Welcome to step 3
What to do? In this step I’m going to explain to you what I want you to do. I’ve made steps for you to make it easier. Investigate your special song and eventually you will have your own song. Let’s begin.
What do you need?
- A computer
- Headphones
- A Word document
- The resources in step 4.
First thing to do:
You are going on a investigation. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it!
You need to know what your special song is about. Look it up on the internet and listen to it multiple times. Make a Word document to type your answers. Don’t copy it from Google or anything. Your teacher will notice it, he or she is smarter than you think. ;)
You have to find out:
- The artist
- The title of the song
- Which part of the song is a couplet and a refrain
- Meaning
- You
Second thing to do:
Now you’re going to make a story in English of all the answers you’ve found on the internet. See it as a presentation of your artist and lyrics. You can type it in Word on a new page. And no, you’re not done when you just wrote down the answers, I want at least 25 lines. And make chapters so you don’t get confused. The title of a chapter DOESN'T count as a line. Good luck!
Third thing to do:
Allright, now you know what you’re special song is about and who sings it. You also know some things about the artist and you have translate the lyrics. You can separate the couplets from the refrains and know what makes a refrain, a refrain.
Right now, you are going to write your own song. Type it on a new page of your Word document. There’s a format for writing a song:
Intro - couplet - refrain - couplet - refrain - bridge - refrain - refrain – outro
You have to think about a theme, a subject. What would you like to sing about? Why would you like to sing about that? You can pick a melody of an existing song and search on Youtube. You just take the song you want to use and type behind the artist and title ‘karaoke’. You’ll get the karaoke version of the song and you can adjust your lyrics to the melody. You can also look at other lyrics for inspiration. Don't copy it, else it won't be YOUR song but just an other version of some else's song. For tips just look at step 4 for information and movie clips.
Fourth thing to do:
Type your song in a Word document and ask your teacher to print it out. Practice alone or with a friend. If you dare, you can perform it in class. If you don’t dare to perform in class. Hand in your assignment at your teacher and make an appointment with him or her so you can talk about your own song. If you're done with the assignment, you can also make a CD cover that fits with your song.
You can do it!