1. Journals
Top Ten Favorite Songs

2. Songwriting Vocabulary

3. TITLE: the song's name.
ARTIST: the performer or performing group of this version of the song
COMPOSER: the writer or writers (sometimes called author or authors) of the song. Most songs are created by (a) a LYRICIST writing the words, and (b) a MUSICIAN writing the notes being sung and played.

4. OPEN / INTRO: Number of seconds until the song's vocal begins
OPEN / INTRO: Number of seconds until the song's vocal begins. Also can refer to the type of opening or intro, as in what type of instrumentation is used during the intro.

5. CLOSE / OUTRO: How the song stops
CLOSE / OUTRO: How the song stops. Every song ends in one of two ways: (1) "cold ending" means a definite final moment when the song ends, all the sounds stop at once, nothing else follows. Or, a (2) "fade ending" means the song keeps going but the volume keeps fading and fading, little by little, until it can't be heard at all.

6. RUN TIME: the song's length
RUN TIME: the song's length. Thousands of popular songs generally have a run time of between two and a half minutes to four or five minutes. For a song to run less than two and a half minutes or longer than five minutes is somewhat unusual. Recording artists know that a song needs to be between this range to get lots of exposure on radio, TV and online media.

7. ARRANGER: The person or people who create the "road map" of the song
ARRANGER: The person or people who create the "road map" of the song. That means in addition to the singer, deciding specifically what instruments will be playing the song, when those instruments play and what notes they play. The arranger's work is often all done before song is even recorded.

8. PRODUCER: The person acting as the executive manager of the song, advising the artists as the song is being practiced and recorded, and advising the engineer before and during the recording.

9. ENGINEER (also called RECORDING ENGINEER or STUDIO ENGINEER or SESSION ENGINEER): The person or people operating the recording equipment to create the final MIX (or MIXDOWN, which means the same thing as "mix") of the song as it is being recorded. The engineer moves the volume controls up and down to balance the mix of singers and instrument levels, directed very specifically by a producer.

10. COMPONENTS of a song
THE 3 BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS OF ALL MUSIC: It's the same in every genre: MELODY, HARMONY, RHYTHM. All songs have their own unique mix of these three elements which give the song its individual identity. In fact, melody, harmony and rhythm are so important that we'll devote separate chapters examining each of these characteristics in detail. But for now, let's use these basic definitions of each:

11. MELODY: The notes of a song you sing along to are its melody
MELODY: The notes of a song you sing along to are its melody. Usually the most memorable part of a song.
HARMONY: musical elements which enhance the melody line. The notes that are NOT part of the melody are part of the harmony.
RHYTHM: the beats of a song you tap your foot to. Rhythm relates to the percussive aspects of a song.

12. VOCAL TYPE: who's doing the singing
VOCAL TYPE: who's doing the singing? Vocal types can be male vocal, female vocal, group vocal, or instrumental (no vocals).

13. LYRICS: the words of a song
LYRICS: the words of a song. A song's lyrics are essentially poems that are sung instead of read. Frequently successful contemporary songs, the lyrics are written completely independently from the music.
VERSES: the part of the song that tells the story. The verses explain what is going in the song or develops the "plot", if the song has a plot. The vast majority of popular songs with lyrics contain either 2 or 3 verses. Another way to tell the verses is that the words change, but the melody may be the same or very similar, just song to different words in verse 2 compared to verse 1, for example.

14. REFRAIN / CHORUS: contains the song's theme & usually its title
REFRAIN / CHORUS: contains the song's theme & usually its title. By far, a song's refrain (or chorus, which means the same thing) is the most important part of the song, and almost always repeated the most. The chorus occurs on average three to six times in a song. Sometimes, many more. In some songs, the final minute or so of the song simply repeats the chorus over and over, thus emphasizing its importance. This also helps makes a song familiar and one you can learn to sing along with quite quickly.
Some songs contain a PRE-CHORUS: a unique set of lyrics which always lead directly and immediately into the chorus. The pre-chorus helps build momentum and anticipation to the chorus of the song. NOT part of the verses and NOT part of the chorus, the Pre-Chorus is heard right before the chorus of a song.

15. BRIDGE An entirely different passage of a song that "bridges" or follows a few verses of a song and leads to the song's chorus. A song's bridge has a completely different melody and "feel" from the rest of the song, appearing only once (in the 2nd half of the song), and often leads back to the chorus. Some bridges contain lyrics, some are instrumental only.
BREAKDOWN: A breakdown occurs often, in many songs of all genres. It's called a breakdown because it feels like the whole song is falling apart, or "breaking down"!
The breakdown of a song happens when almost all the instruments stop and you only hear one or two instruments (typically just drums or just a bass guitar) keeping the rhythm going, after a short while, the song provides lots of relief and impact by then returning to the chorus, which usually repeats a few times before the song ends.

16. RIFF: A riff is a memorable quick moment in a song played by an instrument (not sung) that is usualrepeated throughout the song, to help make the song familiar. Musicians often refer to a 'guitar riff' or 'drum riff' when they point to a specific point in the song that everyone knows, played by those instruments.

17. INSTRUMENTATION (or ORCHESTRATION) refers to the types of instruments used in a song, and often also is a reference to whether or not a song is "thickly" or "thinly" orchestrated. For example, a song with just one guitar strumming and a person singing is said to have "thin" instrumentation or "thinly" orchestrated, because there's not much there. The reverse of that would be a song that has "thick" orchestration or is "thickly" orchestrated, meaning that the song has a lot going on, many instruments and perhaps lots of electronic overdubbing to make it sound like even more instruments.