Today we worked on the prechorus that Ella brought in for her song!
There was one line that she didn't like exactly how it sang and wanted to work it a little bit. The line had a few too many words to fit the rhythm that Ella had come up with for the 2 lines previous. We wanted to make sure we maintained the integrity of the lyric that Ella had come up with - while cutting out a few words to make it fit her intended rhythm.
In order to do this, we tried out a few syncopated rhythms - or different ways to say the line - taking out and adding words in different places until we found one that meant the same thing, kept the cool phrasing that Ella wrote, and fit the correct rhythm.
Chorus melodies
We also worked on Chorus Melodies! We talked about how - if people only wrote songs when melodies and lyrics were flowing through them - songs would never get written (or at least not very many of them), so, coming up with systems that can help when you don't have any ideas or direction of where to go next is essential to songwriting success.
One tip that we worked on today was finding all the notes in the first chord of the chorus. Start with the bottom note of the chord - and try and come up with a melody that starts with that note. Then, go to the next note in the chord and try and come up with something different. Then, go to the third.
With each new melody idea - jam it out (or keep singing different extensions of the idea that you started with - even if it's bad and RECORD THE WHOLE THING!!). By committing to coming up with at least 3 chorus melodies that all work within the key that you are writing -- you can string together all of the best melody lines from the 3 different ideas and come up with something great!
Then, after putting these together - it can lead you to new ideas all over again until you come up with something that you are happy with!
Ella did SO AWESOME!!!! She has great ideas for her chorus -- her second and third one have KICK BUTT stuff that she can put together and make something incredible!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR IT!!!