# Avoiding linear structure



## Winspear (May 23, 2011)

Hey guys. I've noticed that with almost everything I do, my song structure is too linear. I like progressive music but my sections continually change to the extent that I can almost never return to one of them. I find it hard to reuse themes later in a track even to the slightest extent to keep it recognisable. 
Anyone have this problem and know how to go about getting out of it? I can't seem to combine coherancy with interesting changes.


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## HyperShade (May 23, 2011)

Hey man, I have in fact had this happen to me as well, and it's difficult. You can either try and slice it up and organize it in a way that you can easily recognize different sections (Which can be lame and take away from the overall power the riffs once had)... OR you could just straight up write the songs the way you feel they need to be written. A lot of the time I notice that music (Prog stuff for the most part) flows much better without repeating parts.

You can also think of things in a classical approach, which is what I've done. Things don't need to repeat unless there's a reason for it to repeat. Often I'll have ridiculous song structure such as ABCDEB'FGHA' etc... My point is, if something isn't fitting in a repeat, it's not meant to be there, and it shouldn't be forced. Save that lick for a different song! Group things that mesh well together and it'll be easier to get a song structure that is more recognizable. But don't feel that you need to take any of my advice, this is just how I have looked at the same problem.


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## Waelstrum (May 23, 2011)

How do you mean you can't return to previous sections?

Is it because you're too far removed from the tempo/time signature/key/whatever? If that's the case it might be more interesting if you repeat sections except alter them to fit the new sections (with tempo changes modulation, major/minor mutation etc...)


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## C2Aye (May 23, 2011)

I wouldn't worry about it. I went through a phase where everything I wrote was completely linear. Songs I wrote would go beginning, middle, end rather that verse, chorus, verse. 

The last thing I would do is try and force the issue because the last thing you want is to write music to a form or pre-determined structure rather than letting it be natural, in my mind at least.

Probably with time, you'll end up writing a track with verses and choruses and before you know it you'll have both styles of song in your arsenal. Just keep at it. Let any changes in your style of writing be natural and fluid. That would be my take on it.


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## DoktorAtomic (May 23, 2011)

I think a certain degree of repetition of some main theme is almost essential in music derived from rock. A big problem with a lot of the progressive bands that are on the scene today is that the music has been deconstructed to the point where it doesn't make sense to our ears, because most music, even the most whacked out contemporary classical music, will periodically return to the original theme or some variation of it. It prevents us from getting completely lost in a sonic stream-of-consciousness. 

You can come up with all kinds of unusual ways to provide this structure though. You could use pattern numbers other than four to structure the parts of the song, for instance. Repeat a riff 3 times, do some other riff 5 times, do the first riff 2 more with some variation, etc. Just do something to remind the listener that they are in fact listening to the same song.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 23, 2011)

I had a beautiful post on form somewhere on this forum, but it appears to have disappeared. This one kind of covers a bit of the idea: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/mu...o-you-approach-songwriting-composition-2.html

I look at songs on various different levels: chords and riffs are words, keys are settings, motives are people places and things, phrases are statements, sections are a series of statements that put things into context, and form is tying all of that together to make a story. Lyrics are a function of form.

What I do is assign a meaning to each section of music, try to figure out what each one says. Having some connectivity to lyrics is always nice. What you're trying to do is figure out where you're starting and where you're ending, and you'd better have a good reason for both choices. A lot of prog metal tends to meander around, for better or for worse. What we're trying to do is gain a sense of direction.

I was going to talk about Opeth, but I think I could do this more easily with Beethoven.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.21, Op.53 - Waldstein - Mvt. 3


(Score here: Piano Sonata No.21, Op.53 (Beethoven, Ludwig van) - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music)

Really quick, this is in rondo-sonata form, [ABA]C[ABA], where C is a development section and the second B is in the tonic key. The key of the piece is C major, and the key centers of the sections are [C Am C] Cm [C C C], or [I vi I] i [I I I]. Those brackets are just there to organize things.

Speaking from a dramatic standpoint, this movement (indeed, the entire sonata) is a battle between major and minor. It's a little different than the standard classical key layout from the period.

0:00-0:30 - Primary theme. A very lyrical melody. This guy is pretty straightforward. The seeds of conflict are embedded in this theme - from 0:17-0:25, it alternates between E and Eb in the melody, drawing an opposition between C major and C minor.

0:30-1:11 - Primary theme again.

1:11-1:52 - Secondary theme. More active, more angular. Starts in C major and quickly throws you into A minor.

1:52-2:13 - A little transition. It's just the primary theme transposed around a bunch. The first statement is in A minor, lending a sense of despair to the piece. An inkling of uncertainty. It's quickly dismissed when the next section comes back, though, because the first theme decides it ain't no thang.

2:13-3:21 - Primary theme again. It's as cool as a cucumber.

3:21-4:11 - Development, first phase. The minor mode comes back more insistent, trying to bring down the first theme. It borrows the angularity from the secondary theme, and obviously the minor mode.

4:11-4:35 - Development, second phase. The first theme is lost and trying to find C major again. I'm not going to check it right now, but I think that it eventually lands on Db.

4:35-4:49 - Development, third phase. This is actually the first theme from the first movement of the sonata. It's like a memory, telling you not to give up and to keep looking for C major.



4:49-5:52 - Development, phase four. Beethoven takes you for a ride through space in his Pontiac Trans Am.







I don't know what the hell the dude was thinking here, but it leads us out of the development. I guess the function of the harmony is to find the dominant of C, but that's just technical stuff.

5:52 - Recapitulation. We make it out of the development, and things are goood! The word to look for here is "triumph".

6:24 - Secondary theme, in C major. It's like a joyous fanfare for C major.

7:00 - Building up to a big ending, and then... Hey, diminished chord, where did you come from?! Get out of here, you!

7:32 - Codetta (based on the primary theme). It's party time! Woooooo! Except the minor elements keep creeping in, so C major can't go home just yet. At 8:38, a bit of C minor lingers. 8:53 is where we finally get rid of all signs of minor-ness in the piece. Beethoven saves that for last, because he knows that you had to go through that faceoff between the two scales in order to feel a transformation. There is a flow of ideas from beginning to end, all based on these two tonalities fighting for dominance. You can read into that however you want, but that's pretty much the gist of it. The use of repetition gives us a sense of stability, and he can then juxtapose that material with different material to introduce instability. Repetition is good for doing that, although prog metal is all about being dissonant and unpredictable.


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## Winspear (May 24, 2011)

Thanks all! 



Waelstrum said:


> Is it because you're too far removed from the tempo/time signature/key/whatever? If that's the case it might be more interesting if you repeat sections except alter them to fit the new sections (with tempo changes modulation, major/minor mutation etc...)



Yeah, that's the issue. 
I wouldn't worry about it, but I do feel the songs I like to listen to most have some form of repetition, especially if cleverly done.
Schecter, your posts never cease to amaze 

I guess what I need to practice is building variations on themes. Rather than thinking 'I can't fit that riff in again here', I can take a different approach. There's a thousand ways to play a chord progression and I guess it would always be recognisable, and then I can repeat the melody in some shape or form on top.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 24, 2011)

EtherealEntity said:


> I guess what I need to practice is building variations on themes. Rather than thinking 'I can't fit that riff in again here', I can take a different approach. There's a thousand ways to play a chord progression and I guess it would always be recognisable, and then I can repeat the melody in some shape or form on top.



What you could do is just think in some very general terms. If you so much as establish a direction for your melodies, then you can create something with developmental potential. You know, maybe it's a scale that ascends for an octave. Maybe it's four note ascending groupings that have an overall descending curve. Perhaps you're contrasting wider intervals with smaller ones. Don't just write variations on a theme, get down to the bare bones and figure out what it's about. I prepared an example here. I think I notated the rhythm incorrectly, but I'm just trying to demonstrate a principle here so I'm not going to go back and change it.






Charge! Alright, check out what this is: every pitch is part of a C major triad. Sweet, it's an arpeggio. There is a short ascent, then a longer descent. First, let's do some stuff with the pitches. We're dealing with a major triad, so why not make it minor? (I actually got this idea from a taco truck that came by my old school and had an out of tune horn that played this melody as a minor triad, with the last note as a big "BLLLAT!". Sounded Wagnerian. )






That's cool. We can also do it as a diminished triad.






I think it sounds better as a diminished seventh chord.






Augmented triad.






We've done enough with the pitch, so let's cut it up into bits. Let's take the ascending segment. We'll keep the rhythm, and move it around to a different chord.






Now let's take the direction of the melody and change the intervals. Instead of an arpeggio, let's go for something more scalar.






Now, how about we reverse the direction, change the mode, put it through a couple of different meters, and get some chromaticism in there.






You'll hear all of these as similar in some respect, because your brain likes to pick up patterns. The last one is vastly different from the first one, but I think that anyone could hear some continuity between them; if you stuck them in the same piece, there would be cohesion. And there are tons of other things you can do to manipulate a melody. Try to think _about_ the melody rather than the melody itself.


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## Winspear (May 24, 2011)

Brilliant. That was so much help  Definitely what I'm trying to achieve. I heard this a lot in Symphony X's 'The Odyssey' - themes from the overture used later in the song in a much darker context, and it always amazed me


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## adpettit (May 24, 2011)

What I usually do is start with an idea (not necessarily using said idea in the finished song) and begin developing riffs and rhythms around it. By piecing these ideas together in such a way where one idea seems to transform into the next wether it be by adding/taking away certain notes or accents, it can make for an interesting yet progressive sound and structure.


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## celticelk (May 24, 2011)

I've learned that it's a good idea to wait and comment after SchecterWhore on these threads, as his response is usually more comprehensive and better articulated than what I could offer. =) I'll add that main themes are not the only places in the arrangement in which you could offer a variation on a previous theme - you might have secondary rhythm parts, counterpoint lines, basslines, etc. which could allude to a theme you used earlier. If the line's rhythm is memorable enough, you could even have a drum part or fill quote the theme from a previous section. One of my old bands did this with a concept album, which was structured as a 9-part cycle; we made the whole thing symmetrical around the middle song by quoting small bits from the mirror-imaged song (a quote from song 1 in song 9, from song 2 in song 8, etc.), all of which were incorporated as secondary elements after the primary structures of the pieces were written.


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## KingAenarion (May 24, 2011)

Whenever I have taught people to compose, the way I run lessons on structure usually revolves around a 4 phase stage.

1) Teach the basic forms of structure. Both the simple (Binary, Ternary, Rondo, Through, Arch forms) as well as the more complicated (Sonata, theme and variations, astrophic, ritornello etc)

2) I then get them to compose exercises using both symmetrical and asymetrical forms of all the structures. Usually simple chord and melody exercises. 

Steps 1 and 2 are usually done together with each form.

3) I then get them to analyse some more complex music once I'm sure they understand these. Large Orchestral scores and big prog rock epics (Pink Floyd's The Wall - both individual songs and as a whole) I get them to do this a bit while continuing to master their basic compositions, but allowing them to take more licence with their form. Usually they'll write pieces to a form but ignore the structure for the good of the song rather than the other way around

4) Finally I get them to write a composition where the only limit is length and the ability for it to be performed live. They then provide their own analysis.



I would suggest steps 3, 2 and then 4 in that order for you.
Learn about how the bands you like the form of construct their song structures. I reckon some of the masters of Structure are Opeth, Karnivool and Rush to name a couple. Analyse the bands you like, learn what they're doing. Break it down into elements and then write simple exercise. This can just be with an acoustic guitar and you mucking around with vocals.
THEN once you feel you're getting a hand on it you can really begin mastering it.


One more thing to think about is this. Even the most complex structures can usually be broken down into simple elements.

One of my favourite songs to encourage metalheads to analyse is Opeth's "Ghost of Perdition".

The structure is basically AABCDB. There's the first bit which can be described as the verse and the riffs around it. Then the Chorus which is the "Ahhhs". Then the two halves of the bridge (C is the compound time section, D is the simple time section) then back to the chorus.

The key to the whole progression is the nature of the instrumentation, how each section melodically and chordally relates and contrasts to each other and the turnarounds.

Opeth is more chordal than riff based which makes it easier for them. It may not be purposeful but that's how it is. The two "choruses" are similar, start the same, but the first serves as a low point, while the second uses large instrumentation to give the song a big ending that relates the song back to itself and provides some sense of similarity. It's the melody, as well as the acoustic part being transferred to distorted electric that gives it a different feel. I won't go into to chordal and melodic relationships in the song (I've done a huge analysis of this whole album before) but needless to say the harmonic structure of this piece gives it a whole lot of direction and is many ways quite "romantic (period)" in its use of harmony.

Also the turnarounds. Quick little ideas that related to the idea that has come before, but make you forget that idea and set you up for a new one. Usually using things like atonalism, or whole tone systems, or key modulations while using the same rhythms... really useful things to learn to write.




Anyways, that's enough of my inane ramblings, hope that gives you some ideas anyways.


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## Varcolac (May 24, 2011)

Excellent advice as ever, SchecterWhore. You really have a talent for taking grand theory and putting it in easily-digestable layman's terms. 

Your taco truck fanfare development is something we've done a lot of in Carpathia. We mainly go for the rhythmic and metric modulations moreso than the melodic ones you noted. A in 4, A in 5, A in 4, A in 5, B in 7, B in 4, C in 6, D in 7, C and D in a 10/8-11/8-7/8 pontiac, around the solar system three times,, throw B into 4 for the hell of it, recapitulate A in 4 and 5, then back to B in 4 before going to 7 to bring a bit of tension back. The amazing thing is that after the C-section wig-out, the initially tense 5/4 iteration of A sounds practically comforting.

Another cheap and easy one is to change the instrumentation and dynamics of a phrase. Go from heavy power chords and powerhouse drumming to lightly strummed open chords and a freer more open drum pattern. It's the cheapest compositional trick in the book, but most of the time it works great.


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## Solodini (May 24, 2011)

adpettit said:


> What I usually do is start with an idea (not necessarily using said idea in the finished song) and begin developing riffs and rhythms around it. By piecing these ideas together in such a way where one idea seems to transform into the next wether it be by adding/taking away certain notes or accents, it can make for an interesting yet progressive sound and structure.



This. If you write other parts to fit in some way with one initial idea then, even if you abandon that idea, they'll all have some sense of kinship and fit together better, allowing them the link together easily. If you change key then just transpose the initial idea and that way you can just work around a key change to get back or just use transpositions or modes of the inital idea, as others have suggested.


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## Winspear (May 24, 2011)

Such great advice here thanks all! This page is added to my theory resource folder


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## anne (May 24, 2011)

It helps to compose in smaller components than riffs. There are a lot more ways to achieve unity/similarity than a chord progression. Rhythms, tone, arrangement, interactions between instruments, repeated melodic fragments... It doesn't even have to be a major point of the composition, but rather a background process.

And, of course, it's good to learn to write transitional harmonies (generally dominant chords [but not necessarily the dominant of the chord you're going into], diminished chords, neighbor chords) between disparate sections as well. Once you establish some basic similarities between clearly different sections, you have more leeway to jump back and forth between them without it being jarring.

My tracks are a good example of hugely different riffs in the same track and it basically amounts to transitional chords (and the phrasing that makes them work flowingly), the listener's familiarity with stuff that's already happened, sustained background arrangements, and changes in key or guitar tone of returning material (in order to relate more closely to what's happened most recently).

If you want to write non-verse/chorus structure that doesn't sound overly segmented, returning material should be modified to evolve with what's between developing. It takes a bit of practice, but it becomes easier. Hope that helps!


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 26, 2011)

anne, your band has some fascinating stuff. So much space!

I was listening to some Genesis earlier and found something that I thought belonged in this thread.

Genesis - Seven Stones


Formally, this is quite curious.

0:00 - Introduction
0:18 - Verse
0:38 - Pre-chorus, but it goes to...
0:46 - The verse!
1:07 - Pre-chorus. More material this time around.
1:34 - Chorus, and it goes to some weird places.
2:07 - Interlude. Bridge? It's more of a developmental transition section.
2:35 - Verse
2:55 - Pre-chorus
3:23 - Chorus, change in arrangement.
3:45 - Development.

It's interesting, because the song is continually developmental. Things are held back from you in the beginning, then by the time that the first chorus comes around, it sounds like it has arrived where most popular songs have the entirety of their material stated. However, immediately after that, you start getting more and more. There really are only two bits of music in here, perhaps with some smaller sub-sections, so this is an example of how you can stretch out material. Most of the motivic development is taken care of through instrumental sections, although there are some interesting things that happen with the vocal parts as well. The second chorus is compositionally very tasteful, in my opinion, because it could very easily be an exact repeat of the material before. Instead, there is no radical change, but one that is noticeable nevertheless. It's not a break from what's been going on in the verse, but a continuation of an established idea.


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## Winspear (May 26, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> anne, your band has some fascinating stuff. So much space!




Yes, I always liked that structure using the unresolved prechorus. Building up sections each time they are used is a great idea too


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## anne (May 26, 2011)

! Another suggestion to fight off a sectional, "linear" feel: don't switch all your riffs on multiples of four repeats. It may seem somewhat counterintuitive, but I feel transitioning after three or six repeats sounds more fluid. Nothing is as expected or divisive in music as four, so it is easier to consider things that happen within a "four unit" as one thing.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 27, 2011)

anne said:


> ! Another suggestion to fight off a sectional, "linear" feel: don't switch all your riffs on multiples of four repeats. It may seem somewhat counterintuitive, but I feel transitioning after three or six repeats sounds more fluid. Nothing is as expected or divisive in music as four, so it is easier to consider things that happen within a "four unit" as one thing.



Yarp. It's the imperfections in music that make it worthwhile.


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## CD1221 (May 27, 2011)

double post


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## CD1221 (May 27, 2011)

anne said:


> ! Another suggestion to fight off a sectional, "linear" feel: don't switch all your riffs on multiples of four repeats. It may seem somewhat counterintuitive, but I feel transitioning after three or six repeats sounds more fluid. Nothing is as expected or divisive in music as four, so it is easier to consider things that happen within a "four unit" as one thing.




Kristin Hersh does this quote regularly - the guitar spins around in 3 bar sections. It can really drive songs. "Your Ghost" and "Sundrops" both feature this. Both are fairly simple songs, but the unusual repeat length propels the songs in an atypical way.

Solodini, SchecterWhore - can either of you guys point to some online resources to start to learn compositional theory? I have learnt heaps from both of your posts.


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## Solodini (May 27, 2011)

**points to sig** PM me and we can discuss my book. I have a PDF of it.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (May 27, 2011)

CD1221 said:


> Solodini, SchecterWhore - can either of you guys point to some online resources to start to learn compositional theory? I have learnt heaps from both of your posts.



PM me, as well. I can make some recommendations.


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