AABA 32-bar form

- Thirty-two-bar form, or AABA form,…was the dominant form of popular music…in the first half of the 20th century,…the collection of songs born out of Tin Pan Alley.…The 32-bar form consists of an eight-bar phrase…followed by an eight-bar repetition or slight variation…followed by an eight-bar section known as the release…or bridge, not to be confused with the bridge in the…verse chorus form, although it serves a similar function,…followed by an eight-bar repetition…of the first phrase again.…

Famous examples of this form from that time period are…George and Ira Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm"…and "The Man I Love,"…Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "My Funny Valentine"…and "Blue Moon,"…Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul,"…and Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg's "Over the Rainbow."…There are also famous variations of the 32-bar form.…Most of the great songs of Cole Porter,…"Night and Day," "I Get a Kick out of You,"…and "Begin the Beguine" to name a few,…are extensions of this form going much longer…than 32 bars.…