How to put words with melodies to make memorable songs.
We all practice the results of the lyricist’s trade whenever we sing a song we know, but in this course we’ll look into how those choices are made, and get some practice at generating our own lyrics. This course starts the participant on the practice of putting words together with music. Writing a song lyric requires matching syllables in words with melody notes to be sung in time over a rhythm. We start with short phrases and build up to complete lyrics. By the end participants will have generated a lyric for a familiar existing song, and at least one lyric which can be set by a composer to produce a complete work.
Live video conference: This workshop will be held via our online video conferencing platform, Zoom. You can view brief tutorials on using the platform here. On the start date or the day before, participants will receive an email with login info (please check your spam if you don’t see it).
In this workshop you’ll learn:
- Beginning: Setting of a familiar melody
- Testing the “singability” of a lyric
- Studying of extended song forms
- Writing a lyric before a matching melody has been written
- Working with implied rhythm and rhyme patterns, diction, and linearity and “density” of sentence structure
Time requirements
- There will be 30-45 minutes homework exercises between course meetings, and we will go over everyone’s results before moving on in the text (which is provided).
Materials
- All reading materials will be provided.
Who should take this workshop?
- Although this workshop was originally designed for poets who have written in meter and/or with rhyme, such experience is helpful; but anyone with a good sense of rhythm and familiarity with the language can manage the current version. Ability to compose music, including melody, is not required, though a sense of what composers do is useful, and we do discuss approaches to collaboration.
If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.
