U
a
Different Styles of Songwriting
All popular songwriting, such as folk, blues, pop, and rock songs, builds on fundamental song forms. The songwriter chooses the best structure for the genre of the music to write by being familiar with the basic song forms and their traditions. The two main categories of song forms are stanzaic and non-stanzaic. The latter is also used with allocated letters “A,” “B,” and “C,” as well as “AAA.”
Stanzaic Music Strophic or stanzaic songs have a single unit known as a strophe or stanza repeated an undetermined number of times. Folk music has a long history and is closely related to stanzaic songs. The first and third beats of the ballad stanza are four beats long, while the second and fourth beats are three beats long. Additionally, the first line can be condensed to three beats. Sometimes the first and third lines also rhyme, as do the second and fourth lines. The traditional 12-bar blues song has three rhymed lines in each stanza, with the second line restating the first. The third line of the 12-bar blues song is the answer phrase. It musically and lyrically responds to the thesis of the first two lines, as in the lines from Bob