Songwriting

Syllabus

Marie Eaton 650-3680

Office hours by appointment

Class hours: Fridays 11-1

Songs are the magical language of humans, and songwriting is a quest for the sacred, the comical, or the singular within everyday life. Songwriters journey with an ordinary object, image or event and discover what makes it extraordinary. There are many paths in the creative process of songwriting, but on each path songwriters access similar tools to craft something unique and new. In this class we will explore these tools together, crafting and workshopping songs. We will do in-class writing and creating, both individually and in groups. We will also tackle out of class assignments. The expectation is that you will participate fully, coming to each session prepared to share your work in progress and to offer your feedback to others.

For evaluation, you will be required to submit a final portfolio and tape of both finished songs and song fragments representing the assignments and/or your proposed alternatives.

Assignments - These assignments are intended to both help you focus your attention on one aspect of song writing, and to generate some ‘song seeds.’ In any week you may propose alternative assignments if some other song is pushing at you, but you should have attempted at least one assignment in each category before the end of the term.

9/25 Introductions and in-class exercises

10/2 No class, work on fragments begun in class 9/25 class, do assigned freewrite, and eavesdropping assignment. Eavesdrop. Listen to conversations around you. Catch and ‘germinate’ a song seed from something you’ve heard, seen, touched, tasted, or felt this week.

10/9 1. Bring in freewrites and eavesdropping ‘seeds.’

2. Bring in two songs you particularly like (disc, tape, or perform). Use the elements on page two of the handout to analyze why you like them (lyric, melody, style, rhythm, etc). We’ll talk about them.

10/16 Attempt and be prepared to share one or more of the melody exercises.

10/23 To explore the connection between lyric and melody, take the lyrics provided by Marie and write your own melody to them. When we de-brief we will examine the similarities and differences in the melodies created and the ways in which the lyric itself may dictate choices. We’ll also hear what the original author created.

10/30 Attempt and be prepared to share one or more of the lyric exercises.

11/6 Attempt and be prepared to share one or more of the lyric exercises.

11/13 Attempt and be prepared to share one or more of the rhyme or repetition exercises.

11/20 Attempt and be prepared to share one or more of the genre/style or time/beat/rhythm exercises.

11/27 - no class - Thanksgiving

12/4 - final portfolios/tapes and evaluations due.

EXERCISES

Melody #1 - Random number melodies

Take your phone number. Use it to create a melody from the tones in the scale. For example, if your phone number is 1-360-671-6371, in the key of C, your melody would be C-EAC-ABC AEBC. (For 0 use the note below 1. For 8 use the octave above 1. For 9 use the note above 8.) Using either minor or major intervals is OK. Either write new words inspired by this melody, or set a simple nursery rhyme. Use the chord substitution chart to find chords to support your tune.

Melody #2 - Melody rewrite

Take a simple song in a major key that you know well. Rewrite the melody. This could be as simple as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, or some other tune.

Melody #3 - Given chords

Take one of these chord progressions (or a progression from another favorite song of yours) and write your own melody (and words if you’re so inclined) using them:

Eight Days A Week Verse: G A7 C G/G A7 C G

Chorus: Em C Em A7 G A7 C G

Bridge D  Em A7 C D

Tears in Heaven Verse G D Em C G D/G D Em C G D

Chorus Em B7 F E/Am D G

Bridge Bb F Gm C F/Bb F Gm C F D G

Melody #4

Write three short tunes depicting:

1. Last three minutes before leaving for school in the morning.

2. Time at the beach

3. Carrying something heavy up the stairs.

Play them for class without indicating which is which.

Melody #5 - Pentatonic scale

Improvise on the "black notes" on the piano (the pentatonic scale)

Sit yourself down at the piano

Just about in the middle

Put all your fingers on the black notes

Anywhere you want to.

Sing along. Write a song.

And understand you can play.

"Black notes" by Graham Nash, 1972

Melody #6 - Improv.

Improvise on short chord progressions that you already know or like.

Lyric #1 - Oxymoron

Chose one of the following oxymoron, and write at least a verse and chorus using it.

cruel kindness

politely insulting

clearly confused

deafening silence

Try to make the verse and chorus get to the heart of the "paradox" captured by the oxymoron.

Lyric #3 - Forced Associations

2. Fold a piece of paper in two columns. Choose a list of nouns at random from the dictionary and list them in the right hand column. Then turn the paper so you can’t see the list, and select a group of adjectives at random for the left hand column. When you have filled the page, open the paper and look for the unexpected.

Lyric #3 -Names of the Full Moon

List from the Farmer’s Almanac - many of these names date back to the Algonquin tribes of the Northeast.

January: Wolf Moon, Full Old Moon

February: Snow Moon, Hunger Moon

March: Worm Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Sap Moon

April: Pink Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon

May: Flower Moon, Corn Planting Moon, Milk Moon

June: Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon, Hot Moon

July: Buck Moon, Thunder Moon, Full Hay Moon

August: Sturgeon Moon, Red Moon, Green Corn Moon

September: Harvest Moon, Corn Moon

October: Hunter’s Moon, Travel Moon, Dying Grass Moon

November: Beaver Moon, Full Frost Moon

December: Cold Moon, Full Long Nights Moon

Lyric #4 - Tell a story

Open the newspaper. Write a song about the first story that catches your eye. Pick an article that tells a story about a person or an event. Write a song which tells this "story," including enough detail to make the song tell the specific to the story, yet appeal to a more universal theme.

Lyric #5 - Question song

Use a question to prompt the song. For example:

What is this thing called love?

Where have all the flowers gone?

What’s love got to do with it?

Pick a question of your own. The question should be asked clearly early in the song...the answer may or may not be apparent by the end of the song.

Lyric #6 - Friendship song

Think about a particular friend of yours. Make a list of the friendly things you would willingly do - realistic, fanciful or outrageously absurd. Write a friendship song.

Lyric #7 - Revenge song

We all long for revenge. Write a revenge song...can be especially effective if you also make it funny.

Lyric #8

Write a song with five mountains in it.

Lyric #9

Write a 12 bar blues that has the line "you done me right." in it.

One typical 12 bar blues progression: E | E | E | E |

A7 | A7 | E | E |

B7 | A7 | E | E |

Lyric #10 - Backwards story

Tell a story backwards. Present the conclusion in the first line, and unfold the story in the rest of the song.

Lyric #11 - Point of view

Write a song that tells a story or situation from three or more different points of view. Select a item/topic that may have a variety of perspectives. Write a song from each perspective. For example: a phone booth. Write a song from the point of view of someone making a call from the phone booth, someone receiving a call from the phone booth, the phone itself, someone calling into the phone booth, someone driving by seeing someone calling from the phone booth....

Lyric #12 - Expanded nursery rhyme

Chose a nursery rhyme. Keep the tune and change the words.

A. Change one word and see if you can shift the meaning.

B. Change all the words. Remember that this kind of familiar tune will still carry some of the old meaning even if the words have changed. You can use this to your own advantage to make the new words have more punch.

C. Keep the same image (Twinkle little star, Row your boat), but see if you make it mean something more.

Rhyme #1

Write a verse and chorus using one of the following rhyme schemes.

AAAB, ABAB, ABCB, ABAC

Repetition #1 - Frame song

Devise a song with one of these frames.

I have...

I have...

I have....

But I don’t...

You’re a....

I’m a....

You’re a....

I’m a.... Etc.

Repetition #2 - ‘Zipper song’

Repeating verses with only one word or line changing from verse to verse.

Example: Let us take a walk together

Now it is begun

For it’s when we all can walk together

That peace will come.

Jan Harmon

Genre/Style #1

Write in a style you don’t usually attempt.

Sing-along, rap, rock, a capella, C&W, folk, swing, jazz, torch song, r&b, old time, blues

Genre/Style #2

Write in a genre you don’t usually attempt.

Hymn, patriotic, love, lullaby, ballad, children’s, dance tune, jingle

Genre/Style #3

Write a simple four or six line song (or borrow someone elses). Now use that song to practice various forms. How would that song sound as: a kid's song, rock & roll, R & B, rap, a waltz, country and western, an a capella chant...

Time/Beat/Rhythm #1

Make up a tune or song with this time signature

Alternating measures of 3/4| 4/4| 3/4| 4/4| etc.

Time/Beat/Rhythm #2

Write a song in 3/4 time (waltz).

Time/Beat/Rhythm #3

Find an isolated spot - a hill, your living room, the beach. Start walking - get a rhythm going that is comfortable and that you can maintain for 5 -10 minutes. Start humming - let your voice go where ever it chooses. Notice the patterns. Pick one and elaborate. Now begin to make other sounds - open your mouth and see what comes out - Make notes or use a tape recorder so you don't forget.

General

Joan Baez once called Janis Ian and asked for an exercise to get over a songwriting block. Janis said:

"Give yourself two hours. No more.

Write about an object, not a subject.

Use three chords.

Make the tune for the chorus higher than the verse.

Write at least three verses.

That’s it!

Goodbye."

Try it. It worked for Joan. (She wrote a song about coconuts.) It may work for you.

Freewrite ideas

Web/cluster writing or narrative

1. Word of the day

2. Write a memory, what will happen, what didn’t happen, what is happening now.

3. Brainstorm twenty titles

4. Write a first line. Switch and complete a verse from given first line.

5. Object - pick one from the pile. Write a song as though it were telling its story.

6. Chose a common object and write about it - i.e.. a shoe, a spoon, a candle, a pan. Free associate at first. Write everything that this object brings to mind, no matter how unrelated it may seem. Now try out different voices. What might that object be saying if it could speak. What interesting history might this object have? Try different approaches - use humor, make a political statement, etc.

7. Brainstorm twenty first lines - 5 in each of four categories:

IF - If I had the wings of Noah’s dove...

If ever I would leave you...

SETTING THE SCENE - As I walked out in the streets of Laredo...

Almost heaven, West Virginia...

QUESTIONS - Ain’t she sweet?

Are you going to Scarbourgh Fair?

WHAT I’M GONNA DO - I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair...

I’m gong to leave old Texas now....

WHAT YOU ARE: You ain’t nothing but a hound dog...

You are the sunshine of my life...

PHILOSOPHY: Life is like a mountain railway...

What the world needs now...

8. PAIRS or WHOLE CIRCLE

Who were you in my dream?

What were you eating?

What did you hear?

Why were you hiding?

What were you wearing?

Who was with you?

What did you want?

Where were you going?

9. Yellow pages - Juxtapostions

hearing/heating

beauty/ bed-bicycle

lawn/life

light/limosine

10. In the center of my house I see...

I hear...

I feel...

I smell...

I taste...

11. Eyedropping (what Susan Woolridge calls the image angel...

Look around you. What catches your eye. Stop for a moment and write about it.

What is it telling you?

In what ways are these things bringing you messages?

12. Wordpool - Group

Generate a list of words that appeal.

Magnetic words

Deeper writing

1. Which hat are you wearing (creator, completor, editor)

Start a song from common fragment

Switch and complete

Switch and edit/polish

2. Group Songwriting exercise

Step one: topic

- pick common object and brainstorm as group. Mind-map

Step two: go deeper with topic

- divide into groups of 3s/4s

- pick element of common object. Discuss/free-write associated ideas, images, thoughts

- try on different points of view

Step three: develop rhythm

- call and answer rhythm pairs.

Step five: develop melody

- call and answer melody

- develop short verse and chorus melodies, make them connected but different

Step six: word/melody mix

- select images, ideas and make a verse/chorus

- try for rhyme, at least in chorus.

AAAB, ABAB, ABCB, ABAC, etc.

Step seven: share