Intro to lyrics
lyrics are seen in almost every song today to convey the ideas and thoughts of the artist. Lyrics give us a deep insight into the lives of others, thoughts of current events or relatable situations. Lyrics are what now a days grab our attention by provoking emotion through their words. We are learning how to make lyrics so that we can produce high quality songs that tell a story through lyrics in a well structured way. This can help us get a career in song or lyrics writing in the music industry.
Contemporary song writing techniques
A technique used to write lyrics is to think like an explorer by this I mean deeply observing your surroundings. Do this by listening and talking more to other people to see their point of view on current events other topics, and also look deeply at what is going on around you and what others are doing, is there a pattern? You obviously want to document your findings so you don’t forget your great ideas.
Task 1
Our first task in the lesson was to be an great observer and to deeply note what you; see, hear and feel when from where we were sitting. We were given 10 minuets for this task. My observations were that the room temperature was warm and the room was silent. The only sounds I could hear were the rushes of cars going down the road and the boiler humming from the other side of the wall. Their was a gap of light coming through my curtains and some coins left on the shelf. The posters were neatly on the wall and the door was half a creek open. The last observation I made was the condensed water droplets on my window.
TASK 1: part 2
Our second task was to pick our favourite observation from task one, we then has to write a small segment of lyrics around that observation. I picked the poster observation from task 1, my initial ideas was to add a common rhyme scheme to the lyrics. What I ended up with in the end was “Poster loose on my wall, hope it doesn’t fall, I better go and fix it after this 3 hour college call”. The lyrics didn’t have to be long or advanced so I believe this task went pretty well, since as we was only given 5 minuets to think of them.
Colour title
Some songs may use a specific colour in their title to convey the message or mood of their song. For example you could use the colour blue in the title if you were talking about; the ocean, intelligence or the sky because the colour blue is often associated with them themes. And you may use the colour black if your song is talking about death, evil or being blind to something. This is where we lead on to our second task of the day. An famous example of colour title would be purple rain by Prince.
TASK 2- COLOUR TITLE
Four second task we had to pick an object in our room this could be anything, we then had to describe it’s colour. I got to three objects before finding the one I thought was best, these were; Ocean Blue Book, Transparent Bottle and Midnight Black Curtains. I decided to go with Midnight Black Curtains because it sounded better and metaphorical. I then had to think of what the plot of the song could be with this title. The first thing I did from that point was to think about what the colour black connotes, my first thought was being blinded by something and shrouded in darkness. I then dove further into this theme by thinking the song could be about a person that has lost sigh of something that is very important, but what could this be I thought. My next ideas was this could be about somebody losing sight of the world as a whole, because of their goals and aspirations in life. From here on I linked back to the curtain metaphor by saying that the midnight black curtains are stopping this person from looking out of the window and seeing the world for what it is, the person is instead trapped in the room with no sight of what’s real and no light with them.
TASK 3- COLOUR VARIATION
Our next task was to pick multiple colours and pick themes, emotions and other words that connote with them colours. The colours I picked for this task were black, white, red, green and blue. For the colour black I talked about how it connotes death, evil, darkness, loss of sight and the night time. There for this colour could be used in a lot of deep and emotional songs that we could write to link with the themes of the song. The next colour I talked about was white which made me instantly think of snow as it shares the colour. I then thought about clouds, paper and innocence because innocence is always associated with the colour white, which is why in theatre the good characters are often introduced in white clothing. One other thing I would talk about the colour white is that it is very easily manipulated by other colours, because if you put any colour over white paper the white will be over taken by that colour. From a lyrical point of view it could be about a person that is easily manipulated or tries really hard to fit in with others.
The three other colours I talked about where red, green and blue. For red I talked about how it is used to link with the emotion of anger and rage, which is often seen in lyrical content and films. It also resembles the colour of blood also connotes a hot temperature, heat makes people uncomfortable a lot and as it increases it builds tension. So the colour red could be used in a song talking about anger, violence or maybe even a build up of tension. For green I talked about how it resembles envy one of the seven deadly sins, this could be used in a song about someone taking something or hating someone for having more than them. I also talked about how green makes everyone think of nature and what is natural to the earth such as plants, fruit, vegetables and animals. This could be used in a song talking about nature, or what is normal in todays society or envy. The last colour I talked about was blue and I talked about how it makes you think of the vast open ocean and the sky which are considered amazing wonders to many. The colour blue is also associated with wisdom and intelligence. So for the colour blue you could use it in a song associated with knowledge, wisdom, the sea, the sky or anything that amounts to the scale of the sky or sea.
POETRY IN LYRICS
In the lyric lesson we also had an in depth look into poetry, this is because many lyrics adopt features from poetry such as similes and metaphors which is something we looked into today as well. We started off the poetry segment of the lesson by analysing some poems and their techniques, these included the layout of the writing and if it reflected on the words and other techniques such as similes. The poets often did things like making the text layout resemble something they were talking about, an example of this was one of the poets which were talking about water so they made the text go into a wave lyrical pattern along the page.
During the lesson we also had a recap of what exactly a simile and metaphor was. For a simile we talked about how it was a comparison between two things, this technique is used very often in creative writing. Next we talked about what a metaphor was, which is a description of a action or object that is not literal. We then had a mini task which was to come up with our own example of these techniques. My example for a simile was ‘The room was as cold as ice’ and for an example of a metaphor I came up with ‘Man of Steel”. We then had to come up with a mini phrase that included both a metaphor and simile, for mine I wrote “The room was as cold as ice, freezing my very own heart and soul”
We then talked about Haikus were as they are used in lyrics sometimes, A haiku is a small three lined poem which has a very specific structure. The first line must include 5 syllables, the next should include 7 and then the last again should include 5. After learning what A haiku was we had to make our own which only took 5 minuets. The one I wrote in the 5 minuets was ‘ The willow grove, The summer echoes, The winter palace’
GIRL NAME TECNHIQUE
A lot of artists personify many events, places or objects my giving them a name and talking about them as if they were a person. This is used in songs such as ‘hey there Delilah’ and ‘Billie Jean’. The idea to this technique is to talk about the theme as if was a person by talking about how they make you feel, what they did to you, what you would want to say to them and things like that. After this introduction to this technique we were tasked to think of as many girl names as we can and then write a small section of lyrical content around it. I listed the names “Sarah, Susan, Jessica, Angel, Summer, Janice and Corona”. I thought of corona pretty quickly because it’s of a trending topic at the moment and it is also a girl name. To follow the technique I talked about how I feel about corona and what my experiences with the topic, I lyrically talked about it through personification. My lyrics were “Dear Corona, you played me and my friends, driving us apart, and keeping us away, we all have heard you have got a new man, his name we heard is Boris”
TASK 4- AUTIO BIOGRAPHY
For our fourth task of the day we had to write a short poem of an auto- biography which is revolved around our personal thoughts and life experiences. We were given 15 minuets to create a short poem. I decided to do mine about child hood and decided to give it a nice rhyme scheme. I think for a 10 minuet task it was successful. My poem went like this
I remember the days we raced up and down the drive
The powerful sweet melody the birds sang for us live
Oh how I miss the days life was simple and fun
The only thing we had to laugh was run
I wish we could go back to those great sweet days
Where loss of innocence was distant and so far away
TASK 5 –CREATING A CHARACTER
For our fifth and final task of the day we had to create a character profile and write a song about them, about their thoughts or their life. The main things we needed to get started on our character were these basic things; name, age, gender, job, belief, habits, desires and fears. The character I came up with is called Von which is a male name which translates to hope. Von is 43 years old and is a part time job worker that is trying to chase his dreams of being one of the greatest music artist of all time, to chase this dream he gigs any where he can. Von believes that every one has a purpose in life that they will fulfil. One of his habits is that he goes completely off grid when things get tough. Vons biggest fear is failing and his life losing meaning as his whole life has been one big commitment .
If I was to write about Von it would be about his thoughts and worries about his own life. The lyrics would resemble mental warfare between two ideas, she he give up, or should I give it all up. The main ideas I would address in the lyrics would be meaning of life and would his life have no meaning if he dedicated it to one thing and give it up. The second point is that you shouldn’t give up. Throughout the entire lyrics I would make it two battling and contrasting points clashing with each other in a back and fourth structure.