Sonata form expositions typically present two prominent themes in contrasting keys, then repeat. Pop songs often present a verse contrasting with a chorus (sometimes in different keys), then a second verse and chorus.
This is a question sometimes asked on the internet, and a natural one since sonata form is so crucial in “classical” music. I once found a blog post that asserted that verse-chorus songs often use sonata form; that blog has since disappeared, but someone else presents their discovery of similarities here.
First, the similarities.
Sonata form expositions typically present two prominent themes in contrasting keys, then repeat. Pop songs often present a verse contrasting with a chorus (sometimes in different keys), then a second verse and chorus.
The development of a sonata form contrasts with the exposition in being (typically) more tonally unstable and presenting fragmented versions of the themes. The bridge in a pop song contrasts with the verse and chorus, often through a different texture or key and a different melody.
The recapitulation of a sonata form returns to the opening two themes, now both in the same key. A pop song usually ends with a return to the chorus, and sometimes a verse first.
Second, some thoughts on the connections.
Verse-chorus forms are almost certainly not “based” on sonata form in the sense of a historical connection or “growing-out-of.” A much more likely origin is in folk songs, which often have verses and choruses. (I’m sure there’s research on this out there.)
But that’s doesn’t mean there isn’t a connection. The “one thing-contrasting thing-back to the first thing” part of both forms may appeal to innate human preferences and certainly has compelling connections to how people construct narratives in our culture.
But there are some important differences.
The most important is this: sonata form relies on key relationships, and, in the exposition/recapitulation, very specific ones. Contrasting keys in pop songs are completely optional. Tonally unstable sections, like a development, are rare. Some music theorists go so far as to identify the “contrasting keys in exposition, everything in tonic in recapitulation” aspect of sonata form as “the sonata principle,” the thing that makes sonata form what it is. If you agree with them, I don’t think you’ll find a single pop song that fits.
Verse-chorus form is also more sectional. That is, while an exposition usually has a transition between first and second themes that brings us to the new key, verses tend to move right into choruses; if there’s a pre-chorus in between, its job is typically to build up energy rather than to modulate. (There are, of course, similarities between pre-choruses and transitions.)
Okay, let’s take one example suggested in this forum, Weezer’s song Dreamin’.
Here are the similarities: the song opens with sections of verses (beginning, 1:03) and choruses (0:47 and 1:34). There’s a contrasting section that presents lots of different melodies and textures (1:49–4:02). Then there’s a return to the opening. That return feels like a really important moment, both because of how long this song spends on contrasting material and because the band slows down, giving it a sense of gravity.
The biggest difference, of course, is that the entire piece is in a single key, D major.
If you want to claim that this, or any pop song, is in sonata form, your strongest argument will be that the key schemes of sonata form have been replaced by texture/dynamic schemes. For example, the way that Weezer’s contrasting section builds back into the return of the opening at 4:02 is in many ways analogous to the way a sonata form might build up to a tonal return at the beginning of a recapitulation.
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