Approaches to Teaching Songwriting

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Approaches to Teaching Songwriting
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Conventional approaches to songwriting can be

• Based around developing pupils understanding of
  various musical elements
• Too linear and deterministic
• Full of stereotypes and assumptions

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Gabriella Cilmi

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuGZ__i_m7Ic

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For songwriters

• Content is personal, experiential and
  autobiographical
• They look for simple forms of expression
• The songwriting process is unpredictable but
  needs to be understood
• Importance of metaphor and image
• Environmental influences and context
• Conciseness (stories in miniature)?
• Follow your instincts
• Song-writing becomes a therapy for the writer and
  listener

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Traditional approaches place the

• Technical before the expressive
• Simple before the complex
• Artificial before the authentic
• Unified model before the diverse

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Patricia Shehan Campbell

• Songs, called 'childsongs', that children invent
  or refashion from earlier music materials and
  that they preserve in their transmission to other
  children may often consist of greater musical
  complexities and more diverse texts than those
  found in the numerous collections of songs that
  adults have prescribed for children. (Campbell
  1998, p.191)?

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Lucy Green things that need redefining

• Developing listening and aural skills
• Acquiring instrumental skills
• Linking to pupils notions of value
• Expanding friendship, taste and peer-directed
  learning
• Systematic or haphazard progression and
  experimentation
• Changing assessment strategies and definitions of
  success

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Your Task

• Write your own song
• As you do, reflect on the following three
  questions
• What areas of musical knowledge, skills or
  understanding do I need to do this well?
• Which of these can be generate through links to
  other curriculum areas?
• What style of pedagogy do I need to develop to do
  this type of teaching well?

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Possible ways forward

• Start with the creative practice, i.e. find a
  songwriter and talk to them about their work
• Explore the context first, then consider the
  musical processes and skills
• Be creative and imaginative in your choice of
  materials, resources, instruments, technologies
• Resist the urge to conform. Things can be done
  differently
• Build on pupils' interests but don't fall into
  the trap of thinking that they know it all or
  that they'll be interested in just doing 'their
  thing' for too long.

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What does creativity mean in this task?

• Is it about convergent or divergent thinking?
• What consequences does it have for the
  constraints or freedoms that curriculum tasks
  need?
• How will influence the way I plan for learning to
  take place in my classroom?