Rebekah+Glenn

Why I'm interested: I would like to try to write a song. I have always been interested in the idea of writing songs, but I have never been able to do it myself. I feel like it's something that I could do that I would also enjoy. I also want to try this because I feel like it is very challenging to me as a writer.

What I already know: I know that songs are typically broken down into stanzas. I know that there is a refrain, or chorus. I know that songs are supposed to be set to music and sung. I know there there is typically a flow, rhythm or rhyme to the words.

//Dear Becky: This is a very plausible proposal, but not without complications. Will you write music or will you use tunes you already know to put lyrics to? Will you write a ballad, country, rap, blues, folk--- what genre of song? Will you record the lyrics and music? If you do lyrics without music, how will this be different than rhymed poetry? (Or unrhymed?) Lots of considerations.//

Users Guide:

Songs are lyrics set to music. Writing a song comes in two stages; composing the music, and writing the lyrics (not exclusively in that order). For my purposes I am going to focus on the lyric writing aspect of song creation. Songs are formatted very distinctly. They are arranged in stanzas. Most songs have 6 stanzas, which can be further broken down into 5 lines a stanza and 9 words a line. The part of a song that is most distinctive is the chorus or the refrain. This is a stanza that repeats itself during the song. This repeat, or refrain, plays the same lines a few times throughout the play time of the song. Choruss are typically catchy and memorable. They are often played to exert a change in tempo or topic in the song, as a sort of catalyst. Songs are typically shorter. When sung they only take between three and four and a half minutes, on average. I found the process to be very similar to writing a longer poem with a few repeating stanzas. This can be translated to being about 30 lines. To write a song, I feel it is important to use interesting language. The literary tools utilized in songs are important to the tone of the song. Alliteration, assonance, constanance, are a few tools that make the oral presentation of the words interesting. Similarly meter, rhythem and rhyme play crucial roles. The flow of a song depends on the rhythem which can be effected by rhyme. What I have found to be most helpful with the idea of writing a song is finding a style of music you appreciate to emulate. For example, I am ill versed in rhyming, so I looked up artists that did not rely heavy on rhyming patterns for their songs.


 * O.K. so how do you define lyrics that don't require rhyming? Are they narrative (stories), blues, love songs . . . how do we call them?**
 * And if you don't have music, how can you claim they are lyrics? Aren't they just poetry? You could use a familiar tune and write your lyrics to that.**


 * Bill**

Annotated Bibleography:

The Postal Service. "Give Up" (13 songs), accessed 2/1/2011 This band is what I was thinking about when I said to have interesting language in a song. When I was thinking about artists I should look up to mimic so I could learn to write songs this is the band that popped into my head first. I respect their skills as musicians, but more than that, as lyricists. They use beautiful, unique and fascinating words to create deep artistic songs.

My Chemical Romance. "The Black Parade" (14 songs), accessed 2/3/2011 This is another abnormal song selection. The topics, formats, and presentation methods drew me to this band as inspiration for this project. The band writes music the is emotionally provocative, which I love, but they can also be silly. They stick to a pretty regulatory standard for stanza structure which will make fora nice template for me.

Lukedot. "For John", A. accessed 2/3/2011 This song showed me a different idea on how to present my work. I am poorly versed in the tradition forms of song writing. I have a strong distaste for rhyming and my ability to write with a meaningful meter is debunk. This song was a wandering journey about the personas feelings for his friend John. It enlightened me to the possibilities of what could be.