Identifying phrase structure

It's harder than it looks

It's easy to understand what a section of a song is: an intro, a verse, a chorus, a bridge. It is less easy to understand phrases, the components of a song section. Usually a song section contains between two and four phrases. But what is a phrase? No one seems totally sure. This is important to figure out, because if you aspire to write or improvise music, having control over your phrasing might be the most important thing you need. If you can organize your phrases, you can have limited technique and knowledge of theory and still sound good. If you can't organize your phrases, all the technique and theory in the world won't be much help.

You could understand a phrase to be one line of lyrics, which most of the time is four bars long. Robert Hutchinson gives the example of "My Girl" by the Temptations.

The first verse contains two phrases, each one occupying four bars of music:

1. I've got sunshine on a cloudy day

2. When it's cold outside, I've got the month of May

The chorus contains two phrases too:

1. I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way?

2. My girl (my girl, my girl), talkin' 'bout my girl, my girl

But couldn't you consider that to be four phrases? Doesn't "I guess you'd say" feel like a complete idea unto itself? In classical music, there are specific criteria for phrases: they end in a cadence (or a half cadence), so they have a feeling of melodic and/or harmonic closure. Sometimes this is true in pop too, but often it isn't, because pop songs don't necessarily have any harmonic closure to them to begin with. So the concept of a phrase is a subjective one, as I discuss below. First, we will look at examples of unambiguous phrase structures, and then get into examples of ambiguous ones.

Sections with two phrases

There are two possibilities here:

• aa' - two identical phrases, or two similar phrases. They might begin the same way but have different endings.

• ab - two different phrases, a call and a response, a question and answer.

(We're using the convention that lowercase letters designate phrases, while uppercase letters designate sections.)

Let's consider some Beatles songs, starting with "If I Fell" (1964).

The intro is aa':

1. If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true, and help me understand

2. 'Cause I've been in love before and I found that love was more than just holding hands

The rhythms of each phrase are almost identical. The melodies and chords begin the same way, but diverge at the end.

The A sections are also aa':

1. If I give my heart to you, I must be sure

2. From the very start that you would love me more than her

The B sections are ab, where the b phrase is longer than the a:

1. 'Cause I couldn't stand the pain

2. And I would be sad if our new love was in vain

How about "In My Life" (1965)?

The verses are aa, two identical phrases.

1. There are places I'll remember all my life, though some have changed

2. Some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain

The chorus is more like aa', because the chords are different under the second phrase.

1. All these places had their moments with lovers and friends, I still can recall

2. Some are dead and some are living, in my life, I've loved them all

"For No One" (1966) is a more interesting set of two-phrase sections.

In the verse, the two phrases are eight bars long rather than four. They are musically identical.

1. Your day breaks, your mind aches, you find that all her words of kindness linger on when she no longer needs you

2. She wakes up, she makes up, she takes her time and doesn't feel she has to hurry, she no longer needs you

Or is this really four phrases of four bars each? It's subjective. Anyway, the chorus is definitely two phrases, and they are half as long as the ones in the verses (as I hear them).

1. And in her eyes, you see nothing, no sign of love behind the tears

2. Cried for no one, a love that should have lasted years

Moving closer to the present, let's consider "Call Me Maybe" (2012).

The verses are simple aa, identically repeated melodies and chords:

1. I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell, I looked to you as it fell, and now you're in my way

2. I trade my soul for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss, I wasn't looking for this but now you're in my way

But maybe this is actually four phrases?

1. I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell

2. I looked to you as it fell, and now you're in my way

3. I trade my soul for a wish, pennies and dimes for a kiss

4. I wasn't looking for this but now you're in my way

Or eight phrases?

1. I threw a wish in the well

2. Don't ask me, I'll never tell

3. I looked to you as it fell

4. And now you're in my way

5. I trade my soul for a wish

6. Pennies and dimes for a kiss

7. I wasn't looking for this

8. But now you're in my way

The prechorus and chorus have a similar ambiguity. I would believe the prechorus as being two or four phrases, and the chorus as being two, four, eight or sixteen phrases (because of the repeat.) Groove structures are a challenge to the idea of organizing songs into phrases. The point of the classical concept of phrases is that each one is a harmonically closed unit, and the point of loop-based grooves is that there is no harmonic closure at all.

Sections with three phrases

The most common three-phrase structure is the twelve bar blues. Here are the three phrases in the first verse of "Standing Around Crying" by Muddy Waters (1952).

1. Oh baby, look how you got me standin' around cryin'

2. Oh baby, look how you got me standin' around cryin'

3. I know I don't love you little girl, but you're always resting on my mind

How about non-blues three-phrase structures? I've got two Beatles examples. First, here's the chorus of "A Hard Day's Night" (1964).

1. It's been a hard day's night and I've been working like a dog

2. It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log

3. But when I get home to you, I find the things that you do will make me feel alright

I hear the A section of "She Said She Said" (1966) as being three phrases long too, even though these phrases are wildly different lengths.

1. She said I know what it's like to be dead

2. I know what it is to be sad

3. And she's making me feel like I've never been born

And what about the B section? How would we split the phrases up there? Maybe there are five?

1. She said, you don't understand what I've said

2. I said, no, no, no, you're wrong

3. When I was a boy

4. Everything was right

5. Everything was right

But I could hear it subdivided in many other ways too. John Lennon loved a weird phrase structure.

Sections with four phrases

Walter Everett proposes the SRDC model (Statement, Restatement/Response, Departure, Conclusion) for four-phrase sections. In jazz terms, you would describe this as AABA or AABC form. But in jazz, phrases and sections are (pretty much) the same thing, whereas in rock and pop, (lowercase) phrases combine into (uppercase) sections.

1. Statement: a basic musical idea in the first phrase.

2. Restatement/response: a repetition of or response to the statement.

3. Departure: a new, contrasting idea, which might involve a  fragmented melody, a different harmonic rhythm, or a movement to a new key center.

4. Conclusion: either a return to the first idea, or another new idea that concludes the section.

Everett developed the SRDC model for a book about the Beatles, so let's look at one of his examples, "Eight Days A Week" (1964).

The SRDC phrase structure in the verses could not be more clear:

1. Statement: Ooh I need your love babe, guess you know it's true

2. Restatement: Hope you need my love babe, just like I need you

3. Departure: Hold me, love me, hold me, love me

4. Conclusion: Ain't got nothin' but love babe, eight days a week

You can hear the same structure in Thelonious Monk's "Bemsha Swing" (1956).

1. Statement: that main riff

2. Restatement: the only difference is the chords at the end

3. Departure: the main riff transposed up a fourth

4. Conclusion: the main riff in its original key with yet another different chord sequence at the end

I can not for the life of me find an SRDC structure in my music library outside of jazz/standards or the Beatles. I guess I don't listen to very much music with structure to it.

Edge cases and ambiguities

In class, we listened to "So What" by Miles Davis (1959) and I asked everyone to tell me where they thought the phrase boundaries are. There was no consensus at all. There were votes for one-bar phrases, two-bar phrases, four-bar phrases and eight-bar phrases. I threw out the possibility that the phrases are half a bar long, or sixteen bars long, and folks seemed open to those as well. So who is correct? All of us! This is the beautiful thing about "So What" - there are nested layers of call and response structures, like a fractal. There's a similar (if looser) kind of scale-invariance to Miles' solo too. 

I had a whole list of other groove-oriented pieces of music that are difficult or impossible to describe in terms of clear and unambiguous phrases, but rather than having this post be the length of my dissertation, I will just leave you with "DUCKWORTH" by Kendrick Lamar (2017). 

The phrases are wildly uneven, asymmetrical, unpredictable, and hard to even define. That's the main pleasure of Kendrick's music! It makes traditional songwriting seem timid and unimaginative by comparison.