A Structure & B Structure in Songwriting Purpose

Video Transcript

"I talked about writing for a purpose and I would like to give you one example of a song that was clearly written for a purpose. In my capacity as a music director for a church, I write a lot of what we call new thought or positive music. And, in this case, I was given a title and the title was "Oh, How Usual." This is an expression that's used by the minister often when she's referring to things that we dream about or ask for and then they happen somehow by magic. And so the phrase "oh, how usual," is a phrase that's almost a thematic phrase in this particular situation and setting. And I was asked to write a song to memorialize that. So my intention with this song was to have it be, it'll be hard for you to hear this in the example of me just playing piano alone, but I invite you to tune in to producing a song demo so you can hear how this song was intended in terms of the rhythmic quality of it and the rhythmic component. But the song was intended to be two things, to fulfill two purposes. One was to have the people listening to it be able to sing along with something that would be calling response, which means I would sing the line first and then they would repeat the line after me. And that's a great way to involve an audience. It's a great thing to use. You see every rock star in the book doing that when they're in concert. They'll sing a line and then they'll ask the audience to repeat the line or sing along with them. And then it goes into a chorus. So there's a very strong rhythm happening here. You can see my head doing. And so, the letter A in this song is the verse that is the calling response and I'll give a little bit of it and we'll go right into the chorus. So that will be the letter B in this song. And that's just the structure, it's just A and B over and over again. And when I play it live, there's a lot of improvisation that happens in this section here, the A section and the musicians. And so here's the A section. "Everything is happening as expected." Then they sing, "Happening as expected." "Now my dreams are becoming perfected. Now my dreams are becoming perfected. As my mind perceives a vision. Then they sing, "my mind perceives a vision." "I create with sweet precision. I create with," here we go into the chorus, "Oh, how usual. Oh, how usual. Oh, oh, how usual. Oh, how usual." And then sometimes the chorus repeats with a "oh, oh, how usual. Oh, how usual, oh, oh, how usual. Oh, how usual, oh how," and sometimes it repeats over and over. So that's an example of an A and a B and writing for a purpose."