Song form and structure: A few basic things
A very important topic when writing music is the form of your song or piece. There are many different styles and methods of working on this matter. We will discuss these in this article.
First of all, everything depends on the kind of music you want to write. Pop and rock music for example have pretty standard structures, while IDM electronica, for example, does not.
Secondly, it all depends on your method of working. Some people like to improvise on loops, other want to write music while they alreay have in their mind how the piece should go.
Additionaly, you have to know that the structure interacts with the length of the song. The standard pop form will work nice for small length songs, no matter the genre. However, it might not work too well for epic 12-minute progressive metal songs 
.
Not your average pop band
So, let’s take a look at some musical forms.
The pop form that we mentioned above is the following: Intro – Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus x 2 – Bridge- Chorus. Almost all pop songs ever written are built upon this form or variations of it. Also, it is very important the the chorus comes before the first minute and the song doesn’t last more than 4 minutes. You will notice that most pop songs go like that.
This form, however, is not only for pop songs. You can listen for example my piece ‘Gabriel’ at http://raskolnikovsdream.com/discography.html. It follows the same form, but in no way you can call it ‘pop’.
Another form, that is never used in pop music is the form A-B-C-D-etc. It’s actually a series of parts that are not directly connected to each other. This form is popular among metal bands, be it classic heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden, or black metal like Cradle of Filth. Listen for example to Afraid to Shoot Strangers. While there is some repetition inside the parts, thus making the parts something like (a-b-a-b)-(c-c)-etc., the large form is actually A-B-C-etc. The parts between them are completely different, even having abrupt changes in the tempo.
Link: www.youtube.com
Another very useful form that is used very much in ambient music is A – A+B – A + B + C – etc. This means that you start on a loop, and you add subsequent loops thereafter. Because this form doesn’t have any great fluctuations in intensity, it is very soothing. You can hear this in my track ‘Horse’ at http://raskolnikovsdream.com/discography.html. You can also hear it in Boards of Canada (my favorite ambient group) Amo Bishop Rodden.
Link: www.youtube.com
So, that was it for today! Of course, these are not the only musical forms in existence. These are just 3, that can be very useful in your musical compositions. We will cover more forms in future articles. 
