Music: How To Write A Song – Midi And Sheet Music > Structure Of A Song
Structure Of The Song–Sheet music always begins in the second measure, so that’s where your song should begin as well. In order to determine where your first note should appear within the second measure, you need to assess your subsequent measure’s breaking points. Each measure’s format should neatly house a phrase or blocks of text in a logical fashion; for instance, the lyrics “All the trees are brown and the skies are gray, I went for a walk on a winter’s day” would be awkward if the measures broke up the text like this:
Measure 1: All the trees Measure 2: are brown and Measure 3: the skies are Measure 4: gray, I went Measure 5: for a walk. . .
If you use these breaking points, your song is emulating 3/4 time, which would be entirely confusing if your song is actually following a 4/4 time rhythm.
Structure Of The Measure–It would be much better to break up the measures like this:
Measure 1: All the trees are brown Measure 2: and the skies are gray Measure 3: I went for a walk Measure 4: on a winter’s day. . .
Once you have pushed the data so that you are close to this configuration, you’re on your way.
To help you, tap the beat with a pencil on your desk as you imagine singing the words of your song, but instead, count out loud: “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” for 4/4 time, or “1 and 2 and 3 and” for 3/4 time. Next you’ll need to perform some simple math to help you figure out what types of notes need to be used in the measures. Here is a general guide to help you figure out where to place your notes within the measure. Mix and match to try and get the rhythm you need.
Using “o” to represent a note, for 4/4 timing in one measure:
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and = Count o and 2 and 3 and 4 and = Whole Note — OR –
o and 2 and o and 4 and = Two Half Notes — OR –
o and o and o and o and = Four Quarter Notes — OR –
o o o o o o o o = Eight Eighth Notes — OR –
oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo = Sixteen Sixteenth Notes
Using “o” to represent a note, for 3/4 timing in one measure:
1 and 2 and 3 and = Count o and 2 and 3 and = Whole Note — OR –
o and 2 and o and = One Half Note and One Quarter Note — OR –
o and o and o and = Three Quarter Notes — OR –
o o o o o o = Six Eighth Notes — OR –
oo oo oo oo oo oo = Twelve Sixteenth Notes
In addition to figuring out what beat you’ll need, you’ll also need to figure out what the tempo should be – in other words, will the song be slow, medium, or fast in it’s “pace.” A standard or electronic metronome (or one located on an electronic piano) should be able to help you determine how fast you would like the song to be played.
Bones Of The Song–Now that you’ve identified where the words should fall within the measures, you have some math to perform in order to format the music notation, and it’s usually a good thing to document the tune first because you can use this to create your Lead Sheet. By math, I mean that if the first word of your song uses 1/2 beat, and the second word uses 1 beat, the remaining words for the measure will have to be proportioned properly using the 2-1/2 beats that remain in the measure of a 4/4 time measure, or in a 3/4 time measure, you would have 1-1/2 beats remaining.
Some people have great angst with making the music notation conform to a rigid standard, because it no longer truly represents the actual performance of the song. You have to remember that the basic idea is to standardize and sterilize the original music into a form that shows repeatable patterns, but most of all, consistent counting for note durations, in order to make the sheet music easier for someone else to decipher.
If you’ve never heard a song before you attempted to play it from sheet music, we all know that your first interpretation can be quite different from the interpretation you would have if you had actually heard the song before you attempted to play it from sheet music. Yet, in the instance that you had never heard the music before you attempted to play it from sheet music, your interpretation was mathematically correct, just not with the artist’s original inflections; then when you actually do hear the song after you’ve played it, you are then able to add your own inflections and even create some more unique ways of playing it.
Structure Of A Song–Structure for any song is created in the extreme because of the existence of and need for Sheet Music. Without the existence of Sheet Music, there would still be musical structure, but the structure would not be as stringent. For sheet music, great importance should be placed on presenting identical musical patterns within the exact same measure configurations throughout the song–in other words, don’t let the timing shift so that this time the words “and the skies are gray” appear all in one measure, and in an extended portion of the sheet music the same words are broken between 2 measures.
Sheet Music is to music as Poetry is to words; it is the mathematically-correct representation for your song with every attempt to duplicate the original performance, but to simplify the music as much as possible towards your intended audience. For that reason, you could have a Beginners, Intermediate, and Advanced version of your sheet music; and don’t forget about Lead Sheets, which are extremely important for transporting your song through the musician’s world by having a version that contains only the melody (Treble Clef) and Guitar Chords, usually without musically-represented introductions or endings.
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The small portion of lyrics used for the purpose of illustration in this article are from the song, California Dreamin’, which was made most notably famous by The Mamas & The Papas in 1965.
See my related article: Creating Sheet Music In Cakewalk Products
See my related article: How to Edit MIDI Music Notation in Cakewalk Products
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Written by CDHmusic
I am a professional pianist and tech writer with varied administrative experience and a penchant for collecting interesting and helpful information.
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