How to understand songs

How to understand songs

The structure of pop songs

When I was 14 I started to analyse pop songs mostly Max Martin songs simply because they are well composed. Now at the age of 17 I call myself a pop music composer with lots of potential.

The key is structure.

I’m not talking about the basic structure of a pop song (intro, verse, chorus etc.). Important is the structure of the first two, four or eight tacts.

With this post I want to show my own theories that I created even though it’s quite hard to put creative work in words. By the way this is not going to be the only post that I will upload. I’m going to divide this whole topic into several different parts. So that one post won’t take much time to read and understand.

These methods are often used on pop songs:

  1. The “I don’t change much” songs

General explanation: Only the last subunit of a unit changes. The other subunits are equal to each other.

Example: On My Mind by Ellie Goulding

Explanation of On My Mind’s structure:
A unit has eight tacts and a subunit contains two tacts. So within a unit there are three subunits which stay the same and one last subunit that changes.

Subunit= 2 tacts
Unit= 4 subunits or eight tacts

Unit of the chorus:

Another example would be Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night.

In this case a unit contains four tacts and a subunit includes one tact.

Subunit= 1 tact
Unit= 4 subunits

Unit of the chorus:

Please check out my own produced and composed songs on soundcloud to get an impression of my authenticity as a writer and music as a composer.

Link: Vibe

Do you know any further songs which apply to the “I don’t change much” category?
Let me know.

That’s it for the first part.

13 Likes

That’s a long name

1 Like

Just being confident. I am not saying I’m the best.

I’m the best would save time signing for deliveries though

2 Likes

Pele scored 2 goals in a world cup final at 17. Need a bit more than just potential imo

4 Likes

Lol. Stop complaining about a formulation. Either leave a comment that’s related to the topic or just don’t.

I want to hear more about Pele’s records thank you.

6 Likes

How many goals have you scored for Santos?

1 Like

He’s looking well

1 Like

Does anyone know how many goals Max Martin scored when he was 17?

This is probably not advisable in here

Think we should move the Pele thread over to the social board

1 Like

According to Wikipedia his first song that he wrote was published in 1994. He was born in 1971.

Was that in amateur or top level football?

5 Likes

I think he’s taking the name of the website a little too literally.

ur a subunit m9

2 Likes

this hasn’t gone well has it?

1 Like