In this tutorial I’m trying to show visually what kind is typical uplifting trance song structure and how does it progress. I’m using one of my own songs (The Wall) as a example.

In this two video tutorial I slice up my song in to 16 bar sections and I try to explain the progression section by section.

Some may wonder what is a bar. Well, I’m not expert in terms, but here’s how I have understood it: 1 bar = 4 beats. If you listen to a dance music, you can hear the basskick beating. Four of those beats forms a bar. Take your favourite dance song and listen to it carefully. If you start counting the beats from the beginning of the song, you notice that usually after 32 beats (8 bars) something happens: new sounds comes in, other fades out, etc. That’s how the song progresses. Every certain amount of time something happens. That’s how you keep up the listeners interest.

So when you start to compose your very first trance song, try to progress in 8 bar sections. Add a new element after every 8 bars or fade out current ones.

So a typical trance song structure could go like this:

[first 8 bars: basskick]-

[second 8 bars: basskick + claps]-

[third 8 bars: basskick + claps + hihat]-

[fourth 8 bars: basskick + claps + hihat + bass]-

[fifth 8 bars: basskick + claps + hihat + bass + pads]-

[sixth 8 bars: basskick + claps + hihat + bass + pads starts to fade out]-

[seventh 8 bars: breakdown and everything stops. Start to build up your idea (hook) here]-

[eight 8 bars: your idea (hook) fully presented!]-

[ninth 8 bars: highlight of your song where everything plays together: your idea, drums, basslines.. everything! make it "explode"!]-

[tenth 8 bars: highlight may continue!]-

[eleventh 8 bars: maybe start to fade out elements a bit.]-

[twelth 8 bars: fade out even more]-

[thirteenth 8 bars: more fade outs]-

[fourteenth 8 bars: fade fade etc. etc.]-

You get the hang of it when you start to compose your first song. In my example I’m using 16 bars because I wan’t to build up things slowly.

So, here’s the videos. First Part 1:

And Part 2: