The lowest you can go while still humming clearly is the bottom of the range. First, warm up your voice, then hum and drop your voice down as low as you can go.

If you're writing the song for yourself, you'll need to find your own vocal range.

When you come up with a melody, keep the notes within a reasonable range so that someone can actually sing it, so avoid anything above 2 octaves, unless you know the person you're writing for can sing those notes. Not everyone has Mariah Carey's vocal range. It is usually short, just a line or two of lyrics, and will sometimes lead into a key change. Usually coming sometime after the second chorus, the bridge is a part of the song that sounds completely different than the rest of the song.

A Bridge - The bridge is a part that exists in some songs but not all.

This is usually where you try to fit the catchiest part of your song (usually called the hook).

A Chorus - The chorus is the part of the song that repeats without changing: both the lyrics and melody are unchanged or nearly unchanged.

What gives away a section of a song as a verse is that the melody is the same but the lyrics are different between the different verses. It is usually fifty percent to twice the number of lines as the chorus but it does not have to be.

A Verse - This is the main part of the song.

Many songs do not have an introduction, so don't feel like you have to use it. Sometimes it might sound different from the rest of the song, might be faster or slower, or it might not exist at all.

An Introduction - this is the section at the beginning which leads into the song.

There are standard layouts of these parts that are used in most songs, however, so in order to understand how most songs sound, you'll need to understand the parts. Your song can include all of them or none of them.

Song lines with images