music104

|  | Midterm Assignment (6) write a song! (Since this is your first foray into song writing, we're only going to count this for 15% of your grade. The final project will be 35%). READ CAREFULLY The assignment is, simply, to write a song. The structure of the song should be roughly in verse/refrain form, or perhaps ABA form. That is, you have an opening tune, and a contrasting section, and repetitions of these as needed. You're only expected to write the tune, without an accompaniment, and just say what chords you want to have played as it goes along. (We'll get into writing accompaniments after midterm break.) ---->>>>Make several copies of your song so that other students in precept can follow along and see what you've done We also want you to have words to the song. You can make them up yourself, you can use a poem you like, or whatever. A good idea is to use the lyrics of a pre-existing song that you don't know. http://lyrics.astraweb.com/ is a good place to look for words. The words are important, however, should be projected appropriately by the tune, and the song should be easy to sing and remember. We're going to perform these songs in precept, with instruments improvising along the chord progression you designed. Here are some helpful hints and suggestions: 1) Keep it simple, don't worry about all the "good tune" characteristics discussed in lecture, just keep them in the back of your mind. 2) Repeat small phrases 3) Make the repetitions have something to do with the words (rhymes etc). Repetitions are very important 4) Repeat chord progressions 5) Make certain pitches central. Watch your treatment of dissonance. If a note is not a member of the the triad being prolonged make sure it's left and approached by step. (Or have a good reason if it's not.) 6) Here are some chord progressions that you might find useful. (Don't mistake the top voice of these progressions for a melody, they're just designed as progressions.) Feel free to use any of these in part, or in combination. I-IV-V-I I-III-IV-V-I I-II-V-I I-VI-IV-V-I I-VI-II-V-I 7) Listen to some of the songs we talked about in lecture. Particularly folk-like songs and those by Tracy Chapman. Notice their relative simplicity. 8)SING YOUR SONG. This may sound silly, but if you can't sing it then perhaps it's too complicated. Work a bit without pencil and paper. Just sing and play. Try to sing your song without looking at the music. If it's too hard to remember maybe it should be simpler. |