Song Structure

Music Theory Chords In Keys & Common Progressions
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Have you started writing your own songs?


View the full lesson at Song Structure | JustinGuitar

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Best money Iā€™ve ever spent in the last twenty years on learning music theory!! Ive got stacks of books but this course is what has finally put all the pieces together for me. You are helping so many people to affordably learn music theory. You are a born teacher. Thank you so much! :guitar:

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I got lucky and found Justin after only a few months of learning guitar. Definitely seems like Justin gave us a very efficient path to understanding music theory and learning guitar! :grin: :+1:

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Do you have any examples of songs that change lyrics in their choruses? Let me know in the comments!

I was trying to learn ā€œIā€™m Yoursā€ by Jason Mraz a couple months ago, and that actually taught me quite a bit about song structure that youā€™ve described in the lesson.

He makes little changes in the chorus. Chorus 2 stands more on itā€™s own, and chorus 1 is sort of combined with verse 2, and chorus 3 is combined with the first part of verse 2 (Outro), but he changes the rhymes used.

[Chorus]
But I wonā€™t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, Iā€™m yours

[Verse 2]
Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn youā€™re free
Look into your heart and youā€™ll find
Love, love, love, love

[Chorus]
So I wonā€™t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, Iā€™m sure
Thereā€™s no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, Iā€™m yours

[Chorus]
But I wonā€™t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait ā€“ Iā€™m yours

[Outro]
Well open up your mind and see like me (I wonā€™t hesitate)
Open up your plans and damn youā€™re free (No more, no more)
Look into your heart and youā€™ll find (It cannot wait)
The sky is yours (Iā€™m sure)
So please donā€™t, please donā€™t, please donā€™t (No need to complicate)
Thereā€™s no need to complicate (Our time is short)
'Cause our time is short (This is)
This oh, this oh, this is our fate (our fate)
Iā€™m yours

Glad to see you have a song tutorial for this already! I havenā€™t really used any from the site yet because Iā€™ve been depending on Rocksmith too much for practicing and learning songs. I know I should do it without a screen feeding me notes to play so that I can play things just as well with without the game in front of me. Going to start on that real soon.

I think itā€™s a really fun song to learn. Someday I want to be able to play and sing it with an acoustic :grin:

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Justin, ā€˜End Of The Lineā€™ by The Traveling Wilburys. 4 choruses and all different. BTW, you are awesome! What a guitar instructor you are.

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As part of my song structure education (thank you Justin for this and all of your theory lessons!), I listened to Justinā€™s ā€œFeelings are the New Facts.ā€ I love the hook which distinguishes the chorus. Although it was somewhat difficult to define due to the fact that the song is instrumental, I believe the song structure is as follows:

  1. Introduction
  2. Verse 1
  3. Chorus
  4. Verse 2
  5. Chorus
  6. Pre-Chorus
  7. Chorus
  8. Bridge
  9. Chorus
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I love this lesson and between this and Justinā€™s Theory course it gave me the tools I needed to bash out a couple of original songs. With the feedback received from the forum I have since tweaked them a little, as well as writing a couple more which I plan to unleash in the near future. Thanks to all the team and to Justin for opening so many doors on this amazing journey!

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As a completely non-musical non sequitur, I couldnā€™t help thinking about the Spam sketch by Monty Python when Justin was saying ā€œVerse/Verse/Chorus/Chorus/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus, etcā€.

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I am working on Miss You Nights by Cliff Richard. It is Written for the piano but sounds very nice playing finger style on the guitar. The song structure seems to be different from other songs.

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Hello @billbennett and welcome to the Community.

Piano music often presents chord names / voicings that appear ā€˜unusualā€™ on guitar because the moving of just one finger on the keyboard creates a whole new chord.
Have you tried writing the progression using Roman numerals? It would be interesting to see what you find that makes it different, or whether it is so different.
:slight_smile:

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Thank you

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I will try that thanks.
It doesnt seem to follow the verse,verse chorus, verse structure. Im not sure how you would call it.