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Wednesday, 11 January 2023

HIGHER Q & A 3 - what is meant by strophic and through composed?

Question: What is meant by STROPHIC and THROUGH COMPOSED?

Answer:

Both of these terms refer to vocal music, so if there's no voices it's not strophic or through composed.

Strophic songs have music which is repeated throughout the song, for example the same music for every verse, although the words may be different, like this. Remember that you'll have to listen to a fair bit of it to know if it's strophic. In that audio example for instance, the second verse starts at around 1m 03s - listen at that point and you'll hear the verse melody being repeated with different words - this is strophic.

Songs which are through composed don't repeat any melodic material in the course of the song, like this. This piece of music - a great song and a fantastic example to all of you songwriters out there on how to build drama and tension in a song - is not in the usual pop song verse/chorus structure and uses no repetition of melodic material. This is through composed.

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