Theory and Songwriting

By Marty Jourard

Every musician should write songs. Getting started is often the hardest part. Music theory can nudge along the creative process by providing a framework that can be used to build a song. We’re going to explore an approach to creating this song framework.

For the sake of simplicity, our song will be assembled from three components: a Verse, a Chorus, and a Bridge. Let’s briefly review the general definitions of these terms.

The verse is the descriptive section of a song that uses narrative and detail to set up an idea that is reflected in the chorus.

The chorus usually follows the verse and is used to make the “point” of the song, whatever it may be (“The waiting is the hardest part,” “Oh! Susanna, don’t you cry for me,” “We all live in a yellow submarine”). The chorus is the songwriter’s chance to make that big statement, even if it’s only “Hey baby hey baby hey.” The song title is often reflected in the lyric of the chorus.

The bridge is an optional musical section that provides sonic relief from the verse/chorus pattern. Bridges often provide contrast and a sense of movement through changing key (modulation). An unwritten songwriting rule suggests that if you can’t come up with a really cool bridge (either lyrically or musically), leave it out.

In order to make sure these three sections really do sound different from one another we can write out each section’s chords using number notation, making sure each section has unique number patterns. Here’s how we do it.

Let’s write our song in G major, using chords built from the notes of the G major scale. First write out the G major scale and number each scale-step:

G—A—B—C—D—E—F#—G

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

Now we’ll build the chords, each one starting on a different note of the G major scale:

G—Am—Bm—C—D—Em—F#dim

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The resulting “chord family” consists of three major chords (1, 4 and 5, shown in boldface), three minor chords (2, 3 and 6) and a diminished chord (7) that we won’t use today. Sorry fella! So, our song chords are G, Am, Bm, C, D, and Em.

Because these chords are assembled from one source (the notes of the G major scale), they work well together. In fact, you can go from any one chord to another and it will sound musical. Try it and see for yourself.

Using these chords, let’s begin writing the song. Each section we build will be either four or eight bars long. First we’ll write a Verse section. Each number (chord) represents one bar of 4/4:

1 1 5 1 (G G D G)

Now here’s a Chorus:

4 1 4 5 (C G C D)

We’re almost done. The verse and chorus sections use different numbers and patterns so we know they’ll sound different from one another. Now let’s write a Bridge using some new chords:

3 6 2 4 (Bm Em Am C)

There. We’ve got our three unique song components, now let’s arrange them in a typical song order of Verse1/Chorus/Verse2/Chorus/Bridge, throw in an instrumental over a verse/chorus pattern, add a verse3 and then end with a repeating chorus. Our song, in all its generic glory, looks like this:

GENERIC SONG

Section	Number notation	Chords
Verse 1	1151 1151	G G D G G G D G
Chorus	4145	C G C D
Verse 2	1151 1151	G G D G G G D G
Chorus	4145	C G C D
Bridge	3624	Bm Em Am C
Instrumental	1151 4145	G G D G C G C D
Verse 3	1151	G G D G
Chorus	4145 4145 4145	C G C D C G C D C G C D

There we have it, fellow music lovers. A song framework. Now what? Give it a feel. Create a beat; any beat. Reggae, country ballad, punk thrash, mellow ambient groove, you name it. Now start humming a melody and record your melodic rambling on a cassette recorder or other recording device. Play back your melodic improvising; develop good ideas, discard the lame ones. Repeat until you’ve got a melody. Now write some lyrics. Take your time, you risk nothing but the chance that you’ll eventually come up with something cool.

This may seem like a “cookie-cutter”approach to creating music, yet within this framework lies infinite possibility. In addition to varying the beat, and therefore the overall feel, you can easily vary the chords by reversing the order of the numbers in each section. Now the verses are 1511, the choruses are 5414, the bridge 4263. How does that sound? Better or worse? You can also relocate the chord patterns. Make the verse pattern the chorus pattern and vice versa. These four-measure chord “units” are interchangeable because they are all the same length.

It doesn’t take much to come up with a song framework and it doesn’t take a lot of chords. The Everly Brothers’ 1959 hit “(‘Till) I Kissed You” has only three chords : the 1, 6 and 4. Here’s how they arranged them:

Verse1: 161616161144

Chorus: 161616

Verse2: 161616161144

Chorus: 161616

Bridge: 66116611

Partial Verse: 1144

Chorus: 161616

Bridge: 66116611

Chorus: 161616

This song framework can easily be used to write a new song. Studying the overall form of successful songs is a great exercise for any musician and songwriter.