Creativity and Musical Form: Verse and Chorus
What does it mean to be musically creative? To me, musical creativity is the process of meaningfully arranging sonic ideas.
Musical form is the meta structure of how ideas are arranged in a given song or piece. While form can get complicated (ask anyone who has taken a music history class), it fundamentally comes down to two factors: familiarity and novelty.
Let's take the song, “Don't Stop Believin’” by Journey:
The title’s lyrics are the chorus - a musical phrase with the same melody/chords and lyrics each time. This is the “hook” that grounds the song. It is consistent and familiar.
The song starts out (“Just a small town girl…”) with a verse - a musical phrase with the same melody/chords, but different lyrics each time. This introduces a level of novelty and storytelling while still retaining familiarity.
There are some other elements, such as a pre-chorus (“Strangers waitin’…”) - which has its own repeated melody/chords and lyrics, but serves more as a transition between verse and chorus than a chorus itself.
This week, start to notice the form that you hear in popular songs on the radio, TV, Internet, etc. Ask yourself, “What kinds of creative decisions did the songwriters make regarding familiarity and novelty in the musical form”?