Write a riff-based song. This will be easy for songwriters whose process starts with a short repeated melody line or chord progression — the song is constructed around the riff. Classical musicians might refer to an ostinato, or musical phrase that is persistently repeated at the same pitch. You know the five-note riff at the […]
Write a song inspired by a fortune cookie. At the February meeting, each member was given a wrapped fortune cookie. If you missed the meeting, visit FortuneCookieMessage.com. Mystically, cosmically, the message inside will somehow be the topic of next song that you write. Spooky! Typically there’s some educational value in listening to previously recorded songs […]
Write a song in a single sitting Sound difficult? You might be surprised to learn that some very popular songs were written during single sessions of explosive imagination. Feel free to cheat a little by including song ideas that have been stewing for a while. This assignment isn’t as much about stream-of-consciousness songwriting as it […]
The first Wednesday of January is New Year’s Day. The January meeting will be held on Wed., Jan 8, starting at 7 p.m. The suggested songwriting assignment is lyrically challenging: Write a song in which every line contains five words.
The assignment for the December meeting is a no-brainer — write a holiday song.
Write a response or reply or continuation of a popular song. An “answer song” doesn’t work as well if the listener doesn’t know the original. But when it works it’s a tribute to the original song. The “reply song” is hardly a new idea. Everybody knows “Space Oddity,” the 1969 David Bowie classic about an […]
Write a song about faith Interpret the word as you will. Go ahead and get all churchy. Maybe you see love as faith in a partner, or courage as faith in yourself. Maybe you’ll write about an absence of faith. With infinite ways to perceive faith, this assignment might present an opportunity to venture beyond […]
Write a song about murder It doesn’t necessarily have to be confessional and could be written from the perspective of the doer, the do-ee, the weapon, a witness, a news consumer or a songwriter who just got a killer songwriting assignment. Songs about murder go back as far as the linkage of words and music. […]
Write a character-driven song It’s not about the vibe or the production, not about the musicianship or even the story line. Character-driven songs take a deep dive into the central character’s personality. It’s not what happens, it’s how he or she reacts to what happens. A good character song can describe an actual person, but […]
Write a song in the voice of another performer On an audio clip aired sometimes on The Beatles Channel (Sirius satellite radio), Paul McCartney remembers fooling around with a melody and trying to play and sing like Ray Charles. The result was “The Long and Winding Road.” He wrote, played and sang like Little Richard […]
