VII. Popular Music
AABA Form and Strophic Form
Bryn Hughes and Megan Lavengood
Key Takeaways
- Strophic form consists only of repeated strophes. Its form would be abbreviated as AAA.
- AABA form, also known as 32-bar song form, consists of a twice-repeated strophe (AA), followed by a contrasting bridge (B), followed by another repetition of the initial strophe (A).
- AABA and strophic form were especially common in older pop music (1960s and earlier).
- AABA and strophic form both have strophe sections as the main section, which features the primary lyrical and musical content of the song.
Strophic Form
Songs that repeat the same basic multi-phrase unit throughout are in strophic form (sometimes abbreviated AAA because the same basic material, A, is repeated), and the basic unit that is repeated is called a strophe. Strophic form is more common in blues, early hip hop, and early rock-and-roll; verse-chorus form took over many pop genres after around 1970.[1]
sections, all of which have the same basic underlying music. These sections are the strophes. Though the lyrics change, the section beginning at 0:24 contains the same—or, at least, very similar—melody, harmony, and phrase structure as the prior and following sections. Even the instrumental sections at 0:41 and 1:21 have the same underlying pattern, just a different melody in the form of a guitar solo. The entire song is a repetition of this same basic pattern, or slight variations of it, modeled at 0:19–0:41.
uses “School Day (Ring Ring Goes the Bell)” by Chuck Berry as an exemplar of strophic form. This song contains multiple
While “School Day” is composed entirely of strophes, it is important to note that strophic songs can also contain so-called auxiliary sections such as intros, outros, and codas. An example of a strophic song with auxiliary sections is “Faded Love” by Patsy Cline. Follow the form chart in as you listen to this song, and notice that the intro, outro, and interlude do not change the fundamental strophic form significantly.
However, if a song has more than one main musical idea other than strophes and auxiliary sections, it is not strophic. It could be AABA form, which is discussed below, or verse-chorus form, discussed in the next chapter.
“Faded Love” also incorporates a refrain in its strophes, which is an important component of many strophic songs. A refrain is a recurring lyric and musical motive within a strophe (or any larger section that has varying lyric material). The refrain often contains the title lyric of a song, as it does here.
32-Bar Song Form (AABA)
Another formal structure that is more common in early rock-and-roll is AABA form, also called 32-bar song form because in earlier “Golden Age” songs that make use of this structure, each section is eight measures long. AABA form, like strophic form, relies on the strophe to communicate the main lyric and musical ideas of the song, but it adds a contrasting bridge section in the middle.
As an example, listen to