How to Arrange Beats, Melodies, Loops into a Song
(1) Song Structure / Arrangement
"You can think of a song as a block of time, which can be broken down into smaller blocks of time. In many types of music, the smaller sections consist of even smaller patterns like the ones you've been making, combined in multiples of four, eight, or 16 bars.
Putting these sections together is called arranging; it's how you get from small patterns to a full song.
The combination of a song's sections is the song's structure or form. Some types of forms are used over and over in many types of music."
[Extracted from the Ableton.com site Learning Music https://learningmusic.ableton.com/song-structure/song-structure.html]
Pop Song
| Section | What it does | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | Set up the start of the song | Start with just 1 or 2 instruments |
| Verse 1 | Start telling the story | Add more instruments, establish the melody |
| Pre Chorus (optional) | Build up to the chorus | Add more instruments, or cut them away for dramatic effect |
| Chorus | This is the highlight of the song, the part that listeners will remember, and you will repeat it at least 2 more times in the song | Change the chords or change how fast you change the chords or play in a higher octave, all to signal that this is the high point |
| Break (optional) | Short break before resuming the song | This can be like the intro |
| Verse 2 | Continue telling the story, usually same melody as Verse 1 but different lyrics | Reduce the instruments, similar to Verse 1, to bring the energy back down and signal that this is back to story telling, but make some small changes for variety |
| Pre Chorus (optional) | Build up to the chorus | Add more instruments, or cut them away for dramatic effect |
| Chorus | This is the highlight of the song, the part that listeners will remember, and you will repeat it at least 1 more time in the song | Use the same techniques as Chorus 1 |
| Bridge "Middle 8" (optional) | This is a break like a side quest where you can explore a different angle | Change the chords, reduce the instruments, change the instruments |
| Chorus | Return to the highlight of the song | Use the same techniques as Chorus 2, add more instruments if you like |
More advanced resources to explore
- Find more examples of structures (Hip Hop, Drum and Bass) at https://learningmusic.ableton.com/song-structure/song-structure.html
- For many more examples of song structures (with YouTube links included) see https://splice.com/blog/an-introduction-to-song-structure
- For more advanced discussion of song structures, read https://www.songstuff.com/songwriting/article/song-form-overview
- My personal favourite tutorial video for learning EDM song structures
- And more examples in this video tutorial
(2) How to Record from Session View to Arrangement View
1. Your Session View playing can be recorded into the Arrangement. When the Arrangement Record button is on, Live logs all of your actions into the Arrangement. To finish recording, press the Arrangement Record button again, or stop playback.
2. To view the results of your recording, bring up the Arrangement View. As you can see, Live has copied the clips you launched during recording into the Arrangement, in the appropriate tracks and the correct song positions.
3. The Session clips and the Arrangement clips in one track are mutually exclusive: Only one can play at a time. When a Session clip is launched, Live stops playing back that track’s Arrangement in favor of the Session clip. So in order to save your Arrangement playback you must click the Back to Arrangement button.
Exercise
Try recording the Demo Project into Arrangement View
(3) Ableton Live Arrangement View
1. Overview displays the Arrangement’s entire layout of clips from start to end and can be used for zooming and navigation. The black outline represents the currently displayed part of the Arrangement. You can click and drag horizontally to scroll left or right, or click and drag vertically to zoom in or out. To zoom out to the full Arrangement, double-click anywhere within the black outline.
2. In the beat-time ruler, time is displayed in bars-beats-sixteenths.
3. Click in the scrub area to launch playback from that point.
4. Add Locators to any point in the scrub area to trigger playback for multiple areas of the Arrangement. This is useful for organizing a piece into launchable sections.
5. Use the Set Locator button to add locators to the scrub area during playback or while recording.
6. Use the Previous and Next Locator buttons launch playback for locators.
13. Use the Optimize Height and Optimize Width toggles to fit all tracks into the current height or width of the Arrangement. You can also use the corresponding keyboard shortcuts H and W.
15. In the time ruler, time is displayed in minutes-seconds-milliseconds. You can click and drag in the time ruler to scroll left or right.
16. You can open the mixer in Arrangement View via the Mixer option in the View menu or by using the Mixer View toggle in the bottom right corner of Live’s window.
Exercise
Try setting Locators for Intro, Verse, Chorus, Bridge. In most pop and EDM structures, each section is either 4, 8, 16 or some multiple of bars in length.
(4) How to Edit Clips in Arrangement View
1. Dragging a clip’s left or right edge changes the clip’s length.
2. The Split command divides a clip into individual parts, which is useful for isolating certain areas of one clip into its own separate clip, or breaking down one clip into multiple parts.
You can click anywhere within a clip’s waveform or MIDI display and then use the shortcut CtrlE (Win) / CmdE (Mac) or the Split context menu option to divide the clip at that location. The newly split clip will have its own clip edges and can be moved or edited like any other clip.
Exercise
Try editing the Clips in your Arrangement to build up a song
One more example of a song structure
DECO*27 - Monitoring feat. Hatsune Miku
0:00 Intro
0:04 Verse
0:19 Break
0:26 Verse
0:40 Chorus
1:10 Break
1:24 Verse
1:38 Chorus
1:54 Bridge
2:11 Chorus X 2
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