Over the span of two days, participants will delve deeply into the art of writing songs. The first day will focus on finding a state of creative flow and discovering song ideas in a positive and collaborative learning environment. The second day will expand on initial song ideas to create themes and fuller songs. With an emphasis on improv and its intersection with songwriting, this workshop will cultivate total engagement in group activities, initiating more possibilities for inspiration and collaboration. At the end of the two days, participants will showcase new original songs in a final presentation. A chance for songwriters to hone in on their creative voice, become more prolific and have an intrinsically rewarding experience.

Day 1

● The Four Phases of Creativity: Song Seed to Full Fruition - 11am-11:20am
Students are introduced to the four phases of creativity to have a better understanding of their songwriting process. In a discussion about the foundational elements of the four phases, we will focus in on the flow state and its necessary components. We will also discuss the collaboration guidelines and the importance of letting words and sounds pour out with abandon.

● Group Activity: Free Word Association, Words to a Beat - 11:25-11:50
Beginning with an exploration of improv and its intersection with songwriting, students gather in a circle and improvise words into phrases and phrases into melodies, setting them over rhythms with stomps, snaps, claps and vocal expressions of beat making. Students will gain an understanding of how to find a creative state of flow and discover ideas for song refrains or hooks through word play to rhythm in a collaborative setting.

● Breakout Group Activity: Spin an Idiom to Write a Hook/Refrain - 11:55-12:40
Students work in groups of 2 to 5 to find song ideas and turn them into hook phrases. By researching idioms and “spinning” three of them to create new sayings, students pick one idiom (or spun idiom) and turn it into a spoken rhythm over a beat. Then, the students find melodies for the spoken rhythms and turn their ideas into a lyric line or even a song section.

● Song Seed Presentations - 12:40-1pm
Each breakout group showcases their co-written song seeds/sections.

1:00pm-2:00pm Lunch break

● Writing Exercise: Emotional Object Write - 2-2:20pm
Students will be guided through a stream-of-consciousness writing session in which they find an object or an image that immediately evokes an emotion, then focus on their senses on it to tell the story around the object/image in stream-of-consciousness style. Students are given time to discover song seeds in their writing.

● Group Activity: The Human Arrangement - 2:25-2:45pm
Students gather in a circle and participate in a group collaborative session to vocally create bass lines, kick drum parts, back beats, and melodic hook lines that call/respond with one another. After the professor’s initiation as the role of “producer”, students volunteer to assume the role in the center of the circle and delve out parts to each person, then sing their song seeds over the “human arrangement”.”

• Song Form Presentation and Breakout Group Activity: Building Song Seeds into Sections and Song Cycles - 2:50-3:40
Starting with brief presentation on the characteristics of song sections and how they become song cycles, students apply concepts from the previous human arrangement exercise to collaborate in breakout groups and write song sections that may turn into song cycles (eg. Verse-Chorus, or Verse-PreChorus-Chorus). Gathering together any song seed ideas from earlier exercises as well as grooves discovered from the human arrangement, students co-write songs in separate spaces using guitars, ukuleles, pianos and other available instruments available to us. Collaboration preferences will be granted to those who wish to continue co-writing in the same group formations from the first half of the day.

● Song Sections/Song Cycle Presentations - 3:40-4pm
Each breakout group showcases their co-written song sections/song cycles.

Day 2

● Writing Exercise: Free Write - 11-11:15am
Students are guided through a stream-of-consciousness writing session in which they are given a prompt word. By putting themselves “in the environment” of the word, they accomplish a free writing session for ten minutes. Afterward, students are given time to discover song seeds in their writing.

● Group Activity: Free Word into Rhyme, Rhythm, and Melodic Theme - 11:15-11:35
Continuing from yesterday, students gather in a circle and use free word association with optional rhyme as a starting point to improvise words into phrases, phrases into melodies, and melodies into themes, setting them over rhythms with stomps, snaps, claps and vocal expressions of beat making. Students develop melodic phrases into themes, gaining an understanding of how to work with a call/response within the larger group. If students wish to return to the human arrangement exercise with new volunteers as “producers” this is also an option.

● Breakout Group Activity: Song Detective 11:40-12:40pm
Students gather in groups and are prompted to go outside for 20 minutes and collect any interesting words they see in print or hear in overheard conversations, being respectful of others’ space in the process. Student groups come back to the room and are assigned separate co-writing rooms. From their lists of words and phrases, students co-write together, turning a song seed discovered during the song detective exercise into a melody that becomes a chorus or verse/refrain section.

● Chorus or Verse/Refrain Presentations - 12:40-1pm
Each breakout group showcases their co-written song sections/song cycles created during the song detective exercise.

1:00pm-2:00pm Lunch break

● Developing Second Verses: Techniques for Finishing Your Second Song Cycle - 2-2:20pm
Students will discover how to get past the “incubation phase” of writing a second song cycle and find exciting new ways to lyrically flesh out their songs, bringing their music and lyrics to full fruition. Techniques for writing a second verse including box development, omitting the nouns, verbs and adjectives, and singing random syllables will be introduced.

● Breakout Group Activity: Gathering all Song Seeds to Finish Writing and Present Rough Draft Full Songs - 2:20-3:20pm
Student co-writing groups return to breakout rooms to develop any song ideas into full songs that include two song cycles. Students work together or separate to brainstorm and create second verses and final presentations of their original material in which all members of each group are involved in the presentation - any instrument or sounds may be used in presenting.

● Final Song Presentations - 3:20-4pm
Each breakout group will showcase an original song co-written over the course of the two days.