Thirty-two bar form

thumb|225px|"[[Over the Rainbow" (Arlen/Harburg) exemplifies the 20th-century popular 32-bar song.]]

The 32-bar form, also known as the AABA song form, American popular song form and the ballad form, is a song structure commonly found in Tin Pan Alley songs and other American popular music, especially in the first half of the 20th century.

The song form consists of four sections: an eight-bar A section; a second eight-bar A section (which may have slight changes from the first A section); an eight-bar B section, often with contrasting harmony or "feel"; and a final eight-bar A section. The core melody line is generally retained in each A section, although variations may be added, particularly for the last A section.

Examples of 32-bar AABA form songs include "Over the Rainbow", "I Got Rhythm", "What'll I Do", "Make You Feel My Love", It is not assigned a letter in the "AABA" naming scheme.

The introductory verse from "What'll I Do" by Irving Berlin is as follows:

Gone is the romance that was so divine, 'tis broken and cannot be mended You must go your way, and I must go mine, but now that our love dreams have ended...

</blockquote>

Bridge

In music theory, the bridge is the B section of a 32-bar form. This section has a significantly different melody from the rest of the song and usually occurs after the second "A" section in the AABA song form. It is also called a middle eight because it happens in the middle of the song and the length is generally eight bars.

Terminological confusion

In early-20th-century terminology, the main 32-bar AABA section, in its entirety, was called the "refrain" or "chorus". Accordingly, jazz players improvising on the 32-bar sections may still speak today of "blowing for a couple of choruses". This is in contrast to the modern usage of the term "chorus", which refers to a repeating musical and lyrical section in verse–chorus form. Additionally, "verse", "chorus", and "refrain" all have different meanings in modern musical terminology. See the below chart for clarification:

{| class="wikitable"

!Early terminology

!Modern terminology

!Definition

| align="center" | Introductory verse or sectional verse

|The opening section, often 16 bars in length, which resembles recitative from opera.

| align="center" | Refrain or chorus

| align="center" | Verse-refrain form or AABA form

|The 32-bar section, composed of four separate 8-bar sections, taking the form AABA.

| align="center" | None

| align="center" | Verse

|Any of the three individual 8 bar "A" sections

| align="center" | Bridge

| align="center" | Bridge or middle 8 or release or primary bridge

|8-bar "B" section

| align="center" | None

| align="center" | Refrain line

|This recurring lyric line is often the title of the song (e.g., "Yesterday", "Let's Face the Music and Dance", "Luck Be a Lady Tonight").

History

Though the 32-bar form resembles the ternary form of the operatic da capo aria, it did not become common until the late 1910s. It became "the principal form" of American popular song around 1925–1926, with the AABA form consisting of the chorus or the entirety of many songs in the early 20th century. It was commonly used by composers George Gershwin (for example, in "I Got Rhythm" from 1930 and it dominated American popular music into the 1950s.

The 32-bar form was often used in rock in the 1950s and '60s, after which verse–chorus form became more prevalent. Examples include:

Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" (1957) Songwriters, such as Lennon–McCartney and those working in the Brill Building, also used modified or extended 32-bar forms, often modifying the number of measures in individual or all sections. The Beatles ("From Me to You" [1963] and "Yesterday" [1965]) often extended the form with an instrumental section, second bridge, break, or reprise of the introduction, and another return to the main theme. Introductions and codas also extended the form. In "South of the Border Down Mexico Way" by Gene Autry, "the A sections… are doubled in length, to sixteen bars—but this affects the overall scheme only marginally". The theme tune of the long-running British TV series Doctor Who has, in some incarnations, followed 32-bar form.

Thirty-two bar form

Bridge

Terminological confusion

History

See also

References

Further reading