I'm trying to embrace song form/structure.. any advice/ thoughts?

[jancivil]

You won't know about song form until you've worked with some.

I think that's a good reason for him to use song forms. In the first part of your post, you mention getting cookie cutter results. I think that's good for new musicians. Everyone wants to think outside the box, but that's hard to do when you don't even know what the box IS.

You have to learn the basics and not everyone can learn from just listening, especially if the recommended music isn't the same type as the requested music. Sometimes a book can really help clarify just what you're hearing.

And you're reading something into what I typed that isn't there.

My point is: Get away from numbers or naming as things in themselves. Find out something for real. You might know what the box is by a description of the dimensions of the box, but music isn't quite a box.

Play some music before you decide you are worthy to create some. You will have internalized these basics before too long. Sitting in your room on your computer and acting like information is more than it is won't do that for you. People buy a computer and some software and think "Now it's time to make some music. I'll just go online to get all the info I need." Information isn't knowledge.

I seriously doubt Beatles arrived at their result through abstractly intellectualizing anything, but by listening and emulating records - by hand, not in a sequencer - until they felt they knew something from experience. They didn't have a formal map to go painting by numbers and did it the honest way, trial and error, learning about song structure by playing songs and at some point deviating from simply aping them.

[jcrisman]

Every time I watch a computer masterclass I realize that the producer is using some kind of verse, chorus, bridge, etc song form. Also, after reading various blogs I realized that it's important to set a predetermined song form beforehand if you want to be able to easily create a cohesive song. The problem I have is that I am not really completely sure what a verse/chorus in an electronic song actually consists of, such as the number of bars typically in each and the amount of variety each usually contains before jumping to the next section. Does anyone know of any good song form resources? Do you all use song form when preparing to make a song?

Actually Wikipedia has a decent nuts-and-bolts entry on conventional popular music song structures.

Most songwriters use a basic structure as a sketchpad, and then make alterations and embellishments to personalize the composition.

Don't be afraid to abridge, amend, extend, truncate, or disregard standard song structures as necessary to make your song interesting. In the end it's all about how the song sounds and feels that determines it's quality.

[havran]

introduction, repetition, variation, dash of contrast, confrontation, revelation, conflagration, smoke and ashes, a revenant reassertion, a last vicious rebuke, a sweetly triumphant demise, a bit of a wake, maybe an afterparty, some kind of denouement, some lingering, maybe loitering as well for the diehard fans, and then some sort of conclusion or segué