Songstuff: Music Glossary

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The Process Of Writing A Song

A song writing process is used to enhance the quality of your work and the speed that each work is created. This article provides tips on creating and using a song writing process, plus observations and suggestions about writing key aspects of a song.

This article is ideal for songwriters who either don't use a formal song writing process, or the song writing process that they are using is not quite working for them. By Songstuff

A Guide To Song Forms - Song Form Overview

Song forms are generally made up of a number of sections that may or may not be repeated within the same song. Popular music is generally based on the use of traditional sectional song forms, or structures that are derived from those traditional song forms.

This article gives an overview of the different fundamental song forms, and it provides a basic understanding of common modern song forms. By Songstuff

A Guide To Song Forms - Extended Common Song Forms And More

Add some new tools to your song writing toolbox by learning about common song forms. This article describes how common song forms can be extended, and looks at some of the less common song forms, such as through composed songs.

This article builds upon the AAA, AABA, AB, ABC and AAB song forms, and upon compound song forms, explained in our other articles in this series. By Songstuff

A Guide To Song Forms - Compound Song Forms

Have you ever used a compound song form? As a songwriter, I bet you have. Compound song forms are far more common than you might at first think.

Building upon the AAA, AABA, AB, ABC and AAB song form articles from our series on song forms, this article explains common compound popular song forms that you can add to your song writing toolbox. By Songstuff

Keeping A Song Interesting

Keeping a song interesting is not as easy as it might at first seem. For example, how do you stop listeners getting bored and switching off? What can you do to help hold the attention of listeners until the very end of a song? Will varying song structure help? Would changing song arrangement and instrumentation be enough? What effect can be introduced during song performance? Will the song lyrics make a difference? This article helps to explain the variety of things that you can do, during song writing, song arrangement, song performance, song recording, song production and song mastering, to help you too keep your song interesting. By Songstuff

Glossary Navigation

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

W

Wah Pedal (Wah Wah)
Guitar effect device where the frequency of a bandpass filter is varied using a foot pedal control, giving a distinctive 'Wah Wah' sound.

Watt
Unit of electrical power equal to 1 Joule per second.

Wave File
A wave file is a PC audio file format.

Waveform
A waveform is the characteristic shape of a graphically displayed audio signal.

Wavelength
The distance over which a wave repeats itself exactly once.

Weber
Unit of magnetic flux.

Weighted Noise
Noise measured within the audio frequency range using a selective frequency measuring device.

White Noise
A random noise signal that has the same sound energy level at all frequencies.

Word Clock
The accurate timing of digital audio is critical to the synchronisation of interconnected digital audio equipment.

A 'Word Clock', or 'Wordclock', is the 'metronome' that controls digital audio timing. Tha word clock also identifies the start and end of each digital word or sample, and which channel (left or right) samples belong to.

Word Clock Sync
Clock source used by your audio interface to synchronize "words" of sample data.

Wow
Unwanted frequency modulation introduced by the recording/reproduction process. Normally Wow is used to describe frequencies between 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz.