New Article - A Guide To Song Forms - Aaa Song Form

[Songstuff]

New Article - A Guide To Song Form - AAA Song Form

Popular songs often follow one of the traditional song forms, or one of the song forms that are derived from traditional song forms. One of the main song forms is Strophic / AAA / One-Part Song Form, any of which names are used by songwriters.

This article will explain fundamentals of Strophic / AAA / One-Part Song Form, and provide examples of Strophic / AAA / One-Part Song Form being used in popular songs.

Read the full article by clicking on the following link:

A Guide To Song Forms - AAA Song Form

Comments

Please leave some comments and feedback on this article, and / or suggestions for new articles by leaving a reply below.

[Rudi]

I am guilty of paying scant attention to song formats, and it catches me out sometimes when recording. It is actually very helpful to understand the framework when moving beyond the ideas stage.

Nice job FW.

The examples given are especially helpful.

[john]

Thanks... FW?

[Rudi]

Final Word is what it says on the banner John.

I should have said SS. I realise that now.

Cheers

UB

[john]

Hi David

It comes from a multi-mix up, partly due to terminology change, and from the mix up when compound forms are used.

The "chorus" originally derived from the notion of "multi-voices" singing a section of the song, and was therefor applied to sections where multiple voices sung together. In classical music the massed voices in larger musical pieces are still termed "the chorus". The second meaning is the modern understanding of the section of a song called "a chorus".

AAA is a description of a verse only construct. Though refrain lines can be sung by multiple voices, and using older terminology it is a chorus, but it is not the "chorus section" we know and love from "verse-chorus form" often called "AB form". Where the confusion comes is that AB is used to describe the architecture of the two main sections of the song, not the whole song. What we think of as the standard "AB form", as in verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus is in fact a compound song form Every section of "A" in AAA becomes an "AB" giving "ABABAB". Similarly if you mix AB standard form with AABA, moving the "B" in AABA to a new letter of C, then mix AB into AACA and you get what is understood to be (or named) "ABC" song form. As it is faster to understand AB and ABC typical form than to say it is AB compounded with AAA or AABA the roots of those forms are not often mentioned.

12-bar blues is another form that just describes the verse structure as AAB (where B in this case is the resolution, typically as the refrain) to get a full song model using it you need to apply a full song form such as AAA or AABA to it. To avoid confusion even further, and as the spots were claimed by the AB and ABC song forms in terms of common understanding, they just left the overall shape of the song down to the individual lol

To add insult to injury, "the verse" did not used to be what we know it as now. It used to be the name for a 32 bar introduction, before you got to the main piece of music, typically AABA in structure (ie a second 32 bar section).

Often conflicts in terminology seem to come down to classical musicians interpreting it one way and popular music using the term for something that it wasn't, or simply musicians in one area calling a section of music with a name that was already used for another section of music elsewhere.

So no not an idiot. changing terminology, blame that. I found quite a lot of explanations online that were flawed. No doubt ours has flaws too, but I hope this explains why the article draws the conclusions it does. What is never too certain is whether to muddy the waters in the article or not to clarify why it states things the way it does. I just thought it would add confusion to outline all that history. I'd be happy to add something to this effect if you think it could lead to misunderstandings to omit it? I did go into it a bit in at least one of the articles, but not even as in depth as this explanation! lol

[edison]

Hi David

It comes from a multi-mix up, partly due to terminology change, and from the mix up when compound forms are used.

The "chorus" originally derived from the notion of "multi-voices" singing a section of the song, and was therefor applied to sections where multiple voices sung together. In classical music the massed voices in larger musical pieces are still termed "the chorus". The second meaning is the modern understanding of the section of a song called "a chorus".

AAA is a description of a verse only construct. Though refrain lines can be sung by multiple voices, and using older terminology it is a chorus, but it is not the "chorus section" we know and love from "verse-chorus form" often called "AB form". Where the confusion comes is that AB is used to describe the architecture of the two main sections of the song, not the whole song. What we think of as the standard "AB form", as in verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus is in fact a compound song form Every section of "A" in AAA becomes an "AB" giving "ABABAB". Similarly if you mix AB standard form with AABA and AB mix the two, moving the "B" in AABA to a new letter of C, then mix AB into AACA and you get what is understood to be (or named) "ABC" song form. As it is faster to understand AB and ABC typical form than to say it is AB compounded with AAA or AABA the roots of those forms are not often mentioned.

12-bar blues is another form that just describes the verse structure as AAB (where B in this case is the resolution, typically as the refrain) to get a full song model using it you need to apply a full song form such as AAA or AABA to it. To avoid confusion even further, and as the spots were claimed by the AB and ABC song forms in terms of common understanding, they just left the overall shape of the song down to the individual lol

To add insult to injury, "the verse" did not used to be what we know it as now. It used to be the name for a 32 bar introduction, before you got to the main piece of music, typically AABA in structure (ie a second 32 bar section).

Often conflicts in terminology seem to come down to classical musicians interpreting it one way and popular music using the term for something that it wasn't, or simply musicians in one area calling a section of music with a name that was already used for another section of music elsewhere.

So no not an idiot. changing terminology, blame that. I found quite a lot of explanations online that were flawed. No doubt ours has flaws too, but I hope this explains why the article draws the conclusions it does. What is never too certain is whether to muddy the waters in the article or not to clarify why it states things the way it does. I just thought it would add confusion to outline all that history. I'd be happy to add something to this effect if you think it could lead to misunderstandings to omit it? I did go into it a bit in at least one of the articles, but not even as in depth as this explanation! lol

Thanks, for the guidelines and very good research

[AnthonyCeseri]

It is actually very helpful to understand the framework when moving beyond the ideas stage.

Nice job FW.

The examples given are especially helpful.

Agreed!

[edison]

Can you add few more guide lines as I am new in this field?

[john]

Can you add few more guide lines as I am new in this field?

 

Hi Edison

 

In addition to the existing articles on AAA, AABA, AB, ABC and AAB, I'm currently working on 3 articles:

 

• Compound Forms - When you mix forms together to a new overall form
• Other Forms - Mostly extended versions of the forms above such as AABABA
• Songform Overview - drawing on the existing song form articles and the "Song Blocks" article this gives an overview of Sectional Forms (All the forms mentioned so far are sectional forms)

 

Hopefully they should be published this week.

 

Please feel free to suggest topics for new articles, questions you would like answered etc, concepts you would like explained and we can see about pulling together something that addresses your questions

[realfanback]

Nice work atleast i have tips about AAA song form