Terms for Phrases or Structure

[Bongo Boy]

Folks here use a lot of terms that I've heard all my life, but have little or no idea what they mean. Right now I'd like to concentrate on researching the meanings of terms such as verse, chorus, break, bridge and so on.

These examples may not belong to the same category or may be subsets, supersets, special cases, etc. of one another. I don't know. I've searched on 'music phrases' but came up with little introductory info.

Problem: I want to find definitions for terms used to describe or define what I can only call the 'structure' or the 'sections' of a composition, but I don't know what the right word is to perform the search.

Did I make a simple question as obtuse as possible?

[The Bash]

Hey Bongo,
for a Pop Tune example:
The Beatles "A Hard Day's Night"

Chorus = The "It's Been a Hard Day's Night" part. Generally the catchy part of a song ya sing over and over, often follows the verse or sometimes preceded by a Pre-Chorus
The Beatles A Hard Day's Night, Can't By Me Love and Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name are a few examples that come to mind of songs that start with the Chorus (Well Actually a Hard Day's Night Starts after that catchy little Chord.)

Verse= The I've Worked all Day part to me's the Verse even though it's musically still like the chorus. To me it's the story telling part, where the chorus is the Key Point that keeps gettin bashed into your head.

Bridge= When I'm Home Everything Seems to be Right part.
Or to me a deviation from the verse and Chorus.

Break= In this case Solo Break the little instrumental riff.

Pre Chorus= Can be iffy as to if it's part of the Chorus but to me it's something that sets up the Chorus that's a movement from the Verse. I guess a deceptive Pre Chorus is one that doesn’t go to the Chorus. Though at some point in the Song it should or else it ain't very deceptive cause you've never set up that move in your listeners head.

Which brings to me an interesting point of The First Listen and the Repeat Listen. Once you've heard a song a few times certain tendency of where the song should go become established in your head so that tendency is somewhere broken I'd call it deceptive. (Just my own term, doubt there's any real value in it other than calling it something.)

Anyway, there's more technical ways of explain it but I'll leave that to someone who's better at that me. I try to look at the simple side.

NP- THe Who "Quadrophenia"

[Bongo Boy]

Does 'refrain' fit in here somewhere? Some of this stuff is a bit familiar...I think it may be starting to resurface.

[nateman]

there may be some technical differences, but chorus and refrain are usually used interchangeably in my experience.

i think Bash had pretty good definititions, but sometimes people's interpretations of particular songs will vary. most pop and rock songs will break down into something like this:

intro
verse
chorus
verse
chorus
bridge and/or solo break
verse
chorus
outro


where the intro and outro may simply be verse progressions with no words, or distinctive riffs, or simply fade in or fade out. verses and choruses usually go together in units, although sometimes verses will double up, or a verse or chorus will be replaced with a solo.

take "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedance Clearwater Revival:

intro: 2x verse progression (D, A, G, D6 riff)
verse 1: 4x verse progression
chorus: 1x chorus progression (G6 riff, D6 riff, A, G, D6 riff)
verse 2: 4x verse progression
chorus: 1x chorus progression
guitar solo break: 2x verse progression, 1x chorus progression
verse 3: 4x verse progression
chorus: 2x chorus progression
outro: D, A, D

[Guni]

Another term that comes to mind is 'head', which is mostly used for Jazz Standards. Chords and melody of eg 'Autumn Leaves' are called the head. As Jazz is mostly improvised the band leader signals the other musicians to go back to the melody by pointing at his head.

Guni