Seasonistas general thread: yakking, joshing, news and pictures

Given that we're on a 5-day weekend here in Myanmar and I got the time, I've been lightly promoting the SOTU's milestone number this week... the next advert. I enjoy messing around with graphic design, and things got a lot easier when someone recommeded a certain site. If you've ever got to make anything with pictures and words, canva.com is a big help. It's also good for making YouTube thumbnails.
SOTU400b.png
 
Given that we're on a 5-day weekend here in Myanmar and I got the time, I've been lightly promoting the SOTU's milestone number this week... the next advert. I enjoy messing around with graphic design, and things got a lot easier when someone recommeded a certain site. If you've ever got to make anything with pictures and words, canva.com is a big help. It's also good for making YouTube thumbnails.
SOTU400b.png

brother you're the bestest.
few things have made me smile more in recent months than to know
you're still around (and breathing fire).
 
brother you're the bestest.
few things have made me smile more in recent months than to know
you're still around (and breathing fire).

I appreciate that. Maybe you could do something for me in return.

I'm very excited in that this upcoming term, I'm going to be teaching something other than English. I've started up a "making music club" here at my school and although its main focus will just be weekly jam sessions, there will be some music instruction as well.

I've never taught music before, but I have some ideas for the first few lessons. As I'm a manager at the school, I have to give up some of the leadingto the teaching staff - they need the hours, so I'm creating some lesson plans for them. The one I'm working on now is about how to write lyrics.

Now, I know I could go copy someone else's tutorial on the web. But I wanted to use my own limited knowledge, and get help from you guys too. There's a lot of very talented and experienced lyrical writers here, and I'd put you in the list of the best.

So what should I say?

What advice would you give if you were to teach a lesson about writing lyrics?
 
i own a pair of lanikai ukuleles: A mahogany soprano and a koa (?) concert. I've been playing the soprano a bit more lately, both because it's a new acquisition and because i'm learning some harder chords (the b family and the e chord). Working with a smaller ukulele has helped me to get better at the hard chords. Oh, and both ukuleles have names: The soprano is winifred and the concert is brindle.



love those names!
 
Writing lyrics....First thing I would suggest for beginners, keep it simple. Work from personal experience. I find it’s easier to rhyme than not but rhyme is not necessary.

Decide how you want the song to be structured. Look up common ways of doing this as there is too much info to put in this note.

There is no wrong or right way to write a song. Sometimes songs are written in mere minutes and sometimes it takes years to complete one song.

If you start writing first thing in the morning your mind is very open. Just start scribbling things down. Anything that comes to mind. Go back later and look for something interesting.

When you think an idea or song is complete wait a few days. Sometimes it seems great at first but then on reflection it’s a piece of dog doo, lol.

This is how I would start out but there is so much to say on the issue.

Good luck with your class!
 
Writing lyrics

I appreciate that. Maybe you could do something for me in return.

I'm very excited in that this upcoming term, I'm going to be teaching something other than English. I've started up a "making music club" here at my school and although its main focus will just be weekly jam sessions, there will be some music instruction as well.

I've never taught music before, but I have some ideas for the first few lessons. As I'm a manager at the school, I have to give up some of the leadingto the teaching staff - they need the hours, so I'm creating some lesson plans for them. The one I'm working on now is about how to write lyrics.

Now, I know I could go copy someone else's tutorial on the web. But I wanted to use my own limited knowledge, and get help from you guys too. There's a lot of very talented and experienced lyrical writers here, and I'd put you in the list of the best.

So what should I say?

What advice would you give if you were to teach a lesson about writing lyrics?

Rhythm is important in writing lyrics. As a drummer I often get a rhythmic structure in my head along with the words.

I only started songwriting 6 years ago, but I wrote some poetry in my teens and twenties. But I always was goofing around with alternative lyrics to songs I would hear. I think that helped me when I started to write songs of my own.

So maybe you could have beginners take existing songs and have them experiment with writing new lyrics to them? They would have to deal with existing rhythm and structure.

Another idea is to write additional verses to existing songs, or traditional hymns or other older songs that are public domain.

Eventually once the words are replaced in a song, the melody could be re written too. Bam. New original song.

Just some ideas.

:)
 
Rhythm is important in writing lyrics.

So maybe you could have beginners take existing songs and have them experiment with writing new lyrics to them? They would have to deal with existing rhythm and structure.
:)

When we get to that week (I'm thinking there's other things we need to cover first), I'm going to have them write new English Lyrics in place of those in a Myanmar song. Depending on their ability, we'll either try and stay to the original theme of the song or not.

The problem is that so many of their popular songs here are local language versions of English songs, we may end up writing new ENglish lyrics to a Myanmar song that was taken from a song with English lyrics. That's exactly what happened to me in Season 400!

Let me ask you (anyone) if you'd agree with these basic rules/principles:

1. For Songs written in 4/4 time, you should aim for 8-10 syllables per 'line' (I don't even know if that's what we call them? Lines?)

2. When working with rhyming pairs, put the more important, the more impactful to the song's message in the second position.

It's happening this Tuesday. Wow. I'm going to be a music teacher. Sort of. Cross that off the bucket list.

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There are many ways to write songs.
Some start with the melody, some with the lyrics.

I haven't exactly written many songs. My father wrote quite a few, and he also starts with the lyrics. But some of his friends who have had more of a career in music starts with the melody. My father once recieved a tape with scat song from one of those friends, asking him to help write lyrics for the melody.

The few songs I have written have started with an idea of a catch frase /rhyme and a way I want it to sound. Then I try to comes up with other lines or rhymes on the topic, and subjects I want to mention. And then it is like a jigsaw puzzle to structure them into verses and filling up the empty lines in between.
But I don't think the best songs are written this way. Poetry just doesnt flow naturally from me.
Then it comes to finding a chord progression. I start with the part of the lyrics I have the best idea of how I want to sound melody wise, and try out which chords sounds good with that. Then I find a common chord progression that fits by trial and error. The meody on the rest of the lines will then have to adapt to the chords and key I chose.
 
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When you think an idea or song is complete wait a few days. Sometimes it seems great at first but then on reflection it’s a piece of dog doo, lol.

So much this.

I find I write better songs when A) I have something to say or at least a concept of what I want the song to be about.
B) it's based on something I've experienced.

Once I have my concept I just start working around maybe one line or hook and work from there, just start singing whatever is in my head while I'm washing up or driving. The music always comes second, I'm very bad at writing music and coming up with lyrics later.

YMMV of course

Also going off what I quoted and what UkingViking put above as well. Don't be afraid to let a song evolve. Quite often when I'm one-man-banding in my head trying to get some lyrics I'll have a very clear idea of the structure of the verses and some distinct musical passages.

Go to actually play them and I find it either doesn't work or I haven't got the knowledge/ability to play whag was in my head. So the verses get changed up, lines get trimmed or added, I may stumble across a riff that was better than what was in my head with the added bonus I can actually play it and so on.

I'm currently recording some originals I've written for the seasons that were written with the intention of being solo uke/vocals. Revisiting these and trying to come up with fuller arrangements has resulted to subtle changes to the original songs that i really like.
 
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Take this with a pinch of salt, ;) (as I'm no singer/song writer), but for my ditties, the idea comes first, then some words, which get added to, or sometimes deleted, until I have something that I think works, then I try it out with various chords until it sounds about right, then it gets recorded.
 
Thanks to all the folks who added to this conversation about writing lyrics.

Last night... The night I was hosting the founding meeting of our school's "Making Music Club", I was as nervous as I'd ever been before any live music performance, certainly more nervous than any class I've every taught. I'd posted several reminders to our somewhat pathetic Facebook feed. It rained, my bowels were liquid, and I'd only received two names on the online sign-up sheet. But I was ready. I'd prepared two lessons because I had no idea what the abilities, English or Musical, were going to be.

And 6pm rolled around. The ukuleles were ready. I'd brought one of each size..>
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