Song Structure

Song structure is the order and shape of a song's sections, and it is what makes a listener feel like a song is going somewhere rather than simply continuing. Most popular songs draw on a small number of shapes, and knowing them is less about following a formula than about recognizing which shape a particular song is already trying to be.

The guides here cover each section and the job it does: how a chorus differs from a verse, what a bridge is actually for, when a pre-chorus is the fix for a chorus that isn't landing, how to solve the second verse, and the structural patterns that recur across popular music.