Song Sections

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A musical piece or song is similar to a journey in that it has a beginning, an end, and multiple stops or at least multiple points of interest in between. A song for example has an intro, a verse, pre-chorus, chorus, a bridge, and an end. Both the intro and the end are not moveable since they describe a beginning or an ending and would otherwise have to be called something else if they don’t perform the function implied by their names however the other parts can occur in different orders, may repeat, may be skipped, and can even be called something else that might describe a section in a better way (ie. Solo section).

Popular Music example:
Intro
Verse
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Verse
Pre-Chorus
Chorus
Solo
Chorus
Ending

Each one of these sections can be broken down further similar to the way we described time in a previous lesson. A ‘year’ for example, can be the entire ‘song’, the ‘seasons’ can be the different movements of a song which might contain a specific theme, while ‘months’ can be the individual parts or sections of the song.

At times you’ll come across music charts where you see different approaches to naming song sections. This usually occurs for non-popular music or for instrumental music where there is no actual lyrical ‘verse’. In such cases you might simply see a song section labeled as Part A, Part B, Part C etc… or perhaps even Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 etc. In this case it is very possible that the various parts are unrelated to one another and have different motifs or musical ideas however the above song section names are very general therefore they can be used in whatever way the composer/songwriter prefers. 

ABCAB Song Section example:
Part A
Part B
Part A
Part C
Part A
Part B

If you were to place an entire song, (or even simply a part of a song such as a verse) on a timeline, you would need a way to explain where the different sections appear over the duration of the song. Time (as in seconds, minutes, hours etc) is usually used only once a song has been recorded and available for playback on a device however musicians use a different system where the speed of the song is expressed in ‘beats per minute’. Song Sections are similar in that you don’t want to refer a musician to minute 1:35 of the song when you can simply refer a musician to the verse section … or perhaps Part B of the song. This would allow the musicians attempting to play the song to jump to a specific section at a moment’s notice.

Jazz Improvization example:
Head (main theme)
Solo 1 (ie. guitar)
Head (main theme)
Solo 2 (ie. sax)
Head (main theme)
Ending

Song ‘Sections’ are basically simpler divisions of a song so that communication among musicians can be simplified yet also precise.