The Song Fit Kit

A songwriter's planner for a song that lands on the length you want: a bar budget worked back from your target, beats per bar that count the beat your BPM counts, the road to the first chorus, and every line checked against the beats it gets

VerseCraft's Song Structure Timer turns bars into a length: bars times beats per bar times 60, divided by the BPM. It runs forward, when most writers start from a brief, an edit or a set slot that says how long the song may be. It trusts you to know which beat "beats per bar" counts, and in 6/8 the same song can come out three times too long. Our Syllable Counter counts a line and the timer times a bar, and nothing puts the two together. The Song Fit Kit does, in seven steps. Writing to 3:15 at 92 BPM in 4/4, a bar is 2.609 seconds and 74.75 bars fit: the budget is 74 rounded down (3:13), because 75 already runs 3:16, and the worked plan spends 72 bars in whole phrases (3:08). A 48-bar song in 6/8 marked at 60 in dotted quarters runs 1:36, and 4:48 if you enter 6 beats a bar. The kit times the road to the first chorus (20 bars, 52.2 seconds, or 31.3 with a shorter first verse and the same length), turns syllables into syllables per second at your tempo (a 15-syllable line over two bars at 92 BPM is 2.875 a second) against a line you already sing, matches verse 2 to verse 1 line by line, checks rhymes by sound, and sets the tempo last before you book studio time. Every figure is computed from our own calculators and every worked number is an example. Every lyric line in it is original; it quotes no existing song. Tempo markings are labelled conventions, and it promises no hit, streams, cut or placement and quotes no payout rate. Included: 24 printable pages with seven steps, a song map, a line fit sheet, a reference log, a session sheet, a bar budget table and a quickstart, plus a personalised sheet worked from the tempo, bars and syllable counts you enter in our calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the pack, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Same Beat Rule: beats per bar that count the same beat as the BPM, and one 6/8 song counted five ways
• The Bar Budget Rule: bars from your target length, rounded down and plugged back in
• The First Chorus Rule: seconds to the first chorus, against three songs you time yourself
• The Syllables per Beat Rule: every line in syllables per second at your tempo, against a line you sing well
• The Same Melody Rule: verse 2 clapped against verse 1, line by line, with the stresses in place
• The Say It Aloud Rule: rhymes checked by sound, perfect, slant or none
• The Tempo Last Rule: the length and the busiest line at three tempos, then studio time booked from the plan
• Four working pages: a song map, a line fit sheet, a reference log and a session sheet
• A bar budget table (eight tempos, five target lengths), the beats per bar to enter for each meter, and a quickstart
• A personalised sheet worked from the tempo, bars and syllable counts you enter in our calculators

The pack picks up where the free Song Structure Timer leaves off. The timer turns bars into a length; the pack runs it backward, from the length you want to a bar budget rounded down, makes sure beats per bar counts the beat your BPM counts (in 6/8 the same song can come out three times too long), and times the road to the first chorus. It then puts the Syllable Counter and the tempo together as syllables per second, checked against a line you already sing, matches verse 2 to verse 1, and checks rhymes by sound. Every lyric in it is original, every figure is an example, and it promises no hit, streams or placement.