Structure and length — arranging sections into a song

Chapter 21 said each section has a different job. Here we decide the order and the lengths — the step where the fragments from earlier chapters become a song.

A song is sections, arranged.

A common running order

1. 1Intro — a few bars. Set the air. Do not let it run long.
2. 2Verse — start talking. Lower range, fewer notes (chapter 21).
3. 3Pre-chorus — the run-up. Do not resolve; keep pulling (chapter 15).
4. 4Chorus — put the highest note here and repeat heavily (chapter 20).
5. 5Second verse, or an interlude — repeat the shape of the first half.
6. 6Final chorus — sometimes lifted by a modulation or a semitone (chapter 17).
7. 7Outro — end quickly. Repeating part of the chorus is enough.

Different progressions suit different sections

The standard progressions from chapters 13 and 14 each suit particular sections: one that starts dark suits a verse, one that lifts suits a pre-chorus, one that opens up bright suits a chorus. Play the three below in order and it already sounds like a song.

All three are standard progressions from part three. Not one new chord is involved. The order alone creates the rise and fall.

Four and eight bars are the easy units

Eight bars is a comfortable length for a section, or four if you want it short. Build in those units and rearranging later never breaks. It is not a rule, though: six-bar and ten-bar sections, and songs that change length partway, are perfectly normal. What matters is that the phrase boundaries feel natural. ChordMelo handles up to sixteen bars, so a whole section fits in one generation.

Assembling a song with ChordMelo

1. 1Decide a progression per section. The three above work as they are.
2. 2Generate section by section, matching the mode and the section setting.
3. 3Save only the takes you like as MIDI. Put the section name in the filename.
4. 4Lay them out in a DAW: intro → verse → pre-chorus → chorus.
5. 5Tidy the accompaniment's voicing using chapter 29.
6. 6Set velocity and timing using chapter 30.

What this series covered

• Part 1 — note names, lengths, meter, scales. The raw materials.
• Part 2 — how chords are built and the seven inside a key.
• Part 3 — what chords do, and why the standards are standard.
• Part 4 — how a melody moves over chords.
• Part 5 — odd meters and what lies outside this theory.
• Part 6 — intervals, clashes, voicing, programming, structure.

That is all 33 chapters. What is here stays as somewhere to come back to when you need it. Theory is not something to finish in advance; it is something you look up when stuck. From here, only the number of things you write actually matters. Go and put them out.