The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 27 September 2009

Sunday morning, here in Japan, one of the television shows introduced us to a songwriter who was visiting a local school -- middle high school, I think. And what she was doing was running workshops on writing songs.

I like the approach -- pick a theme, then collect related words and phrases, and fit that into a framework. Then refine. And perform, get it out there in front of somebody. I think you could use something like that for a poem, or even a story. Let me explain...

The first part I saw, she had a whole class and said they were going to write a song together. The theme of the song was the color green. And she asked all of the students to dig down inside and tell her what green reminded them of. Was there a season, a place, a feeling, or whatever that it reminded them of? The first few answers were hesitant, but she wrote them on the board. And added that if something that someone else said reminded you of something, please, add that. And soon she was collecting suggestions, roughly grouping them as they came up. Until she had covered the very large whiteboard with words. Then she started going over them, erasing some, noting common threads, pointing out that this and that were kind of related.

The next step was simple. She had a melody -- a simple one with a strong beat -- and she took phrases from their collection and put it together into a simple song. One verse, thumpety-bump-bump-bump.

And now that we've practiced that, she divided everyone up into three different groups. Each group pulled a flag from a wastebasket, selecting their theme -- blue, red, or white. And the groups split up into subgroups, each of which was responsible for making one verse of their song. Four verses per group. So they collected words, and then matched them up with the group melody.

She also worked with the groups. Especially once they had their draft verses ready, she helped to review them. One of the things she pointed out was abstract or common or cliche phrases. I think one group had used "my summer" in three of the four verses, and she suggested that they think about more specific or personal phrases. What is my summer? What do you remember or think of when you hear that phrase? I think they replaced one of them with melting ice cream, and perhaps another with something about watermelons. So they refined their songs.

And the very last step in this process was for the three groups to perform their songs for each other. They took over an assembly space, which looked a lot like my high school gym, and had risers set up. And each group got up and sang the song that they had written in the last two or three days.

She cautioned them that they probably wouldn't become famous songwriters or performers. Especially not with just one week. But on the other hand, they had put together songs that meant something to them. They had worked together, they had selected words and experiences that came from their hearts, and performed them in front of their friends, and for a show that would be on national TV. And she assured them that no matter what they did in the future, they could always remember doing this song, this time.

And I'll bet those students will always remember writing a song.