PART 1 : EDIT YOUR SONG LYRIC EXERCISE
1. Take your lyrics and record yourself or someone else reading them.
2. Don’t listen to them yet.
3. In 5 words or less, write down what your song is about.
4. Put your song aside.
5. Take 20 – 30 mins to do one thing around your house, garden or office from each action on the list below.
6. Share your activities with the group on facebook.
IDENTIFY
· Choose a space in your house, garden or office.
· Identify what you need to sort, rearrange, replace and prune/discard.
· Choose one thing to be sorted, one thing to be rearranged, one thing to be replaced and one thing to be pruned and/or discarded.
· Now do those things. Here are some examples:
REARRANGE something small in your chosen space.
Eg. Move a chair, a pot plant or stationary item to another place . Doesn’t have to be those things, do what occurs.
Maybe it’s something you’ve been meaning to rearrange for a while. It could be your activities for the day. Choose a small, simple action.
SORT the space or something in the space into like items.
Eg. Toothpaste with the toothbrushes, vase with the flowers, socks with their pairs, pencils in the pencil case etc.
REPLACE an item in your chosen space.
Eg. An empty box of tissues with a full one, a toilet roll, the water in a vase of flowers or the flowers, a light bulb, repot a plant into a bigger pot.
PRUNE AND DISCARD something in your chosen space.
Eg. The dead flowers in the vase, the empty toilet roll, that dress you haven’t worn in three years and never liked anyway.
CONGRATULATIONS – YOU HAVE JUST EDITED YOUR SPACE!
PART 2 EDIT YOUR SONG LYRIC
NOW YOU KNOW HOW EASY IT IS TO EDIT, LET’S TRY IT ON THE SONG!
1. Read the five word (or less) description of your song.
2. Listen to your song lyrics.
3. Take 20-30 mins to IDENTIFY, SORT, REAARANGE, REPLACE AND PRUNE/DISCARD part of your song to bring it in line with your description.
4. Use some of the suggestions and examples below to edit your lyrics or try your own ideas and notice how they change your song. If you like it, keep it, if you don’t, try something else.
5. Post your edited song on facebook
IDENTIFY:
· The sections, lines and words that match the description of your song.
· Mark the sections, lines or words to keep and the sections, lines or words to work on.
· Is your song in past, present or future tense or is it a mix? Which best matches the description?
· Is your song in the first person (I, we), second person (You) or third person (He, she, they) Which best matches the description?
Eg. If your song is about the horrors of war, perhaps the lines about chipmunks might not work.
SORT:
· Lines so that verses read as chapters in a story.
Eg. The lines about the chipmunks might work better being group together than being interspersed with the lines about park ranger.
· Lines that might work as chorus lines.
Eg. Short lines such as “We are Chipmunks”, strong words such as “Chipmunk”, or repetition such “Chipmunk, chipmunk, chipmunk” can all work as the catchy hook rather than the second line of the third verse.
REPLACE
· Strengthen lines by replacing everyday verbs (doing words) such as walk, sit, run with more specific action words such as kneel, gallop, stroll etc.
· Rewrite lines so that verbs no longer end in “ing”.
Eg. “I am running to school” becomes “I run to school.”
· Replace three words with one word that means the same thing.
Eg. “I love people such as you” could be changed to “I love you.”
· Replace verse, lines and words that don’t match the description of your song with ones that do.
Eg. “I hate eggs” in the fourth line of the first verse may not work if your song is about flying to the moon. Find a new line.
REARRANGE
· Move your lines around so that the strongest line finishes a verse or chorus.
EG:
“Well, since my baby left me,
I found a new place to dwell.
It's down at the end of lonely street
at Heartbreak Hotel.”
Sounds better than
“Down the end of lonely street
Is Heartbreak hotel
Since my baby left me
I’ve found somewhere else to dwell”
· Rearrange lines so that they preserve the natural order of speech.
Eg. Would you say, “The sun, it shone in my eyes, brightly?”
You’re more likely to say, “The bright sun shone in my eyes.”
PRUNE/DISCARD
· Adjectives (describing words)– see what happens when you take away adjectives from the front of nouns (things)
· Discard little words such as “and”, “just”, “the”, “as”
· Discard verses, lines and words that don’t match the description of your song.
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