Progressions: Songwriting
Section 3 -Cowriting and crafting
Week 1
"You write a hit the smae way you write a flop" - Alan Jay Lerner
Tuesday, November 25th, 2022
Thursday, November 27th, 2022
Tuesday - Co-writing
- Finding Co-writers
- Developing relationships
- Techniques
- Ways to collaborate
- Online communities for collaboration
- Ownership & Publishing
- Advantages and Disadvantages
Assignments -
1. Find a person to co-write with.Set up a time and method of collaboration. You present an initial idea and ask them to add to it.
Notebook - Make a list of five people you would like to collaborate with. Reach out to those people. Keep notes about how it went.
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Thursday - Work-shopping Session
- Bring a song
Class Recordings
Week 2
"I started being a songwriter by pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could." - James Taylor
Tuesday, November 29th, 2022
Thursday, December 1st, 2022
Tuesday - Writing Exercises & Finding Ideas
Working through Ideas
- Free Writing
- Toward a Phenomenology of Freewriting - by Peter Elbow
- Webbing
- Cubing
- Metaphors and Similes
Honing Lyrical Skills
- Rhyming Exercises
- Meter Exercises
- Rewriting sentences and phrases
- Thesaurus You!
Honing Musical Skills
- What chord fits this note?
- Pivot chords
- Unusual and shifting meters
Form and Structure Exercises
- Repeating Lines
- Using the Bridge
- Building a Case
- Multiple Sections
Developing Imagery
- Controlling the Character
- Multiple Settings
- Working in the Abstract
- Landing on a single image
Assignment - what exercises do you do to warm up for writing? If you were going to give general advice to a songwriter who came to you what would you tell them to do? Send that to me!
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Thursday - Work-shopping session [In Person]
- Bring a song to share.
Class Recordings
Week 3
The more time you spend writing the "luckier" you will get.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2022
Thursday, November 10th, 2022
Tuesday - Stagecraft
Thinking through your sets
- Set length
- Set Arc
- Choosing Songs
- Different stages
- Different performing situations
-Open Mics
-First gigs
- Senior living centers
- Coffee Shops
- Brewerys
-Livestreaming
- YouTube
- Facebook & Instagram
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Thursday - Martin Out [UNCO] Student Recital
Class Recordings
Week 4
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison
Tuesday, November 15th, 2022
Thursday, November 17th, 2022
Tuesday -
Q&A Discussion -
Bring a Topic to present to the class
You will have fifteen minutes to present.
Ideas:
1. Song report - Bring a song and discuss the elements.
- Why do you like/dislike this song?
- Who wrote it?
- Who recorded it?
- What are the arrangement elements (instrumentation,
etc.)?
Was/is the song commercially successful?
Was/is the song artistically successful?
etc.
- What do you think we can learn from this song as
songwriters?
2. Process analysis - Read three interviews or articles about songwriting each from a different songwriter. Contrast and compare their styles, approaches, success (commercial & artistic).
- Why did you choose these artists?
- What do they have in common?
- What can we learn from each of them as songwriters?
3. Choose three events from your life that were significant. Tell us about each of those events, how they relate to one another, why they were significant to you, and what we can learn from them
- How could we make those events into a song?
- What approach would we take? How would the song
sound? etc.
- What do you think we can learn from those events as
songwriters?
Assignment: Bring a writing prompt for another person in the class to work on for the week.
Demos, Charts, and Production of Music
- What do you need when you go into the studio
- Arrangements of songs
- Instrumentation
- Vocals
- Key, tempo, texture, etc.
- Method of Recording
- Making Charts
- Nashville Numbering System
- Notation and Tab
- Lead Sheets and Scores
- Producer or no producer?
- how can they help?
- How can they harm?
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Thursday - Section 2 Workshop (In Person)
Bring a song written from Section 2 writing prompts