Songwriters Toolkit

1. WEEK 2
Songwriting 1

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES
➤ At the end of the session, students will be able to:
1. Identify and describe their current methods for writing songs
2.Employ 5 different strategies for overcoming writers block
3.Understand a method that uses lyrics as a starting point for
songwriting

3. OBJECT WRITING WARMUP
➤ Sight
➤ Taste
➤ Touch
➤ Smell
➤ Hearing
➤ Organic
➤ Kinaesthetic
10 minutes
‘Soda’

4. CURRENT METHODS
➤ Discuss: What are our current methods for writing songs?
➤ How do you start writing a song?
➤ How do you make sure you finish the song?

5. WRITERS BLOCK
➤ What is writers block
➤ How can we overcome it?

6. TOOL #1 - SONGWRITING GAMES
➤ Sing along with hit songs from any era and make up new
lyrics. Give yourself permission to come up with silly phrases.
Be less serious.
➤ https://youtu.be/Gu2pVPWGYMQ
➤ Watch a TV show with a relationship theme - chose a
scene and write a title and chorus that could be used to
underscore it. You have 20 minutes to write lyrics and
melody. Set a timer and go. It doesn’t have to be good - just
do it.

7. ➤ Find a headline in today’s newspaper and write a chorus
using all or part of the headline.
➤ Sing the chorus of a hit song and change the notes of the
melody. Change the pitches. Hold some notes longer or
shorter. Add pauses or take them out. When you have a new
melody, make up a lyric for it.

8. TOOL #2 GHOST SONGS
➤ Use an existing, contemporary hit song as a pattern for
writing your own original song.
➤ Use the same form
➤ Use the same chord progression
➤ Change the melody
➤ Change the lyrics

9. ➤ ‘Imagine’ - John Lennon
➤ ‘Bliss’ Megan Berry

10. TOOL #3 - REVERSE ENGINEERING
➤ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A8gRNY6vjg

11. TOOL #4 KARAOKE
➤ Find a karaoke track to a song you don’t know
➤ Identify where the song sections are by listening for when the
energy increases and decreases.
➤ Write a chorus for the high-energy sections, and verses for the
lower-energy sections

12. TOOL #5 - FIND A TITLE
Ain’t Fool Inside Ocean Taste
Beautiful Ghost Kiss Picture Thunder
Breathe Halfway Lesson Rain Understand
Empty House Midnight Shadow Woman
Eyes Hungry Never Somewhere Young
Pick 5 or so words from a word list
Arrange them in pairs or short phrases
Pick the one that appeals to you most and write a song about it

13. WRITING FROM A TITLE
➤ Answer the questions the title asks
➤ Who?
➤ What?
➤ When?
➤ Where?
➤ How?

14. WORKSHOP
➤ Pick one of the 5 Songwriters Tools, and use them to write a
complete song (or as close as you can get in the time frame).
➤ You may work in pairs if you choose.
➤ You have 45 minutes. Go!

15. WHY START WITH THE LYRIC?
➤ Starting with a lyrics gives us an opportunity to really think
about what we are trying to achieve with our song
➤ A lyric will have a natural melody, which will imply a chord
progression