The Manual: Volume Two
Structuring A Track
(Going off audio format, 1 bar = 1 line)
Now that we all know how to write and structure a verse, the
next thing to learn on this endeavor is how to structure our songs. There a
many different types of structures for songs and this is changing every day,
and different methods are better suited for certain types of tracks in
particular. There are pros and cons to every type of structure, so it’s up to
you to decide which one brings the most to the table and contributes to the
emotion you wish to portray on your track.
Components Of A Track Verse A standard verse is 16 bars, but this is not always
the case. In storytelling for instance, the verses tend to be longer, perhaps
about 24 bars. If you look at some of the radio play songs that have more of a
pop feel to the rap, you may notice verses only consisting of 8-12 bars. Music
is a form of art, and thus there are many ways to construct your track just as
there are many ways to paint a portrait.
The length of other aspects of the track will vary depending
on your choice of verse length. So a typical rap verse can range between: 8
bars, 12 bars, 16 bars, or 24 bars. Once you have however many and however long
verses you decided upon, you will move on to the other components of your
track.
These following components are to boost your song and
support the verses while bringing different flows and sounds. Not all of the
following items are required for a successful song, but they are the components
to choose from when building your track.
Intro This has the ability to build up into a song, or simply
reinforce the emotion you wish to portray. The range of this can vary greatly,
but typically never longer than 8 bars/lines. This is inserted as the first
thing on the track before any other vocals. The “intro” can be anything you
wish, you can make it rhyme with bars, you can have a dialogue, sounds, adlibs,
short phrases, etc. Chorus/Hook think of the chorus as either a summary of the
track, or as maybe a thesis statement of the track. The chorus needs to grab
the attention of the listener; it is the part that repeats in the track, so it
is the first part remembered. You want this to be different from your verses in
flow and sound so that it doesn’t all just melt together and makes it hard for
the listener to tell when the verse stopped and when the chorus/hook began. The typical length of a chorus/hook would vary in the range
of 4 – 8 bars/lines. Like any aspect of a track, you have full control of what
this is. In the case that you needed an 8 bar gap filled by chorus, you would
have many variations to decide from. You could write 2 quatrains (8bars/lines),
or you could write one quatrain that repeats a second time, you can even repeat
a couplet (2bars/lines) 4 times. You are the artist you decide what it needs.
Chorus/Hook Extensions Something not used as often, but
this can be a quick quatrain (4 lines/bars) added either in front or at the end
of the chorus. The purpose of this is to add more support to the chorus in a
different form as well as increasing the memorable factor. You want to keep
this on the simple side rather than complicated so that its easy to
remember/catchy. This could even be a couplet in one of the verses that gets
repeated twice and added throughout the song to add additional support. Bridge we all know people are retarded, that being said
this aids to attract the attention of listeners with short attention spans. A chorus
can get kind of boring sometimes if its repetitive or just not as strong as
others, you can fix this by adding something fresh to it. This part would be a
different rhythm/sound to the chorus, it would stand apart.
A bridge can be used
between two choruses, if your time is more constricted, you can do one chorus
followed by a bridge, then into the verse. Again, it’s your track, you fucking
decide this shit. Outro you can use this to re-solidify the purpose of your
track. It can be something to add to the emotional aspect of the track as well.
This is basically like an intro, but as an outro.
Structure Examples:
Standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus
Verses: 16 bars/lines
Choruses: 8 bars
Roughly 4 min
This seems to be the go to structure, think of it as the
tried and true. On this one you would typically see 16 bar/line verses, and 8
bar choruses. This has less components on it which brings more of the focus on
the content of the track. This may seem like a great way to go, but that is not
always the case. For instance, you want to focus on the content for a
storytelling piece, BUT your verses are probably going to be around 24 bars,
and at that point, this song just got way longer. Plus those verses will be so
long you won’t remember an 8 bar chorus because it is too long, and drawing too
much attention away from the story.
Storytelling verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus
Verses: 24 bars
Choruses: 4 bars
Roughly 5 min
Since I was going on about storytelling, here we are. When
you are telling a story, your verses tend to be on the lengthier side, even for
the audio side. These tend to be 24 bars/lines typically. Since we are dealing
with longer verses, we want a shorter chorus that will be easy to remember (as
it takes longer for these to play).
You are using more track time to build your story, but this
also means you should try to have a strong chorus. If you make these choruses longer,
the track would really be too long. I mean unless its like so stupid everyone
is hypnotized and can sit there for 30 minutes listening, then don’t make it
longer than 5 min, you don’t want people moving past a track because it as too
long, leaves a bad taste. So lets keep the choruses shorter, and focus more on
the content/emotions of the story. Build a connection to the listener/reader. On
the down side since your focus is on the verses, the track will have less of a
variety on it.
Pop/Modern/Radio (not absolute) Pre hook extension, hook,
verse, pre hook extension, hook, post hook extension, verse, pre hook
extension, hook, post hook extension, bridge, pre hook extension, hook, post
hook extension
Pre/Post Hook Extensions: 4 bars/lines
Hook/Chorus: 8 bars
Verse: 8 bars
Bridge: 8 bars
This is probably what you hear more on the radio now, new
artist tend to use this more often than the vets. That isn’t necessarily a bad
thing, as music is always evolving, and when it comes to audio tracks, you want
to keep up with what the listeners demand if you’re trying to make a single.
This is the style that you would see someone like drake use
maybe. Basically it’s when you have a really hot chorus and you want that to be
the focus of the song. People who listen to radio maybe have shorter attention
spans, who knows, but they get bored, this method allows you to have a killer chorus
so you build the track around that. That means shorter verses, and more
components that will elevate/support your chorus/hook.
This type makes it easy to remember a lot of a song as it
has many repeating parts with short distances between them. On the off hand,
now your verses don’t have much weight, and are more on the non-memorable side,
and this track can be seen as repetitive to some.
Summary Those are the basic styles. You can literally do
anything you want when making a track. You can consider these guidelines and
not law. Edit them as you wish in whichever way better serves the focus/purpose
of your track/song. You have full control, if you are unsure, play around with
it, try different things.
Also a beat tends to tell you the emotion of a song, and you
could use that to help you decide which guidelines to stick closer to. You may
notice id dint use intros/outros in any of these, that is your decision as to
when you wish to use them, they are probably the least important part, but don’t
let that fool you, they can help in a big way if utilized correctly.
The Focus On The Chorus
(Nothing here is absolute)
A chorus connects your verses, there is normally just one
chorus that gets repeated after every verse, but this can change. The purpose
of this is to hook the attention of the listeners. You can do anything for your
chorus; I won’t limit your originality. Remember technically speaking these
bars is in regards to time. Typically, 4 beats per measure, 1 measure per bar. This
is typically words, but not always. If you listen to modern people like designer,
it seems as if they lean more towards sounds.
The chorus is important because it is the only part of a rap
song that is being repeated many times. This makes it the first part someone
would remember, which is partly why you don’t want to over complicate these,
keep them simple. The hooks/chorus are what helps the listener remember what
verse went with what song, it is the part that sticks to them the most, and
being that they are a reoccurring point/summary of a song, they relate to the
title of it as well. Think cliff notes.
So yea, you want this to be memorable, but a big thing that
helps make it memorable is MELODY, so make sure it’s melodic along with being cliff
notes. If there isn’t a good melody to it, then it will be bland and flat. Make
sure this flow is different from any flow used on your verse; it should not
match anything in order for it to stand apart. More commonly you will see
rappers singing more on their verses now-a-days. This adds to its melodic
factor, and it is a big focus in today’s music.
Now, I suck at choruses personally, I would feature this out…
but for the purpose of this guide, envision this being sung in a melodic way.
Example: Everyday’s a struggle, Everyday’s a struggle
Every day I bustle to avoid the hustle
Wake up every morning hoping shit has changed
Bitch, this is my life, no dreams ‘cuz I stay wake
Ok, so this is harder to grasp without audio, but like I said,
I suck with choruses, so you just going to have to imagine it being sung. It
has a repeating part in itself to help make it memorable and easier to catch
the flow at the start (in theory), then it talks about the point of what that
song would be about… which is pretty much a shitty ass life, and the guy has no
dreams to fulfill as he is pessimistic and just accepts it as is. He has
accepted it. So we got a melodic aspect by doing it by singing in this case. It’s
a summary of the verses id be spitting for the shitty life no dreams track, its
simple and has a basic short repetition in itself to make it easier to remember,
and more catchy (again, in theory).
This would be the case of repeating a 4 bar chorus twice in
order to take up the 8 bar gap, or you can mix in other components if you’d prefer,
such as a bridge perhaps.
The Process
Ok, we got the gist of is, we know what style we want and
what emotion we want to focus on for the track. We decided on our build pattern
(you may do this after picking the instrumental, especially if you are not
producing your own (the dream).
Choose An Instrumental
I personally do this first, I am very picky when it comes to
beats, and I don’t necessarily like to just choose what topic I want to write
about, I prefer to be inspired. I normally use the beat as my inspiration. I’ll
listen to a beat and see what is about, you literally just need to shut up and
listen, it will speak to you and you should be able to build a connection and
hear what its saying. Sure it sounds weird, maybe you’re a cyborg and it’s
impossible, well this is my best description.
Once you’ve head the instrumental at least one full time,
what I like to do first is freestyle outloud on it, just to see if you find any
quick flows that you can later substitute the weak words your probably just
spit with something more impressive. The focus is the flow. Then get an idea of
what you think you should write about in your head, and freestyle your verse
with very little focus on rhyming, as a matter of fact, try not to rhym much
and focus on the content. Once ive done that, then I try to respite a similar verse
with more focus on the rhyming of it. After ive done that, ive officially
decided I like this beat and want to make a track. What you did was just map
out a basic plan of the song that you will develop and build later. Be sure to
match the emotion that the beat portrays with the emotion you focus on with all
your vocals.
Structuring your shit
Boom, how you want your verses laid out and about how long
they will be (although they are still not written). You can begin deciding on
the structure depending on how much time you have to fill and which components
of a song you deem as the most supportive for the style you are aiming for.
At this point write your verses down. There are some good
guides here such as Nigma’s for topical I recommend. But putting it in a
nutshell,
First decide the points you are going to write about, or
write the story in a non rhyming form. You can even do this as bullet points,
it doesn’t matter. Maybe do some research and write down what you find about
the topic in particular.
In a Nutshell:
Once you have done this, go ahead and write a basic form of
it with rhymes
Then write your draft where you start adding more depth and
content in form of
Metaphors/similes/wordplay/punch lines/imagery/etc.
After this I write one more draft that you will incorporate
more advanced rhyme schemes, perhaps add internals.
Then the final Passover is just in the form of polishing,
taking or adding 1-2 syllables to lines in order to make it fit smoothly and
flow like butter.
Next Step
Ok boom, your verses are all completes, awesome sauce. Now its
on to your chorus. That being said, fuck you, scroll up. I’m not re-writing
that shit.
And now go ham and choose what components you wish to add
and where to add them. Once you do that and have written each of those
components, then wam bam thank you mam, your track is done, fully composed
lyrically and ready to be mixed and mastered.
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