skills/human-melodic-phrasing/references/pop.md

# Pop, rock and folk phrasing

## Vocabulary
- Diatonic melodies with a small range (an octave or less) and lots of
  repeated notes. The hook is a rhythm as much as a pitch shape.
- Pentatonic and diatonic; chromaticism only as a passing tone into the
  chorus or as a blues inflection in rock.
- Rock riffs: root and 5th power chords, pentatonic single-note riffs on
  strings 5 and 6 with palm muting, open-string pedal notes.

## Structure
- Hook first. A pop melody states a one-bar idea, repeats it exactly once,
  changes it the third time, and resolves the fourth (AABA or AAB'C in
  4 bars).
- Verse melodies sit lower and narrower; chorus melodies sit higher and use
  longer notes.
- Riffs repeat verbatim for 2 bars, then vary the last beat.

## Rhythm
- Anticipations: the melody arrives on the "and" of 4 before the chord
  changes on 1. Write it as a note on the "and" of 4 followed by a rest or a
  new note on the downbeat.
- Sixteenth-note pickups into beat 1 and 3.
- Straight feel; use `swing-16th` only for hip-hop or neo-soul grooves.
- Repeated same-note rhythms (three eighths on one pitch) are hooks, not
  errors.

## Target notes
- Chord tones on 1 and 3, mostly 3rds and 5ths; the 9th over the IV and the
  6th over the I are pop colours.
- Melody notes that stay on one pitch while the chord changes underneath.

## Avoid
- Wide leaps and dense chromaticism.
- Changing the motif every bar.
- Melodic peaks in the verse; save them for the chorus.
- Riffs that use every string.