beat structure for a featuring with an mc

hi fellas
i hope here is the right place for this question...
a dude on soundcloud asked me an instru to rap over, first time for me

it seems fun but i'm not sure about how to arrange the beat to send him...
usually i try to stick to:

intro
chorus A
fill 1
chorus B
fill 2
outro

with some variation here and there if i feel it

do i work like usual or is there something i should know?

3 minutes and a half could work?

this is something from this guy



any help is greatly appreciated!

tnx! =D

i usually just do...


4 bar intro, goes into 8 bar or 16 bar verse (depending on how it sounds), and just go back and forth between verse and hook. you can do fills, bridges, etc after u have acapellas.. or if u never will, add them after u set the basic structuce:

either 8 / 16 / 8 / 16 / 8 etc

or 4 / 16 / 4 /16 / 4

4 intro

8 hook

16 verse

8 hook

16 verse

8 hook or bridge / outro

Thats a pretty basic standard

thank you everyone!

this was really helpful!



i also learn that you say hook for hook and fill for fill...!
knowledge is power

cheers!

usually in hip hop a standard verse is 16 bars and a standard hook is 8 bars.

theres usually 3 verses per song, and 3 hooks too.

intro of 4 or 8 bars usually, outro of 4 to 8 as well, or whatever sounds good.

then maybe a bridge or something usually 4 bars, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, this just adds variation in between sections.
i find if i have a song with 4 16 bar verses, sometimes chorus's after every verse makes the track too long or boring, so i add a bridge (usually about half the length of the hook) in between one of the verses and another verse. (usually a final verse)

some basic structures for you to think about

8 intro/16 verse/8 hook/16verse/8 hook/16verse/ 8 hook/8 outro

or if that song above had 4 verses i would probably do something like this

8 intro/16 verse/8 hook/16/8/16/4bridge/16verse/8 outro

maybe add a hook between the last verse and the outro if you want.

sometimes you even make 24 or 32 bar verses, (almost every track on slaughterhouses album is 24 bars) i usually leave longer verse songs like this with only 2 verses.

at the end of the day it all depends on the sample/melody.
experiment around and youll get it.

try and count out the bars your favorite hip hop songs and find how their structured. i do this alot. sometimes youll be really surprised at how unorthodox a track is structured, but you would never know it unless you broke it down.

somebody finally posted this Q, I been wondering about this for yrs, gotta print this shit out and hang on teh wall

i'm totally gonna print this too

this week end i'll try to study all this stuff

@damien907 thank you homie! sometimes i try to count bars and figure other people beats structure out, but if sometimes it's real easy, some other i have some problem... probably it's a practice that need some training too

id say take everything said onboard... then completely disregard it.


intro.... hook or straight into a 12/20/24 bar verse... 2/4 bar bridges or scratch phrases, then back into a verse... fuxk it up for another round or two... 1 bar breaks into the next bridge/hook/verse....

they're all the best tracks out there.. shit you dont expect keeps you coming back.

agreed that ppl can cope best with the basic song structure, but ppl who know there shit will be more enticed by some raggedy **** with your head type shit.. well atleast i would be


when i went to uni for music.. one of the two units was in, i forget.. n e ways my lecturer taught us about this theory that '62% through anysong is the best part of the song' its a formula that works in all pop songs n most shit on any radio..

i cant remember what ithe theory was called but its a fact.. sorry for being so sure about myself but so vague.

i just couldnt stand this question in my exam paper though... 'what is the struacture for a song'
**** off(not op just saying), its whatever you want it to be.. we are not all robots, atleast im not.. lets just breakdance and do graffiti!!

i got a high distinction, best mark the lecturer had ever given for that unit.. which was 'digital audio and sampling techniques'
and a distinction for the other music unit..
'creative music software'

all im sayin is its cool to know song structure, but is better to do what ever the **** you want to do with music

padlock wrote:i got a high

i kinda figured that based on your previous response

padlock wrote:we are not all robots, atleast im not.. lets just breakdance and do graffiti!!

dog, im definitely sigging this

@ op, yeah sometimes its hard to count, but when you get your basic structure down, and find the time signature of the song it gets easy to count. and remember theres always a rewind button.

for instance this song its broken down like this (although i counted the lyrics) i havent gotten around to counting the beat yet (whilst trying to ingore the lyrics), i think it may have been more of a regular structure, its just that she just wanted to fit 4 emcees in it. try and figure it out for yourself, i think for someone trying to figure out song structure this would be a great experiment.

like padlock said above, you can ignore basic structure and still get your head nodding, this track is a perfect example imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT727hir7yQ

this is the breakdown according to how the vocals are laid down.

2 bar intro/ 22 bar verse/4 bar hook/ 20 bar verse/ 4 bar verse/ 12verse/16 verse/4 bar hook/4 bar outro (you could also call the last 8 bars an 8 bar extended hook i guess)

atleast there was something positive that came from my drunken keyboard warrior stooper i was in the other night...
i appologise for being for being that guy, i sound like i wanker!

i really think a breathaliser for laptop/facebook is a legit product that could bring in some bacon!