Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson from ABBA are ingenious song writers.
Michael Jackson was an ingenious song writer.
What do they have in common?
We don’t know. That’s why they are ingenious. If we knew their secret anyone could copy their music. But – what we do know is that we as public speakers can learn from them.
All pop songs follow more or less the same pattern: Intro, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, chorus, final. Depending on the length of the song you might have a third verse. The bridge plays an important role in this structure. The bridge takes tempo, bass, volume out of the song – just for the latter to come back even more powerful with the final chorus, the climax of the song. This is what everyone waits for! This is the moment when the dance floor starts to boil.
Below – using the Speech Structure Building – you see the structure of two famous pop songs – the “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson and “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA:
It is more than obvious that great songs and great speeches have a lot in common when it comes to structure. You also picture the importance of the songs’ bridges just before the climax of each tune.
Now – what can we learn from song writers?
Definitely the bridge. We can play around with our vocal variety and body movements. We can take back our power, our enthusiasm, our pitch rate right before the climax, right before our motivating and inspiring message, our call to action. A last deep breath before the fireworks break out.
ABBA engaged millions.
Michael Jackson is the Thriller for generations.
We better learn from them.