Vocal Range In Songwriting A Review Of Katy Perry’s “Firework”

Submitted by: Anthony Ceseri

Did you ever want to know how to effectively hold your listener’s interest throughout your songs? As songwriters, it’s one of the main things we strive for… but sometimes no matter how much of our heart and soul we pour into our music, we realize we aren’t grabbing our audiences attention as effectively as we could be. So how can we fix that?

One important concept in songwriting is contrast between sections (i.e. between Verse, Chorus & Bridge sections). It seems like common sense, yet it’s often ignored. There are so many different ways to achieve contrast from Verse to Chorus to Bridge. You can sing your vocals in a different range than the section before. You can start your vocals on a different beat that you did in the section before. You can play different chords on the guitar. You can play the same chords to a different rhythm. The list goes on and on. And you’ll often see the best results when you use many of these contrasting ideas together, to highlight the contrast. I’ll talk about some of the other ways to achieve contrast in future blogs, but for now, I want to talk about the first idea I mentioned… about singing in a different vocal range from verse to chorus, since it’s such a common and often effective strategy in tons of hit songs.

There are a plethora of great examples here, but the one that strikes me as being really successful at the moment is Katy Perry’s “Firework”. In case you’re over the age of 104 and haven’t heard it, please check it out on YouTube.

The Verses (starting at the opening line: “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag…”) are sung in the lower register of her range. Then when she hits the Chorus (at “Baby, you’re a Firework…”), she appears to be at the top of her range, hovering at about an octave higher than she was in the Verses. Pretty standard, yet effective stuff so far. And it’s set to what sounds like the extremes of her vocal range, for added contrast.

In this song, what really sells it for me is the Pre-Chorus (starting at “you just gotta ignite… the light… “).. She bridges that fairly large pitch gap between low and high vocals in the Verse and Chorus by slowly stepping-up the notes in the Pre-Chorus. Not only does it really highlight the fact that the contrast in the Chorus is coming, but it builds tension that’s begging to be released in the higher pitched Chorus. By the time the hook kicks in at the chorus, not only are you ready for it, you’re singing along at the top of your lungs. Okay, maybe that’s just me. But still…

And yes, there are other factors in this song that help contribute to the contrast between sections, but the change in vocal register, highlighted further with the Pre-Chorus to bridge the gap, stands out clear and proud as one of the dominant ones. And rightfully so. It works exceptionally well in this case.

But the coup de gr ce here is how this whole starting low in the verses but building up to the high-pitched choruses ties into the overall “Firework” concept. A low lying Verse that goes to a Pre-Chorus shooting up higher and higher which leads into a high flying booming Chorus! Wow! That sounds just like something an actual firework might do! Coincidence? Probably not. Moves like this always work best, when they hit on multiple levels. And this one does. Like this song or not, it’s writing techniques like this that not only keep her listeners from falling asleep, but keep her at the top of the charts.

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Anthony Ceseri is the owner of

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, a website dedicated to the development of songwriters of all skill levels.

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