1.) The Intro: The introduction is arguably the most important part of the song. Although it is overlooked the intro is the part that the listener will use to judge your piece of music. The introduction should consist of about four to eight bars, or measures. The introduction can be made a few different ways, but the principle stays the same; hook the listener. Hooking the listener with your song introduction can be done a few ways:
· Voice: A common way of beginning a song is by having only the vocals of the song play. The vocal could either be speaking, singing, or a looped part of the chorus. After a short voice introduction the music should enter, usually drums first. · Hook: A Hook intro starts the song by playing some parts of the main melody. By doing this a listener can be eased into a song as it builds. It is important to make the intro a fragmented section of the melody to allow this building sensation. This is one of the most common forms of intros used in contemporary music. · Drums: This intro is the least used, but worth a mention. Sometime if the song is busy enough a simple drum intro would suffice. This intro consists of the song’s drums entering before the other music. This type of intro is most commonly used in hip hop or rap music.
2.) The Melody: The melody is extremely important in making a song catchy and desirable for listening. There are many techniques for writing a melody, but most of them just take sheer practice time. When creating a melody it is important to create and resolve tension within your musical key, or scale. For more information on writing melodic musical phrases please visit the in depth tutorial here.
3.) The Bridge/Break: The Bridge is often overlooked by beginner songwriters, but that can be a grave mistake. The bridge is best defined as the separation between melody and chorus. This separation changes form for every song but usually follows one of two main variations. Either the bridge will build up and crescendo into a more intense chorus, or it will lessen volume and quietly transition into a softer chorus. In general the chorus is usually the climax of the song, so it is more common to have a bridge designed to build up the melody into the chorus.
4.) The Chorus/Hook: The hook is all important when you’re thinking about writing a song. A good hook is the part of the song that a listener would be singing later, the part of the song that nobody will forget the words or tune. Because the nature of the chorus it to be repeated within the song, it is important that it is catchy and does not get old while listening.