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Songwriting Challenge 7 - Brevity is the soul of wit


rsadasiv

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Write a very short song - no submissions can be more than 2:00 in length. Songs should have at least a beginning, a middle and an end, although extra props for fitting in a full verse-chorus-bridge-solo structure.

 

PM me your links by February 29th, and I will post all of the submissions on March 1st.

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Write a very short song - no submissions can be more than 2:00 in length. Songs should have at least a beginning, a middle and an end, although extra props for fitting in a full verse-chorus-bridge-solo structure.

 

Some of the greatest songs of the Great American Songbook (Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Berlin) use AABA ... and many, if just sung once through, run under two minutes.

 

Just sayin' ... :)

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There is a great tradition of 32-64 bar songs. I was thinking of the Beatles "And Your Bird Can Sing" (which clocks in at 1:59), but, as you point out, there are many examples in the Great American Songbook as well.

 

Many of the posters in this forum seem to be more familiar with the 3:30 rock tradition - I was hoping to expose people to the kinds of song structures where you do most of your work.

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Many of the posters in this forum seem to be more familiar with the 3:30 rock tradition - I was hoping to expose people to the kinds of song structures where you do most of your work.

well, i just finished the bass, guitar and drum tracks on my 1:58 song yesterday, but now that you said that . . . hmmmmmm. i may be entering two this time. :)

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There is a great tradition of 32-64 bar songs. I was thinking of the Beatles "And Your Bird Can Sing" (which clocks in at 1:59), but, as you point out, there are many examples in the Great American Songbook as well.


Many of the posters in this forum seem to be more familiar with the 3:30 rock tradition - I was hoping to expose people to the kinds of song structures where you do most of your work.

 

:thu:

 

Speaking of the Beatles ... I Will (The White Album) is 1:45. So many of those Beatles tunes clock in at just over the two-minute mark: Yesterday (2:03), Norwegian Wood (2:05), Eleanor Rigby (2:07). They've got several in the two- to three-minute area. Later albums have more of the three plus minute tunes. :whisper: I had some fun wiki'ing!

 

Doesn't The White Stripes tune "Fell In Love With A Girl" clock around two mins? Edit ... yep! 1:50!

 

One of my favorite bossa nova singers, Jo

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With a typical AABA song, the song is usually performed in its entirety, with any instrumental bits coming before or after the song proper. The song I'm working on, incidentally AABA with a refrain, I put an instrumental in over the first half of the last A section. When's the due date? My keyboard is in the shop.

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With a typical AABA song, the song is usually performed in its entirety, with any instrumental bits coming before or after the song proper.

 

 

Good point. Some ballads just play AABA with minimal intro and outro and no instrumental sections. I've got a version of Misty by Ella Fitzgerald where she performs it straight through with a pianist. I can't find the CD right now, but iirc it runs in the two- to three-minute range.

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I might be up for the challege.

 

IMO here's one of the best under 2 min songs ever written, and it under minute and 15 secs.

 

Features a few verses, chorus and even a bridge.

 

 

So it can be done.

 

There was a time in radio that songs got played pretty much on length, cause shorter meant more time for ad space.

 

 

[YOUTUBE]FraPWO0Z4cc[/YOUTUBE]

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