Up next in 10
🖋️ FREE HIT SONG FORMULA GUIDE 🖋️ (Learn what hit songs all tend to have in common)
https://www.orpheusaudioacademy.com/hit
✏️ SHOW NOTES ✏️
How do you write moving, powerful verses that keep people listening again and again?
In this video, I break down proven verse-writing strategies that have worked for countless songwriters.
⌛TIME STAMPS:⌛
0:00 - Intro
0:45 - What is a verse?
2:23 - How to start writing
3:52 - Purposes for each verse
7:15 - Instrumentation
9:35 - Melody
11:48 - Lyrics
15:19 - Hit-writing formula
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
struggling to write interesting and impactful verses that keep people listening
0:05
Well, keep watching this video because I'm going to break down how you can write amazing verses
0:12
Hey, I'm Regan Ram with OrpheusAudioAcademy.com, helping you make better music and grow your fan
0:18
base online. And today we're talking all about verses and specifically recovering the three
0:23
elements that go into writing verses. And that is number one, the instrumentation. Number two
0:29
the melody that then sits on top of the instrumentation that we tend to hear and
0:34
remember. And then number three, the lyric content. So we're going to be breaking down
0:40
how to write each of these to perfection here in this video. But backing up for a second
0:46
first of all, what is a verse and what is its purpose in your song? To sum it up, a verse is
0:52
basically just a section of your song that repeats and the lyric content tends to change from verse
1:00
to verse whereas you'll have a chorus where the lyrics tend to stay the same from chorus to chorus
1:05
and the purpose of a verse is to carry the story of your song whereas the choruses are more so meant
1:12
to emphasize the message so verses are story content choruses are message content this doesn't
1:21
mean you can't still have story elements in your choruses and have very interesting imagery in your
1:26
choruses but of course that's a completely different video we're focusing on verses here so
1:30
another way it might help you to think of it think of maybe your your chorus is like the sermon or
1:37
the ted talk or however you want to think about you know you're receiving valuable information
1:43
right the message of the story whatever is being kind of emphasized and then your verses are like
1:51
a novel, right? So you might not realize this, but every novel has a message that they're trying to
1:57
get across to you. They're just doing it through story rather than just coming out and preaching
2:02
to you, at least the good stories, right? A lot of stories, movies, books these days, a lot of them
2:07
are trying to beat you over the head with messages and it really sacrifices the story. But that's a
2:12
completely different subject too. So think of it that way, that your verses are advancing a narrative
2:18
and then your choruses are emphasizing the message or the theme of that narrative
2:23
So speaking of writing a novel, then when you're starting to write your verse
2:26
you want to start by grounding the listener on what's happening, who it's happening to, where it's happening, and when it's happening
2:36
So that's just the way you'd open. Same thing with opening a novel. You want the reader to know within the first few sentences
2:42
the answers to all those questions. You can do all this within the first couple lines of your first verse
2:47
now a general point with all songwriting at least my preference right again there's no really hard
2:52
and fast rules for songwriting because everyone's different preferences but in general i think it's
2:56
better when your lyrics aren't so on the nose meaning you're saying exactly what's going on so
3:03
you wouldn't you know write a verse like i am at a grocery store in small town in rural missouri
3:10
right you want to use some more interesting language interesting imagery you would want to
3:15
spice it up, make it more interesting, and even add some mystery. All my lyrics, I tend to like
3:20
to have double meanings too. I'll have like on the surface what the song's about, but then
3:25
the actual everything is a symbol in my lyrics. They tend to represent other things
3:31
emotions or messages or ideas. You still want to establish in your first verse what the setting is
3:37
what's happening, who is it happening to, when is it happening, and where is it happening at
3:43
in an interesting way using visual sensory language, language that involves the five sentences
3:51
And then you have different purposes for different verses as well, right
3:56
You have the first verse, second verse, maybe a third verse or even more if you writing a really long song But typically you only have two to three verses in a song And so you can kind of break it up again using the kind of the novel format
4:11
which I like to think of songwriting as kind of like writing a short, super short novel
4:16
is you'll have in a typical novel or in a typical adventure story
4:21
let's say let's take the three-verse song format. And so in a typical story, you have three acts
4:29
You have the first act, the second act and the third act. And so in the first act, you are basically setting up the story
4:36
You're letting people know about who the characters are, what's going on with the situation
4:40
And then the first act ends when the hero, the main character decides to embark on the
4:47
story quest to they decide to go and try and achieve the story goal
4:52
And so that might be your first verse is kind of covering that same kind of element
4:57
And again, this doesn't write your songs don't have to be big adventure stories. It can be, you know, about very small things
5:02
It can be about emotions, but it can you can take that same concept into writing your verses
5:08
And so then first two would be like the second act of your story where they're, you know
5:14
moving closer to their goal, but they're encountering obstacles and setbacks. So they might actually feel like they're getting farther away from the goal as they're trying
5:24
to progress for it. And then, and then in the third verse or your third act, that's where you kind of have them
5:30
reach the climax. Obviously you're going to want your chorus to really drive that home, but this might
5:36
be the moment right before that, or it's, you know, starting the final battle or whatever
5:41
it is. But, you know, in this can, you know, again, not, you don't have to be using, you know
5:45
a big adventure type lyrics, but this could be, you know, coming to grips with some kind
5:50
of idea or emotion. this is kind of like the end of the journey that you would have in the final verse
5:57
And if you only have two verses, you would just kind of cut it in half. This is another way to think about writing a novel is that you have kind of the first half
6:05
of your novel where the hero is kind of reacting. They have problems
6:09
They're trying to figure things out there in this new world. Everything's confusing. And in the second half, it's now they're going on the offensive
6:16
They're now taking action. So you might think about it as your first verse is describing the problem or describing what it is they want but don't have
6:26
And then you have your second verse, which is what they're doing about that, how they're progressing towards that
6:33
Have they gotten it? Have they not gotten it? Are they still working towards it? Whatever you want to have. That's kind of just how you think about the different verses in your song
6:40
And then as your verses relate to your chorus, right, your first verse is basically setting up the message
6:47
It's illustrating something that is about to come. So it's going to be the story that you then build the message upon
6:56
So you see what happens in the first verse. And then the chorus is in the conclusion and the message about what just happened there
7:03
And then the same thing, right? You have your second verse that is building on the message
7:08
Again, it's giving into more detail about why the message of the chorus is accurate and true
7:15
All right. So that's kind of it for big picture verse writing. But now let's get into the nitty gritty of like say instrumentation, right
7:21
So what kind of instrumentation do you want for your verses? Well, again, there's no hard and fast rules here
7:28
But the one main rule here is that you want it to be in lower energy than your choruses
7:34
right? So you want to have your big choruses that are the kind of the crescendo that your song
7:41
is building up to. But you don't really have any build, right? You have no peaks in your song if everything is a peak, right
7:50
If everything's all high energy, then nothing is. So, and it just kind of becomes noise
7:56
So you want to have kind of ups and downs. You want to have dynamics. And so you want your verses to tend to be a little bit lower energy
8:03
And so you might have really the vocal is really kind of the main I mean you always want the vocal to be your main element but that might be really kind of dominating in your verses And you just have some more minimalist instrumentation perhaps This doesn mean you can do cool things in your verses
8:20
Definitely you want everything to be cool and interesting. But something I like to tend to do
8:24
is maybe try to do more interesting production, interesting sound selection in the verses. And
8:32
And then the chorus is just kind of like, you know, that brings you home and, you know
8:37
catches in your ear, sticks in your mind. But again, chorus is something else
8:41
In general, you want to have simpler verses that kind of build an energy
8:46
And you also don't typically want to have each verse be exactly the same
8:51
You'll probably want to keep the melody the same as we're going to get to melody in a second
8:55
But consider changing up just something subtle, just adding something to each verse
9:00
So it's not exactly the same. It's not just copy and pasted, you know, add in something new, like a little sound effect
9:06
or you can change up the percussion, or maybe just add in an extra sound subtly
9:11
You don't want to change it up too much because you want your listener to feel grounded. They don't want to feel like there's, everything's changing and they don't know where they're
9:18
at in the song. But in general, you want to keep your verses the same, but have them change over time
9:25
So that the energy over the course of the whole song, right, you're going to have ups and downs on your song
9:29
but in general you want the progression to be up going up referring to energy level so after
9:36
instrumentation you then have the melody of the right the melody of your verses and i find that
9:41
more complex melodies for verses can actually work better whereas again this is you know this
9:50
comes down to preference for me i like to have maybe a simpler melody for the chorus because i
9:55
I feel like simpler is easier to remember. It's easier to stick in your head. But then the verses, you can kind of get away with more experimentation, more complexity
10:04
But in general, you want to follow some kind of motif structure with your melody
10:11
So some common melody structures would be like A, B, A, B
10:14
For example, if you're using a four-line lyric structure, which is very common
10:18
So A, B, A, B, that means that the first line of your lyrics or the first line of your melody
10:24
It's the same pattern as your third line. And the same thing, the second line of your melody is the same notes, the same melody
10:34
as your fourth line. Another common one would be like A, B, A, C
10:39
Obviously, you can do all kinds of different combinations, but it's good if you have at least some repetition
10:44
It's not just changing every single line, because again, that leaves people not feeling
10:48
grounded if everything's changing so much like that. You need some kind of repetition
10:52
Now, I also like to vary this to my verse is like three measures. So it's, you know, it repeats three
10:57
times. I might have the A, B, A, B, and then it repeats again, A, B, A, B. But then the last one
11:04
before the last repeat before it gets into the chorus or the pre-chorus is I might have to be
11:08
something completely different like C, D, C, E or something. So it just adds some more interest
11:15
But then that whole, that whole melody, that whole verse melody, then we will repeat for the next
11:19
verse. Again, you can change up melodies from verses to verses, but what you typically hear is
11:26
you'll hear them stay the same because again, that makes people feel grounded. And as humans
11:31
we like familiarity and that's why songs keep getting simpler and simpler, which there's a
11:35
downside to that for sure. You're definitely losing something there, but again, every song
11:39
is different and everyone has different tastes, but keep in mind that in general, it's best if you
11:44
can keep the same melody pattern from verse to verse. All right. So finally, that takes us to
11:49
the lyric content of your verses. And so again, if we're using the four line structure
11:55
lines one and two might be completing a thought that you're wanting to communicate. And then lines
12:02
three and four complete the entire sentence. So basically every four lines is a sentence
12:09
And they might have one overall idea but you might have like different thoughts inside of it So to illustrate this I have my song Hydrazine which follows this AB AB melody structure And uh just to give a
12:23
context of what the song is about, it's about this scientist or chemist that's doing really important
12:27
work. And so they're all focused on that, but then they're, they've kind of isolated themselves
12:31
as a result and they've realized they've lost what really matters. It's more important to them
12:36
which is the woman that he's in love with. So this song is kind of about realizing that establishing that chemistry with her
12:45
is really even more important than the chemistry work he's doing in his lab. And so there's a lot of symbolism, blah, blah, blah
12:50
Following up on this complete thought versus sentence. So for example, my one verse, the first two lines are
13:01
So that's a complete thought. He's talked about he's living alone. And he's tucked away inside, not just inside the lab, but inside his own head
13:10
Everything's happening internally. He has no connections with other people. Then the next two lines, so the lines three and four of this complete melody pattern
13:18
He's then, the lyrics then finish the entire kind of sentence, even though these are kind
13:23
of like two sentences, but completes the whole idea, the whole message of this little section
13:28
which is, Just burning time, mixing together the things I don't know
13:33
Then it kind of builds on him being alone. He's all inside and he's doing important things
13:39
But now he realizes that he was actually just burning time, just mixing together things that really don't matter
13:43
They felt important at the time, but in context with this woman that he's in love with, that he's lost connection with, they don't really matter compared to that
13:53
And first two follows the same format. So lines one and two couldn't see what lay beneath the solution inside
14:00
And so, again, I'm using lots of symbolism here because right solution is a chemistry term, but it's also talking about the answer lies within
14:09
And so then the next lines three and four are, but there you were the one in front of
14:15
me all this time. So he thought, right, the answer to fulfillment and happiness was just, you know, diving into
14:24
his work, diving into the lab, working on his chemistry. But the actual solution was in this
14:30
person that was there in front of him all this time. And so, of course, the courses then really
14:33
communicate the message. But here is the verses telling the story how he's going from this isolated
14:40
alone, solely focused on his work to realize making a change and realizing that his life
14:48
wasn't as fulfilled. So this is kind of a good pattern to follow as was, was, is, um, kind of
14:53
having two lines at a time to come to communicate a thought and then groups of like four lyrics
15:00
communicate and an entire idea made up of a couple of different thoughts. At least that's the way I
15:06
like to do it. Right. Again, there's no hard and fast rules. You do what works for you, but that's
15:10
what I've found works. And again, right. These verses are communicating the story over time
15:16
then you have your choruses that emphasize the message. All right so those are verses but that's
15:21
obviously just one part of writing an amazing song and I've actually broken down. I've looked at
15:26
what do all the hit songwriters have in common and I've found kind of nine key elements that
15:32
they all tend to use to write amazing songs that resonate with a lot of people. I've assembled
15:37
these nine key elements into a handy guide the hit creation formula that you can download for
15:42
free in the description below. Or you can just go to orpheusaudioacademy.com slash hit. All right
15:48
if you found this video helpful, feel free to drop a like and subscribe for more content like this
15:53
And let me know in the comments below, what's your number one tip for writing amazing verses
15:59
All right, with that, have a great day and keep creating
#Music Education & Instruction
#Music Reference
#Music Videos
#Pop Music
#Religious Music
#Poetry
#Vocals & Show Tunes