kind of synonymous, where it's just something different in the song and then it brings us back around, right? It connects two parts together.

[00:02:47]So, for me, there'd be the intro and then the verse.

[00:02:52]And if I was doing something like I played a little bit of cocaine by uh Eric Clapton. If I was doing that, it's the same thing. The beginning is the And he starts singing, [music] If you are in >> [singing] >> right? Nothing changes on the guitar, it's the same thing.

[00:03:09]So, we want to learn the form of the song, so we know where we're at in the song.

[00:03:14]But we also have to understand that as far as as being a guitar player, that form may not mean it changes with the words or changes with the sections, right? We might continue doing something or not, it depends.

[00:03:29]So, thinking about the fact that a song may potentially have an intro, an outro, a pre-verse, a pre-chorus, a verse, a chorus, a bridge or an interlude, which again usually connects two things together.

[00:03:43]And then of course, as guitar players, depending on the music that we're listening to, it might have a solo.

[00:03:48]Maybe it's a guitar solo, maybe it's a sax solo, maybe it's a piano solo, who knows, right? Could be all kinds of different things. So, if we think of something like uh Let It Be by The Beatles, okay? So, we've got C >> [music] [music] >> That's our verse and our intro.

[00:04:16]>> [music] [music] >> Now, let's look at that for a second.

[00:04:31]So, we have C 2 3 4 G [music] A minor F. Four measures. And then it goes C >> [music] >> G F C. [music] Four measures.

[00:04:47]So, in this form most of the time you're dealing with even numbers.

[00:04:55]Two groups of four. We could look at it as one group of eight, eight. But, I always try and teach people to think of things as groups of four because it's easier to memorize and easier to visualize in your head as opposed to this long sentence. If we make two shorter sentences, it's easier. So, if I was teaching somebody Let It Be, I would teach them C G A minor F. Like, see that in your head. C G A minor F. Even think about how the chords look in your head and how they look on your guitar. C G A minor F, right? That's the first part.

[00:05:23]And then we go to C G F C. So, that's what I refer to as a C sandwich. It starts and ends with a C. So, it's easier to to remember for people when they're trying to learn things.

[00:05:34]All of that is just the verse and the intro, right? But, that's a section and that's how I think about it in my head is I see those. As much as possible, I try and avoid using pieces of paper and, you know all I try and implement things into my brain as much as possible so I can ingest the ideas and manipulate them as needed because then I know what it is. I'm not questioning and well the paper will give me the answer. And don't get me wrong, sometimes we need to use that paper. Sometimes we need paper to perform. Sometimes we need a chart or something. Sometimes we do.

[00:06:12]But often times if I'm going to play something if I'm playing a Steve Vai song, I'm not looking at a chart. I've got to memorize it somehow, right? I got to put all of this stuff I got to ingest the ideas and formulate it in my brain and then make it happen with my fingers.

[00:06:27]So with Let It Be we start off with this whole thing C G A minor F C G [music] F C. That's our verse. And then we go to our chorus which is Let It Be A minor Let It Be G >> [music] >> Let It Be F C And then whisper words of wisdom [music] Let It Be.

[00:06:48]So in the chorus we start the first section with an A minor.

[00:06:55]And then G >> [music] >> F then C then the second section is [music] C G F C. So they are the same thing except the first group of four starts with an A minor. The second group of four starts with a C.

[00:07:18]And if you have this written in front of you or you're looking at it in front of you, the second group is the same in both sections in the verse and the chorus, it's the same.

[00:07:27]So this is a great time to talk about relative major and minor because you're seeing it in action.

[00:07:33]Okay? You're seeing how the verse is emphasizing the C major chord.

[00:07:40]And the chorus is emphasizing the A minor chord for a bit to give it more dramatics and then it's coming back out.

[00:07:49]And this is something that you find a lot in songwriting. And again, we'll get to this songwriting stuff in a little while, too. But you're going to find that using relative major and minor back and forth is is very very important. Um, you know, I might write my verse in minor >> [music] [music] >> Okay, so that's my verse and it's really dark and sad.

[00:08:15]And then here comes [music] the chorus.

[00:08:21]>> [music] >> And it's based off the C chord, so it gives it a lift. It gives it this kind of triumphant feel. And then when I come back out of that chord >> [music] >> and I go back into my verse again, it gives it this mellow kind of somber sound. I'm not doing anything crazy. I'm just literally moving back and forth between emphasizing the C and emphasizing the A minor at different times in the song.

[00:08:48]But when I do that of course in theory, we would call that relative major and minor. I'm in the key of A minor. I'm in the key of C major. All that is true. In my brain, I'm in the key of C major the whole time. I'm just choosing different chords to emphasize. Okay? So that's the great thing about structure and being able to see it in songs like Let It Be by The Beatles. We can see that happening in real time.