Song Form

---
description: "Build and balance song structure with Pat Pattison's methods. Section identification (verse/chorus/bridge/refrain), forms (AABA, verse/chorus, verse/refrain), the candy-bar rewrite, hook placement and hot spots, repetition/repainting (You-I-We, Past-Present-Future, hidden questions/commands), verse development and the box model, bridge writing, and Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure worked examples. Use when: 'is this verse/chorus or AABA', 'where should the title go', 'my chorus does not land', 'my second verse repeats the first', 'what goes in verse 2/3', 'write me a bridge', 'do I need a bridge'. For stability/scansion use /songwriting:meter-prosody."
argument-hint: "[action] [args] (e.g., /songwriting:song-form, /songwriting:song-form bridge, /songwriting:song-form box-model). Full actions in body"
user-invocable: true
disable-model-invocation: false
---

## Mandatory pre-flight. Response Filter

Before emitting a form recommendation, section rewrite, hook placement, or bridge, run
**§6 Form filter** of [response-filter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/response-filter.md)
(add **§5 Title + hook** for hook/title placement). NAME each box's pass / fail / skip-with-reason
(aloud or in reasoning); correct before emission. Skips are valid; silent skips are not.

## Purpose

The architecture layer: how sections are identified, contrasted, balanced, and repeated so the form
serves the song. Covers form selection, hook/title placement, repetition and repainting, verse
division of labor (box model), verse development, and bridges.

Method content is Pat Pattison's, under the plugin-root `../../context/pat-pattison/`; a future
author's method plugs in at `context/<author>/` without changing this skill, the author seam per
the plugin-root `../../README.md` "Method content and the author seam".

## Action Router

`/songwriting:song-form <action> [args]`. Parse `$ARGUMENTS`: first token = action when it matches a listed action, remainder = args; otherwise treat all of `$ARGUMENTS` as payload for the default.
No action → route on context (a structural question → `form`; "write me a bridge" → `bridge`).

| Action | Use when the user asks for | Load |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `form` (default) | verse/chorus/bridge balance, section contrast, candy-bar rewrite | [form](../../context/pat-pattison/research/form.md), [section-building](../../context/pat-pattison/research/section-building.md), [song-forms](../../context/pat-pattison/research/song-forms.md) |
| `song-forms` | AABA, verse/chorus, verse/refrain, bridge validity, four-times-a-lot / third-system risk, 1991 worked examples | [song-forms](../../context/pat-pattison/research/song-forms.md), [song-forms-examples](../../context/pat-pattison/research/song-forms-examples.md), [repetition](../../context/pat-pattison/research/repetition.md) |
| `hook` | title placement, hook hot spots (section + phrase level), hook rhythm, targeting | [hook](../../context/pat-pattison/research/hook.md), [form](../../context/pat-pattison/research/form.md) |
| `repetition` | chorus repetition, repainting, stagnant repeats, You-I-We, Past-Present-Future, hidden Q/cmd | [repetition](../../context/pat-pattison/research/repetition.md), [box-model](../../context/pat-pattison/research/box-model.md), [song-forms](../../context/pat-pattison/research/song-forms.md) |
| `verse` | second-verse problems, travelogues, verse development, power positions, trigger lines | [verse-development](../../context/pat-pattison/research/verse-development.md), [box-model](../../context/pat-pattison/research/box-model.md), [repetition](../../context/pat-pattison/research/repetition.md) |
| `box-model` | verse division of labor, second-verse stagnation, what goes in verse 2 / 3 | [box-model](../../context/pat-pattison/research/box-model.md), [verse-development](../../context/pat-pattison/research/verse-development.md) |
| `bridge` | "write me a bridge", "do I need a bridge", bridge as restatement, three bridge functions, AABA homecoming | [bridge](../../context/pat-pattison/research/bridge.md), [templates/bridge-writing-prompt](../../context/pat-pattison/templates/bridge-writing-prompt.md), [form](../../context/pat-pattison/research/form.md), [song-forms](../../context/pat-pattison/research/song-forms.md) |
| `section-building` | building or contrasting a single section from the ground up | [section-building](../../context/pat-pattison/research/section-building.md), [form](../../context/pat-pattison/research/form.md) |

## Handlers

- **Pre-flight ALWAYS:** run response-filter §6 (+ §5 for hook/title) before output.
- Name the form and what each section is DOING; recommend the smallest structural change that fixes
  the problem, not a wholesale rewrite.
- Repetition is repainting, not stagnation, a repeated chorus should mean something new by its
  surrounding context each time.

## Persistence and template overrides

Write generated files to the paths in
[artifact-persistence](../../context/pat-pattison/research/artifact-persistence.md)
"Where generated work persists", and honor a consuming project's own songwriting layout when it
defines one. Before loading any bundled `templates/<name>.md`, check
`${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/songwriting/templates/pat-pattison/<name>.md` first: a project-level
override wins over the bundled skill default, first match, per that file's "Template override".

## Boundary. What this skill must NOT emit

This skill's domain is architecture: which sections exist, what each one is doing, how they
contrast, balance, and repaint. **It does not write finished lyric lines**, and having diagnosed a
section's problem does not authorize it to write that section's replacement.

| If you are about to emit | STOP and route to |
| --- | --- |
| A finished verse, chorus, or bridge line | `/songwriting:co-write` line-brainstorm |
| A rhyme partner, or any line whose end-word was chosen for its rhyme | `/songwriting:rhyme` |
| Sensory or metaphorical raw material for a thin section | `/songwriting:object-writing generate`, then `/songwriting:metaphor` |
| A stress map, syllable count, or line-length claim | `/songwriting:meter-prosody` |

Routing means invoking that skill, not summarizing what you believe it would say.

**Why this boundary is load-bearing.** In the pilot that produced these skills, this skill wrote
three chorus drafts while its own routing said rhyme work belongs elsewhere. Every generative check
was named as passed and none was run: zero rhyme candidates against a mandatory eight, zero mosaic
against a mandatory three, no object writing before the lines. Naming a filter box is not running
it, and a structural skill in the middle of a structural conversation is exactly where that
substitution happens.

Two section-type rules bind before any line-level judgement here, both from
[repetition](../../context/pat-pattison/research/repetition.md):

- **Verses show; the chorus tells.** Verses carry specific situation, image, and action; the chorus
  makes the broader statement the verses keep recoloring. State which mode a section is in before
  judging its material, a chorus full of concrete inventory is verse material in the wrong box.
- **A chorus is sung back.** Length and singability are structural properties, not polish.

## Related skills

- Line generation and variations → `/songwriting:co-write`
- Sensory raw material → `/songwriting:object-writing`
- Metaphor systems across a form → `/songwriting:metaphor`
- Stability and scansion of the sections → `/songwriting:meter-prosody`
- Rhyme within sections → `/songwriting:rhyme`
- Whole-draft diagnosis → `/songwriting:diagnose`