5 THINGS THAT MAKE A CHORUS BETTER

​The chorus is the most important part of a song. It’s the piece that (hopefully) people will be walking around singing for years to come. So, spending a little extra time on this section can make your song much better. Here are some things I always try to keep in mind.

Make the chorus melody rise melodically above the verse melody. The melody needs to stand out. The more you can make it stand out, the better off you will be unless you make it so rangy that it is too hard for a singer to sing.
 
Focus on your hook (title). The more the chorus “writes to the hook”, the better your it will be. Make sure that every line and every idea in the chorus points at your title. Often, I find rhyming lines that are off-topic. They wound up in the song just because they rhymed. Focus on the main idea of your song throughout the chorus and your chorus will be better every time.

Repeat your hook. It’s not often that I see a hook used too many times in a chorus. I just got a song recorded by a major artist and the song ONLY says the hook in the chorus. 4 times! Repeating your hook drives home the big idea of the song. Think back to “Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…” Repetition is your friend.
 
Make sure your chorus is something that bears repeating. Most of the time, the chorus section of a song is repeated at least three times.  So, you must figure out three ways to get back into that chorus. Make sure yours is easy to set up a second or third time.
 
Make sure nothing else in your song “outshines” the chorus. The chorus introduces the big idea or emotion in a song and it should be the highlight of the song. If something else is competing with it or overshadowing it, then people may miss the big impact of your big idea.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 14 years of experience in music production, mix and mastering, recording engineering, live sound designing/engineering, lyrics writing and music arrangement. He has produced more than 550 and written more than 900 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.