It is a delight to welcome Lisa Donovan Lukas back to the podcast. You can catch her previous interview at www.PianoParentPodcast.com/091.
During that interview Lisa mentioned her book, “The Young Musician’s Guide to Songwriting: How to Create Music & Lyrics” and today we get to dig into the details of her book even more.
Who is this book designed for?
Tweens and teens. Students of this age a making big leaps in their emotional development. They are discovering who they are. They have social challenges at school.
Music is a creative and safe way for them to work through emotions: joy, love, relationships, trials. “The Young Musician’s Guide to Songwriting” gives them tools to use and learn to work through all the ups and downs of the teenage years.
How did the book evolve?
Through a combination of my teacher’s influence and my own desire to learn to play pop artists when I was a teenager myself.
My mother would read books and poetry to us at night. When I was twelve I discovered Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. I would use their songs as a type of template. I would study the chord progressions and rhythms they use and add lyrics of my own.
Analyzing other songs is a great tool for developing your own tastes and style. The book contains lists of my favorite artists and songs as well as books to read for musical inspiration.
Wouldn’t it be fun to write a musical based on your favorite book?
How do you help your students get started with songwriting?
Songwriting is a great way to teach theory. Songwriting and composition share a lot of the same concepts. As students are learning another composer’s music, they gain a greater understanding of why they wrote the music the way they did.
Branching off from theory and analyzing other compositions gives students a place to jump start creativity.
Each chapter has exercises to help students generate ideas and develop those ideas.
Depending on the interest of the student, we work slowly over time. I try to incorporate one exercise in the lesson and see how the student connects with it.
We might analyze a song in the lesson for a few minutes. Notice the structure of the song. Listen to how many bars are in each section of the song. Listen to new musical ideas in the song and what chords help establish that new section. Identify the chord progressions.
Automatic Write: This is a great exercise to combat the blank page. Set a timer for five minutes and free write with no editing or criticism. Dump your thoughts on a blank piece of paper. When the timer goes off you’re done. There may be nothing there but there might be a germ of an idea that you can move forward with.
Some students start by writing a poem. We speak the poem to find rhythm patterns in spoken language. Then the student might add a melody and record it with a phone. In this creative part of the process, we don’t necessarily worry about notating these ideas. Many times, their musical ideas are more involved than what they currently capable of notating. Doing an audio recording captures the idea without interrupting their creativity.
Recording also helps if a student has too many ideas. We can record other ideas to save them but choose one or two ideas to develop one song at a time.
Teachers might consider a hosting summer songwriting camp or a monthly songwriting class.
Encourage your piano kid every step of the way.
Recording and Notation
Lisa is a self-proclaimed non-techie. She prefers to simply record piano and vocal using her iPhone.
Some students might be interested in adding percussion or bass guitar with recording software like GarageBand.
Lisa encourages her students to begin notating their music by hand. You might be interested in downloading your own staff paper with this online tool at MusicTheory.net.
Lisa uses Sibelius notation software for her compositions.
Students can experiment with free notation software online at Noteflight.com.
Connect with Lisa and get your copy of her book
“The Young Musician’s Guide to Songwriting” on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Join the “Young Musician’s Guide to Songwriting” Facebook community.
Get a sneak peek of Chapter One at www.LisaDonovanLukas.com.
Thanks for listening!
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My teen and tween students are reluctant to compose. Some are shy, some think it’s too much work. If they “doodle” on the piano, I immediately encourage them to write it down, and enthusiastically suggest how they can turn it into a piece. But only a couple share my enthusiasm. Any suggestions?
Hi, tolyjacob!
Thanks for listening and for the comment. I would have done the same thing you’re suggesting with my students, “Write that down!” I like Lisa’s suggestion of letting them record it on their phone or iPod so they don’t get bogged down in the details of notation. Give them the freedom to create and the writing will come later. 🙂