I'd like to point out that when we're talking about the boxes, what we're talking about is simply that way the idea evolves. It's got nothing to do with verses or choruses, or bridges, or pre-choruses. That is, the boxes are simply a description of the way ideas move. So that the first box, the what's up, I'd just like to know. That first box could easily be two verses, a pre-chorus and a chorus. All with the job of saying, what's up? I'd just like to know. The snow is falling once again outside the windowsill, whatever it is that you're doing. And here at Starbuck's I've been sitting here [INAUDIBLE]. I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know. That could be the whole first box, verse, verse, pre-chorous, chorus, whatever those things are. And then the second box would maybe be verse, pre-chorus, chorus again. Where we're saying the picture that we took underneath the willow tree, I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know. And then the third box could simply be a two line bridge. And then the chorus I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know, so it's certainly possible for the first box, which is the smallest box to contain actually the most music and the most words. It's certainly possible. So again, that the boxes are simply a description of the way that the ideas move and that's a separate thing from song form. The first box could easily be simply a verse with the title at the end of it, which we would call a reverse refrain. And the second could again be a verse with the title at the end of it, a verse refrain. Take a look at the great pretender for example. And then we have the bridge and the final verse which could be the third box so that again, song form is an independent concept from the boxes. Boxes simply describe the way the ideas move. But when we create a song, we generally create it in sections. And it's been convenient, over the decades, over the centuries, to come up with names for the various segments, the various sections that you divide a song into. And those sections are generally put together in terms of what job they have to do. What is the function of the various sections? And so we have this section called verse, and the basic job of the verse is to give us the fundamental story or the fundamental feeling, the sort of platform that the song evolves from. The I'm waiting, I've been waiting here at Starbucks for, oh so many days, and now that you've come to see me, I've got this to say. You look so happy, happy, happy each and every day. And these things don't be intimidated by the fact that I can just riff on this and it comes out so brilliantly. It's a gift that I have. Don't be intimidated. I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know, I'd just like to know. So that the function of the verses is to just give the basic information, and then we have the chorus idea and the chorus is the thing, when there are choruses in a song, that you'll repeat over and over again. And because you're repeating it twice, three times, it's important that that chorus be able to grow. That that chorus state the central idea of your song, and that it be able to take on whatever information your verses are giving it. So we'll stop there for a second and talk about chorus and what means. I've got a couple of ways of looking at chorus. First is a little tongue and cheek, but here it is, that the word chorus means many people singing together. Many people singing together, a chorus. And so that the chorus typically, the many people singing together part, is the part that should be the central idea. And it should be typically, and we'll talk about this another time, it should be typically fairly easy to sing, and fairly easy to remember. The more complicated your chorus becomes, the fewer people are singing along. And if you are the only one who knows the words of your chorus, that's called a soloist. So again, that's a bit tongue in cheek, but that's the whole sort of tribal message that everybody joins in, everybody sings together. And we'll talk about that in detail at another time. Another way at looking at chorus, and I think a more helpful way, is to go back all the way to Greek drama, to Sophocles, to Aristophanes, to Aeschylus, where they had on stage, what they called, the Greek chorus. And that chorus, for Sophocles by the way, had 13 people in it. Now I'm not saying that the whole jury system evolved form Sophocles with 12 jurors, well, I did say it didn't I? So there we are, the ones who sit in judgement. The one's who comment on what has been happening on the facts of the trial so that they sit in judgement. They comment on it. They summarize it. They take an angle on it. They sort through it. And state it. So that the chorus is on a different level of information than the sort of meat and potatoes, the facts of the verse. The chorus moves to a different level, so that the Greek chorus, there's the Greek chorus on stage, as the audience's representative onstage. And they are, sometimes in interaction with the characters in the play, but often they are separate. They are making comments on what's going on, and the comments are available to the audience, but sometimes, in fact many times, not to the characters themselves. So the chorus can be saying something like, oh, Oedipus, I know your mom is cute, but this is not a good thing to do. You could go blind, which he does. But Oedipus, completely unaware of the chorus, speaking from that other level, probably on a riser, and so that the chorus is happening on a different level of reality. It moves to a new level and that's essentially what a chorus in a song does. The chorus doesn't typically advance the plot. The chorus doesn't typically change its words, it is a reiteration of the central idea of the song as we move forward. So that's verse, that's chorus, now we have this thing called a bridge. And the bridge, again, moves to a different level of reality. Nobody lives on the bridge. The bridge's job is to take you from Brooklyn to Manhattan, or from Manhattan to Brooklyn. People may live under the bridge, but they don't live on the bridge, so that the bridge is something that moves you from one landmass to another. So it also happens on a different level of reality. We'll take a closer look at those concepts of verse, chorus, bridge, and, by the way, this pre-chorus is actually just a little bridge that goes from verse to chorus. And we'll see some examples of that, I will refer you to some examples of that. But that's basically what happens inside the boxes, as you start putting the sections of your song together and the sections fit inside the boxes. And again, it's a very flexible thing, that is to say, the first box could easily contain simply one verse and one chorus. Second box, one verse and one chorus. And that may be the entire song. If you have a third box, maybe now you can just switch up and have bridge, chorus, so that you'll enter the chorus from a different angle. So that's very quick and easy song form, and you can refer to that when we get back to the musical aspects of this, but that's verse and chorus.
