Journal of Popular Music Education - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2019

The purpose of this case study was to examine Christine’s learning journey and music-making processes of songwriting in the Mandopop style over the course of a series of lessons. We begin this article by outlining our purpose and qualitative method, followed by a primer on Chinese popular music (C-pop). Next, we present a portrait of Christine to provide some context of her musical background, how she became interested in C-pop, and how she became interested in songwriting. We then proceed to describe Christine’s four-month songwriting journey with Adam as her instructor, and conclude by considering the implications of this case study for making Mandopop in music education.

Taking its departure in Beck’s rather unusual release Song Reader (2012), a collection of songs in the format of a sheet book rather than an album, the article investigates the concept of the songbook as mediator for the distribution of songs. This is done by the use of Kirkesangbogen (2017), an unauthorized supplement to the Danish Psalm Book, in which a great number of songwriters have contributed – among these Nikolaj Paakjær. The article documents how one of his songs, included in Kirkesangbogen, came into existence in dialogue with his supervisor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, where Paakjær attended the songwriting bachelor programme. In doing so, the article points to a number of pros and cons of publishing songs in the format of sheet music instead of the format of the album.

This article provides a brief overview of extant scholarly songwriting literature as well as accounting for the broader research into creativity, primarily from psychology and sociology. It outlines work from popular music studies that focuses on creativity before zooming in closer to studies directly addressing songwriting. Combining this research tradition with the wealth of primarily anecdotal, non-academic material about songwriting, this article then sets out an autoethnographic account of the author’s own development as a teacher of songwriting with reference to how my scholarly and musical work has informed the development of my own teaching of songwriting.

This article examines an undergraduate songwriting course offered at tertiary level. The article begins by providing a contemporary context for the song and songwriting processes. In doing so, it considers various definitions of song and of songwriting. These considerations provide context for the course development and its subsequent implementation. The associated research explores student motivations and objectives for undertaking the course and for engaging in songwriting more broadly. In addition to identifying a range of student aspirations, findings confirmed a diversity of musical abilities, instrumentation choices and songwriting processes among participants. Such diversity in creative modes reflects the need for educators to consider a range of songwriting processes and components. The article concludes by further considering how songwriting accounts for individualized creative expression in music education.

Literary and linguistic prosody principles can provide music educators and students with constructive, time honoured, deeply creative songwriting strategies. This article is an opportunity to share a direct and unique classroom experience of teaching prosody within songwriting. Through discussing a personal songwriting and teaching practice grounded in prosody, this article will present recommendations for a specific pedagogy underpinned by prosody for use in the songwriting classroom. Within this article the principles of literary and linguistic prosody will be outlined and discussed alongside songwriting strategies such as writing from a title, matching stressed syllables to stressed beats, metre, song structure and rhyme. The principle of prosody will also be expanded to involve the idea of unity and will be explained in relation to songwriting areas including rhythm, harmony, melody and performance.

Songwriting involves an awareness of form, structure, rhythm, harmony, melody, accompaniment and arrangement. In songs containing words, these elements combine with the lyric to propel a song into existence. Geared towards secondary and college settings, this article offers that starting the songwriting process with lyric creation is an engaging alternative to starting with more harmonic- and melodic-based approaches. Group activities and teamwork can allow for a more broadly engaged class or ensemble, and has implications for parallel use in core academic areas such as English or writing. This article will discuss song structure and forms, prosody, limiting and the creative process, and explore three lyric-centred approaches to songwriting that can jump-start lyric and song creation in a solo, ensemble or classroom setting.