• This is a Text investigation. Consider your essential question in the context of at least two outside sources you have identified that connect to your essential question. How do these ideas resonate with or challenge your own beliefs, experiences, or practices? Be sure to give concrete and specific examples. You may want to address: ways the sources answered parts of your Essential Question, what additional questions were raised, or how your essential understanding of your project was altered or confirmed by the readings you did. Make sure to cite your sources.

 

Essential Question: How can I tell my story through creating music?

From the NY Times series called Diary of a Song, I have gained insight into many popular artists’ song writing processes and creative processes, such as Billie Eilish, Alysha Keys, Dua Lipa and Phoebe Bridgers. These feature a short article and then a video interview with the artist where they quickly walk you through their process and give tips they found most useful when writing a song. This hit very close to my essential question in many ways, it addressed ways to best communicate your own story through a song and how these popular artists have used their personal experiences to relate to a wide audience of people. Specifically the one with Billie Eilish was noteworthy because she went into how you can change up the basic structure of a song (verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus) to help tell your story the way you want, like she would add a hook, drop or pre chorus to change up the rhythm and general feeling of the song. When she wrote Bury A friend she created a whole new song structure and it made for a very interesting song that told a compelling story which was very inspiring. 

The book Writing Better Lyrics has taught me many things, but specifically has given me a very useful structure for starting my writing and organizing my thoughts in a way that they can start to become lyrics. This book has helped me generate ideas and find those feelings that are deep within myself and would be amazing to explore in a song. I will often start my day with a free write that came from a prompt in this book, which has been very helpful. One exercise I do often asks you to describe a random object in the room using as much detail as possible and to include all five senses and memories surrounding that object. Every time I am always surprised at how much one object can bring up, and the amount of ideas a short free write can generate. These have all helped me begin to share my own experiences and stories through music.

Sources:

NY Times Diary of a song 

https://www.nytimes.com/video/diaryofasong

Writing Better Lyrics by Pat Pattinson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/695626.Writing_Better_Lyrics