Let's Write a Song!

This is an energetic, collaborative facilitated group songwriting session with an ARIA winning and GRAMMY-losing songwriting veteran. Ideal class size is about ten-fifteen, but we could go to thirty or forty at a stretch.

We’ll warm up by having a group sing and then chatting about what our favourite songs are. We’ll listen to some examples of music and come up with some words to describe the feelings, and have a think about how the music achieves those feelings.

As a group, we’ll then start to toss around some ideas, keywords, images, feelings or stories. that might be the starting point for a song that we’re gonna write together. They don’t even have to make that much sense. We’re “playing”, don’t forget.

Scod will drive the whiteboard and lead the creative brainstorm, helping the students feel confident about chucking their ideas into the mix, with the intention of ending the day with a fully written, probably quite silly song that we will all be able to sing together.

This session will dramatically demystify the songwriting process for children. It’s been described as “like watching a magic trick” by one student. That person has missed the point entirely. This stuff’s not magic at all. It’s just real people having fun.

Topics covered:

• Group Singalong
• Discuss: What music do we like?
• Listen - some examples of songs and music
• Discuss - how do these make you feel? How?
• Let’s write a song together!
• Do we have time to arrange it? Who sings what? How can we make it feel like a journey?
• Let’s for sure sing it a few times before we wrap up.
• Group chat and questions - how did we do?