Y9 Song-writing workshop

Category: Media Team, Music, News, Students write

Last week, on the 11^th and 12^th November, Y9 participated in a 2 day workshop on song-writing, as a supplement to our current work in Music on composing songs. We thoroughly enjoyed it and it was very useful in aiding our current classwork. It also allowed plenty of creativity and through this workshop, it allowed us to connect with others and get to know them, far more than before as we bond together with music. 

On the first day, we focused on the lyrical side of things, and were given the melody to our song. We did our own personal variation on “My Favourite Things” from the Sound of Music, in groups. Our first step was to write all our favourite things down, and then all the things we disliked, which also gave us an insight into other people’s personalities, so we got to know them better. We then created lyrics from these ideas, making sure it matched with the rhyming pattern and having the right number of syllables on each line. This was helpful to when we make lyrics for our own songs in music lessons.  

The second day was all about composing from scratch and using emotions to create our lyrics and to embed stories within the song. To spark some ideas from our song, we were given an abstract picture, free for us to interpret the feelings that tag along with it, in our own way and another painting which demonstrated a setting, for example a Lowry painting which depicted people on a street, allowing us to also create a story from this. I found this really interesting as even though some groups were given the same painting, we all had different ideas. 

Here are some of the thoughts of the Y9s who participated….. 

“It was very interactive and fun, and it taught me how to make lyrics work” 

“It stimulated our creativity and let our minds make up the rest” 

“Very fun and helpful as I now have some new ideas for writing my own song” 

Overall, it was thoroughly enjoyed by the Y9s and really was useful when creating lyrics for our own songs in class. A very big thank you to Together with Music for running it, and Miss Wright for organizing it!

Written by Preet G and Gloria C, Y9