Deep Songwriting - A Practical Guide to Writing Song from the Heart | Laura Lamn | Skillshare
Search

Playback Speed


1.0x


  • 0.5x
  • 0.75x
  • 1x (Normal)
  • 1.25x
  • 1.5x
  • 1.75x
  • 2x

Deep Songwriting - A Practical Guide to Writing Song from the Heart

teacher avatar Laura Lamn, Singer / Seamstress / Sound Engineer

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Introduction

      3:22

    • 2.

      About This Class

      1:21

    • 3.

      Breathe and Warm Up

      8:53

    • 4.

      Understanding Your Taste

      8:50

    • 5.

      Setting Scenes

      4:53

    • 6.

      Advanced Rhyme and Meter

      9:27

    • 7.

      Study and Memorise The Masters

      6:13

    • 8.

      Observation and Listening

      3:27

    • 9.

      Songwriting Recipe

      3:12

    • 10.

      Setting Space

      1:45

    • 11.

      Songseeds and Songpsaces

      3:34

    • 12.

      Designing a Session

      5:19

    • 13.

      Songseed and Songspace 1 - Comfort

      15:59

    • 14.

      Deep songwriting Songseed 2 - Connection

      16:23

    • 15.

      Deep songwriting Songseed 3 - Catharsis

      16:18

    • 16.

      Deep songwriting Songseed 4 - Clarity

      15:48

    • 17.

      Deep songwriting Songseed 5 - Celebrate

      16:46

    • 18.

      Examples and Discussion

      1:50

    • 19.

      Finishing Songs

      5:32

    • 20.

      Goodbye

      1:08

  • --
  • Beginner level
  • Intermediate level
  • Advanced level
  • All levels

Community Generated

The level is determined by a majority opinion of students who have reviewed this class. The teacher's recommendation is shown until at least 5 student responses are collected.

219

Students

1

Project

About This Class

In this class you will learn how to translate your feelings and life experiences into meaningful, heartfelt songs.  You will learn tools, techniques and get inspired to develop your own nourishing songwriting practice. 

Songwriting is a spiritual practice and a self care practice. It can act as a form of catharsis, and a way to sit with difficult emotions.

This style of songwriting practice isn’t about end results, it’s about the process. It’s a journey of self discovery. Through writing songs you can explore all the facets of your self and give voice to parts that are hurting or hiding.

This class will offer you a simple, guided, step-by-step process for writing songs. If you are a beginner, this class will give you a place to start. If you are already songwriting this class will re-invigorate your practice.

In the first half of this class we will work  through some concepts, techniques and tools for songwriting. Then in the second half we will get really practical and design a songwriting session and then using what I can songseeds and songspaces you will write your own songs. To close we will talk about to finish songs, and then how to share them if you choose to.

What will I need to take this class?
A journal
A recording device (as simple as your phone, just to capture what you write!)

Let’s write some heartfelt songs together!

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Laura Lamn

Singer / Seamstress / Sound Engineer

Teacher

Singer / Songwriter / Seamstress / Recording Studio Owner / Sound Engineer / Skillshare Teacher

Hi! I'm Laura Lamn

I'm a folk artist living and working in Kent, the Garden of England. I sing and write songs inspired by the Kentish landscape around me, and my inner landscape. I am a sound engineer and have recorded music for myself and others using my portable music studio, Possibility Studio. I sew historical folk inspired clothing for myself, and toys and clothes for my son. I am a Rising Teacher on Skillshare and have a growing collection of online classes in my Skillshare library. I love drawing and painting, and love to express myself through ink doodles. I have created Zines and Prints of my art.

I have recorded an... See full profile

Level: All Levels

Class Ratings

Expectations Met?
    Exceeded!
  • 0%
  • Yes
  • 0%
  • Somewhat
  • 0%
  • Not really
  • 0%

Why Join Skillshare?

Take award-winning Skillshare Original Classes

Each class has short lessons, hands-on projects

Your membership supports Skillshare teachers

Learn From Anywhere

Take classes on the go with the Skillshare app. Stream or download to watch on the plane, the subway, or wherever you learn best.

Transcripts

1. Introduction: If you love and enjoy listening to music, then you can write songs. In this deep songwriting class, we will learn how to write songs from the heart. Songwriting is an amazing tool for self expression. It can help us process the highs and lows of life and make sense of our feelings and life experiences. Hello, my name is Laura Lamb, and I'm a singer, songwriter, song sharer, poet and seamstress with over ten years experience. My songs have traveled all over the world. From being played out at the LA Convention Center, to 20,000 people. To being played on BBC radio in England, to MTV in America. To being shared internationally at community choirs. And in. I love using language, sounds and song as a therapeutic tool for myself and for others. There are three common myths about songwriting. Myth number one is that songwriting is a natural talent, that it's a special gift for the special W. This is false. Songwriting is a practice and it can be improved with time. If I listen back to the songs I wrote ten years ago, they have got much, much better over time. Myth number two is that you need loads of time to write songs. This is false Once you develop a strong songwriting practice, you can write songs in little snatches of time to capture your feelings and your life experiences. Myth number three is that you need to be able to read sheet music and understand music theory. This is false. I've been writing songs for ten years and I have test tiniest bit of music theory knowledge. And I cannot read sheet music. It's a bit like meditation. In meditation, you learn how to still your mind so that when life gets turbulent, you're able to calm yourself. In songwriting, we learn how to translate our life experiences and feelings into songs. Then with this skill, we can start to document our life and understand our feelings in a constructive way. Many of us carry a heavy and hard inner critic. And in this style of songwriting we will work with and work around this. In the first half of this class, we will work through some concepts, techniques, and tools to help you with your songwriting, with a particular focus on language and poetry. Then in the second half, we'll get really practical and design a songwriting session using what I call song seeds and song spaces. Song seeds and song spaces are something that I've created to guide you and support you through your songwriting practice. To close, we'll talk about how to finish songs and then how to share them. If you choose to, sitting in front of a blank piece of paper can be intimidating. But in this class, I hold your hand and guide you step by step. So in the end, you will have one or more beautiful songs. This class is suitable for total beginners or those with some experience who'd like to reinvigorate their songwriting practice. All you need is to set aside some time and something to document your songs. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, it can just be the voice, no app on your phone. And you might also like a journal to write your lyrics down. I'm so excited to share this class with you. Songwriting has helped me so much in my life, and I can't wait to teach these skills to you. Songwriting is a spiritual practice and a self care practice. It can act as a form of catharsis and help us process and sit with difficult emotions. Let's go and write some songs from the Heart together. See you in class. 2. About This Class: Welcome and congratulations for signing up to this class. A special shout out to you if you're completely new to songwriting and this is a bit out of your comfort zone. Well done for being brave. And a special shout out to those of you who are more seasoned songwriters who are just looking for a bit of inspiration. There will be something here for you too. In the first half of this class, we'll walk through some concepts, techniques, tools for songwriting, as well as doing a vocal warm up. And then in the second half will get really practical design a songwriting session and start songwriting. To close, we will talk about how to finish songs and how to share them if you choose to. Skillshare classes often include a project as part of them. And the project in this one is to write your own songs, which you will do. I leave it up to you whether you'd like to share them, so you can upload a song you've written in the project section if you choose to. I would love to see them. But I also understand that can be a bit vulnerable and you might like to keep them to yourself or just share them with some close friends. I'm about on the discussions tab, so if you've got any questions as you work through your class, please do pop a question in the Discussions tab and I'll get back to you. Alongside this class is the Deep Songwriting workbook. You can go and download that in the Resources tab or you'll find some extra things in there that might be helpful. Right now we know what's to expect from class. Let's start with a vocal warm up. I'll see you in the next lesson. 3. Breathe and Warm Up: Welcome to the vocal, warm up. When we are relaxed, all the muscles that we need to use for singing function properly. When our mind is relaxed, we can get ourselves into the there state or the creative state, which is the best state to be in for writing songs. I recommend doing a practice like this, a simple short practice. Every time you sit down to sing or write songs, let's get stuck into our vocal warm up. First of all, the invitation is to get comfortable in your seat. Wherever you're sat, you might just want to have a little fidget, adjust yourself and get comfortable. Feel yourself sat on your chair or on the floor. Just feel your body in the here and now. One place we often tense up is our jaw relaxing. The jaw can spread down and relax our whole body. Taking a moment with eyes shut to let the jaw relax, you might even let the mouth hang open slightly. Feeling that relaxation from the jaw travel down the neck and shoulders, breathing a sigh of relief, giving the shoulders and the neck a little rub. Again, these are places we hold tension. I know for myself when I sit on the computer, really tense up my shoulders and I can feel knots here. My shoulders just rubbing any knots, nice little circles with your hands. Just giving attention to any places that feel. So you might even like to hold. If you find a knot, just press and hold. Hearing ourselves some love and kindness today. Tuning back into the jaw, letting that jaw relax again. We're going to do a few nervous system calming breaths. What that is, is we're going to breathe in deeply and slowly through the nose. And then we're going to breathe out through the mouth as if we are breathing out through a with pursed lips. Let's get ready to do that together. Just a normal out breath to begin in through the nose, out through a straw. I want you to be breathing into your lower ribs. Into your side ribs. I don't want to see your shoulders or feel your shoulders going up, So just focusing on breathing down. Let's do another one of them. In through the nose, out through a straw. Last one, I'm just checking in with a jaw again, letting it soften. Also noticing how you're sat on your seat where I'm filming. I tend to naturally lean forward a bit. We'll all have our in tendency, whether it's to lean back or lean forward. Just find yourself centered. Now let's slowly bat the eyes open gently, give the fingers and toes a little wiggle. Now we are going to do our body scan. Body warm up. What we'll do is we'll start from the feet and we'll move all the way up to the head. And I call this the golden olive oil. Warm up. You'll sing along with me. I'll sing like this in the field war, olevoilld you sing with me. And then when we are mentioning that part, you might like to give it a little wiggle. So I'm giving my feet a little wiggle now for example. Or you might like to just envision warm olivoil warming up all the muscles, bones, tendons in that part. Taking a nice deep breath to begin breathing out with a sigh in the field, malevoil in the field, in the calves, warm olive oil in the calves, in the ankles. Warm olive oil in the ankles, in the knees. Warm olive oil in the knee, in the thighs. Warm olive oil in the thub, in the hip. Warm olive oil in the hips, in the belly. Warm olive oil in the bell, in the reps. Lev Oil in the rib, in the shoulders, oil in the shoulders, in the armslivoil, in the arm, arms in the hands, warlevoil in the hand. Then for our neck, we're going to do an R and we'll do both ways. So we go like this other way, slow and gentle. Oh, oh, the way. Oh, this side of the face. A yawn on this side of the face. A yawn on this side of the face. Oh, then we do some sirens, so we. Can you do that with me? Ooh. Ooh. Just noticing we. Are there any cracks in your voice? We're just smoothing everything out. Finally we're going to do an art, and we're going to do it as slow as possible. When we get to the end, we're going to croak like this. Together we go one more of them. A, Oh lovely. Now we warm up all our resonating chambers. So, starting with our mouth and lips, you might feel the lips tingling. Nice breath. And then the nose with the letter N. You might like to touch the bridges of your nose and you should feel it vibrate. You can try different notes. And then the, you like to touch your throat here. Ung, higher. Ung, ung. And then we go, ungm, ung, mung, lovely. Let's just relax those jaws and shoulders one more time. Take one more, nice deep breath, Sigh of relief. Lovely. Now we're all warmed up. I'll see you in the next lesson, bye. 4. Understanding Your Taste: Welcome to Understanding Your Taste. This is the first lesson where we're really going to dive into tools and techniques for songwriting. The fundamental principle to understand here is that if you know what your taste is and you understand it, then you're able to recreate it or create it. And I would argue that there's only really two lyrical styles and they are conversational and poetic. So a conversational lyrical style just sounds like we're talking like how I'm talking now. If you wrote the lyrics out, it would just sound like someone talking. And then the second style is poetic, so it sounds more like poetry when you read it out. I would also argue that the best songwriters switch between the two. So in different songs, they switch between conversational and a poetic style. And as well as that, they might within a song switch from conversational to poetic. What makes something poetic? You can go down a rabbit hole trying to understand all the different poetic devices. But I'm just here to give you a summary, a little brief overview of six poetic devices which will help you in your songwriting. Number one is simile and that's when you use like or as, so you might say slow as a snail or think of the beetles. I've been working a dog like or as. I've got a good example here, some British hip hop for you. And the lyric goes, this lady's driving me crazy. She blows hot and cold like the AC. So we all know what it's like when the air conditioning blows hot and cold. It's really annoying. And he is using that as a simile to describe a woman who is blowing hot and cold like the AC. So that's a fantastic simile example for you. Number two is metaphor, which is very similar to simile but rather than using like or as you just go ahead and say, rather than saying slow as a snail, you would say you are a slow snail. This can be really useful to step into this abstract thinking for how you describe things. I've got a good example of this, a song that's going to be on my new album which is called Rainfalls. And the lyrics, all I'm doing is describing the weather, but it's a metaphor for our own feelings. I sing when the rain falls, don't bother me at all. When the rain falls, don't bother me at all. The rain falls, it don't bother me at all because I know it's washing me clean. So, you know, I'm not really talking about the rain, I am talking about the rain. But I'm using that as a metaphor for sadness or difficult feelings and how sadness and difficult feelings can wash us clean. I love simile and metaphor because they really help expand your mind with abstract thinking. So the English language is limited and sometimes it's hard to describe something that's not the right word for it. And that's where we can use simile or metaphor to get across our feeling and what we want to say. Number three is rhyme and number four is meter. We are going to cover advanced rhyme and meter in a lesson coming up soon. Number five is repetition, which is pretty obvious. It's when you repeat things. In most pop songs, the chorus repeats. Then sometimes within a chorus, there might be a word that repeats. An example that came to mind is, I'm a fan of Julia Donaldson and her children's books. In the highway Rat, she says the highway at what? She says the highway rat went. Riding, riding, riding, Riding along the highway and stealing the travelers food. It can be quite repetition can draw you in and it can create some flow within the lyrics. Then the number six, the final one is illusion. I used this at the very beginning of this lesson when I said that poetic devices could take you down a rabbit hole. You didn't think that I was literally going to take you and put you in a rabbit hole. You understood that was a reference from Alice in Wonderland. In all, we use references from culture, from history to help someone understand something. And now, just to give you an example, I'm going to give you an example of conversational songwriting and poetic songwriting. If you head to the workbook, all these names of artists will be written down. If you are interested in an artist I mentioned you want to follow up, just head to the songwriting workbook and you'll have all that in there. This first example is James Blake. He's got a song called, I Never Learned to Share. The lyric that repeats over and over is just my brother and my sister don't speak to me and I don't blame them. That is something that sounds like I'm just talking to you. It's not overly poetic. There's not. Um rhyme. There's not any similes. It's just saying, my brother and my sister don't speak to me and I don't blame them. It's a beautiful song, I recommend checking it out. Then on the flip side, there's another James Blake song that I've picked as an example that was originally written by Feist and it's called Limit to Your Love. You might know this song and it's very poetic. There's a limit to your love. Like a waterfall in slow motion, like a map with not, there's a limit to your love. So he's using simile there like a waterfall in slow motion, like a map with no ocean. I think poetic devices and poetry is really interesting in songwriting because it can be understood in many different ways. Yeah, a different people can interpret it to mean what they want it to mean, and I think that's what makes poetic songwriting connect with people. A little challenge for you now. Pick one of your favorite songs and just pick it apart lyrically. What are they doing? Are they speaking more conversationally? Are they using poetic devices? And which ones and which ones really stand out to you? Which ones work? I'm going to tell you my example. I've picked cranes in the sky by slang les. Again, if you want to find a link to this head to the deep songwriting book and all the songs and examples are in there. This song is fantastic because it uses some conversational and some poetic. Let's read out the lyrics. I tried to drink it away. I tried to put one in the air. I tried to dance it away. I tried to change it with my hair, although to me this sounds quite conversational. She's using repetition because she keeps saying tried. I tried to drink it away. I tried to put one in the air. I tried to dance it away. I tried to change it with my hair. The repetition really emphasizes things. She's also using rhyme because she's rhyming air and hair. She's also using meter, which we'll find out more in the advanced rim and meter class then in the chorus. Where are the chorus lyrics here? Well, it's like cranes in the sky. Sometimes I don't want to feel those metal clouds. To me, this is very abstract to understand. I didn't even understand it until I Googled it. It's a reference to where she was living in America and they're doing a lot of building work and how that made her feel seeing the cranes in the sky. Well, it's like cranes in the sky. That's simile sometimes. I don't want to feel those metal clouds. What's it like to feel the metal cloud? What's that like for you? An interesting thing to explore. I think that when you go too poetic sometimes it can be a bit alienating. It's like you're off in the clowns and people can't understand what you're talking about. And if you're too conversational, then it doesn't access people's imagination. So that's why I love switching between conversational and poetic. So that's this lesson wrapped up on understanding your taste. Hopefully from watching this, you'll start to understand your lyrical taste more. Do you like more conversational songs? Do you like more poetic songs? Your favorite artists, are their lyrics more conversational or poetic or do they blend the two or switch between the two? Just make a note of that, that when you start writing songs, you'll know which part of yourself to access, the more conversational side or the more poetic side. Okay, let's head into the next lesson where we're going to discuss setting scenes. 5. Setting Scenes: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to discuss setting scenes. Before I became a mother, I used to like traveling. A lot is much harder now traveling with a little one, but the way I can travel is through music. Music can transport you to different people's lives and different places in the world. Lyrically, that is done by describing what's going on outside and what's going on inside through someone's song. We arrive plunked in a moment and they might describe their physical surroundings, what they can see, what's in the room. White walls, camera, laptop. Or they might be describing what's going on inside, relaxed, happy chatting. The inner experience or the outer experience. Let's think of an example again. Can you think of a song that really beautifully sets a scene, whether inside or outside? I found a really nice example. This song is by Maggie Rogers and it's called Alaska. You'll find a link in the deep songwriting workbook at the beginning of the song. First of all, she describes outside, she describes the scenery. I was walking through, icy streams that took my breath away. Moving slowly through westward water over glacial plains. She's walking through Alaska. Then for the core, she switches inside now. Breathe deep. I'm inhaling and there's air in between me, I'm exhaling and there's air in between. She's describing some letting go process that's going on inside her. And it's really nice how she takes you to a place, she takes you to Alaska, and then she takes you into her inner experience. Your challenge now is to describe your scene, describe it from the outside, and describe it from the inside, how you're feeling. Depending on where you are, there might not be that much visually to look at where I am in this room. It would be a bit limited. You might want to go to a window or go outside in the town or go out in nature to describe your scene, if you're at home, you might like to imagine like a bird flying above and what you can see on a wider perspective. If I was going to describe my outside as just in here festival, I could say green plant, white walls, light on the ceiling, gray floor, Things I can see, going to describe it from a bird's eye view. It would be a bit more interesting because I could say willow tree, field of pasture sheep. A little path leading to a house in a village with a green door, a stream filled with crayfish. I'm starting to create the scene of nature around me. And then I could describe what's going on inside. So I could describe how I'm feeling. That could be physically how I'm feeling. Could check in with my heart and see how my heart's feeling. My mind, what's going on. It could almost do a body scan to notice how you're feeling and all these different parts that's setting the scene outside and inside. When you're describing a scene, the way you can make it more interesting is where you're describing it from. I just discussed about being like a bird flying above. Could you also be under, could you also be next to, could you be a person? Be watching? So the perspective that you set the scene from can add interest and color. And then there's also whether you're going to describe it conversationally, very directly or poetically. For example, I could say I have a headache, or I could say my head thumps, it, bang, bang, bang, like sharp needles. Then I'm using repetition. I'm using simile. Just have a go at when you are describing your scene, the outside and the inside. Describing it conversationally and describing it poetically. The reason I've talked about conversational and poetic, and also about setting scenes outside and inside, is that these can really help as tools when you get stuck in songwriting. If you find yourself writing very conversationally, it's getting a bit stuck. Then you can switch and use a poetic device, or if you are describing what's going on outside you and you just start to get stuck. You can start to look at things from a different perspective. From above, from below. From inside. These things can really help your songwriting moving when you're in a songwriting session, if you go to your deep songwriting workbook, you'll find a section in there called Fresh Perspective, which can help you view your song that you're writing from a different perspective and give you some fresh ideas. Go and download that now. And for now, we're going to head to the next lesson which is about advanced rhyme and mere see you in the next lesson. 6. Advanced Rhyme and Meter: Hello, welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to go over advanced rhyme and meter. Which I would say is one of the most important things that's really improved my songwriting and the thing that can really help your songwriting. In this class, I'm going to describe some techniques and ways of understanding these things. But I would say that the absolute, absolute, absolute best way to fully understand advanced rhyme and mere is by listening to really good hip hop. And reading, and listening to good poetry. If you go to the deep songwriting workbook, I've got some of my favorites listed there. And you might like to ask some friends who are hip hop fans or poetry fans to suggest some things to listen to or read which will help you understand advanced rhyme and mere. Okay, let's start with a basic rhyme. So a basic rhyme is when you just rhyme ham and jam, head and bed. It can be useful at times, but it's not as interesting as more advanced rhyme. And we are now going to explore two things for advanced rhyme, which would be off rhyme and in a rhyme, I've written a really bad two line poem to convey in a rhyme and off rhyme. And that is, I like my bike that I ride. I might just bite a yummy pi ride. And pi don't exactly rhyme, they're off rhyme. I've also heard the term used slant rhyme. It just basically means they don't exactly rhyme. Because ride would rhyme with slide and it's got that D in there and pi would rhyme with high. But you can actually rhyme the two, They still sound okay? And they still rhyme. And they can be useful when we get to in a minute, the multiple syllable rhyme. That's one thing, off rhyme. And then in a rhyme is that within the line, things rhyme. In exceptional two line poem, it says, I like my bike that I ride. I might just be a yummy pie and bike rhyme. And me and byte rhyme, it just keeps the rhythm of the line carrying on. Those are two techniques in a rhyme and off rhyme. I'm going to give you a bit more of an advanced example from Eminem, who is, in my opinion, one of the most incredible technical lyrical writers. He says, in cleaning out my closet, all this commotion, emotion runs deep as oceans exploding, tempers flaring from parents, just blow them off and keep going. You've got the two lines there and exploding and going rhyme obviously. Then within the first line, you've got commotion. Emotion runs deep as oceans. You've got three rhymes within that first line. Then the second one, we've got tempers flaring from parents, just blow them off and keep going. Flare in and parents rhyming. That's another example of rhyme and off rhyme off rhyme within that particular one is flare in and parents in my English accent, if I said flaring and parents they don't rhyme at all. But because of M and M's accent flaring and parents they like sound enough that they rhyme. So that's another version of off rhyme for you to get some more examples. Now we're going to talk about multiple syllable rhyme, which is what so many hip hop artists use to make rhyme more interesting. I got obsessed with multiple syllable rhyme, and it can be a really fun game, which we're going to go into in a minute. I've just picked a lyric from one of my songs, which is a song called Pain Game, which is on my first album. And it says, looked at the parts that were causing me pain. But when I looked again, it was all in my brain at the end of the line causing pain. And all in my brain, all those syllables rhyme. It creates causing me pain. Four syllables at the end that really rhyme. It glues it together so nicely. With multiple syllable rhyme, it's often a slant rhyme or an off rhyme. It doesn't matter because for example, causing me and all in causing they're not really an exact rhyme. They're an off rhyme because there's no causing, it's got all in. But when you hear them together, looked at the parts that were causing me pain. But when I looked again, it was all in my brain. You'll see how it's just got that lovely flow to it. How do you improve your rhyme? One way is by playing a game. You can play this on your own or with friends. One of you starts with a first line, and then you try it and rhyme with it as as many times as you can. For example, I used to play this when I was 16 with my best friend, Flora, waiting for the bus, if I said sit in on my seat. Listen to the beat. Isn't it a sweet, give me a treat. You repeat. When you start doing this, you might come out with a bit of nonsense. When you run out of things, listen to the beat, diddle, de beat, riddle, treat. You're just trying to get that feeling of multiple syllable rhyme more things, rhyming. It's quite nice to do this out. To say out, like I said with a friend, it can be quite a fun game to do back and forth. Or you might just want to do it on your own with your journal. Or you might just like to have a little voice recorder and record yourself free styling as it's called. A little challenge for you. Can you set aside some time this week? 10 minutes, 20 minutes to play the rhyme game on your own or with a friend. And then share any insights in the discussions tab. Okay, so that was advanced rhyme. Now onto meter. I only discovered the word meter from when I started planning this class, when I was trying to actually describe things. So if you've never heard the word meter, don't worry about it. And I really wouldn't waste your time googling things because a bit like with poetic devices, you could just go down a rabbit hole reading about different kinds of meter, which is something I did. I wasted an hour of my life reading about different kinds of meter and it's not going to actually improve my songwriting skills. What is going to improve your songwriting skills is listening to other people who are using meter. Well, you might like to Google it if you want to, but I'm going to tell you a few basic things that you need to know. Meter is basically how many syllables are in something, Which syllables have more emphasis. I'm going to have some examples here to explain that. If you go to the deep songwriting workbook as I've mentioned earlier, there are examples of really good poetry and really good hip hop where they use mere. But I'm just going to give you an example now. This is an example from Julia Donaldson's book, Room on the Broom. She is one of my favorite children's books, writers. And she says, in Room On the Broom, how the witch wailed and how the cat spat when the wind blew so wildly it blew off the hat. Now if you just watch my hand, this is how I experience the rhyme, the words that it emphasized to me. It goes like in two circles and then it goes, bomb, bom, bom. So let's do it. How the witch wailed and how the cat spat when the wind blew so wildly it blew off the hat. You'll see how wailed and spat in the first line, which wailed and cat spat. And then it's almost like alternate later when the wind blew so wildly it blew off the hat. This can be partly down to delivery. So when you listen to hip hop music, you'll hear the way people deliver things. They might emphasize a word that wouldn't in natural conversation get emphasized, but it helps the, the flow of the line when you read it in poetry, you'll find that some words just command that bit more intention. Command that bit more attention. And then when you read them, it really creates that Bob bon, bon bon thing going on. Okay, to summarize this class, we've gone over advanced rhyme. We've talked about inner rhyme, off rhyme, multiple syllable rhyme. And we've talked about me, when you start to use poetic devices, I think grammar sometimes goes out the window, so I wouldn't worry too much about what you're saying, whether it makes perfect sense or whether it be correct grammatically. So I would say if an English school teacher read some of the poetic greats, in some of the hip hop greats, they would say that the grammar wasn't perfect. And that is okay. We're just going to let go of grammar when it comes to songwriting, because it gives us more freedom. How do you really integrate good rhyme, good meter, and good poetry, and good ways of writing? I think it's by studying the Masters and by memorizing. In the next lesson, we are going to go over how we can best study the Masters and memorize. See you in the next lesson. 7. Study and Memorise The Masters: Welcome to study the Masters and Memorize that. In this lesson we're going to talk about just that I have noticed in my many years as a songwriter and a musician that some people just get really obsessed with technique and theory. And it's useful, but also in a way it can limit you. I think the best way of understanding good lyrics, good music, good poetry, is by absorbing it and memorizing it. So how do you choose which music is good to listen to? You Listen to music that you like that moves you. If it moves you, it moves other people. And then when you write songs that move you, they will move other people. I always like listening to new music. And I go through phases where there's a bit of a drought and I don't find anything good to listen to. But I find the best way for me to discover new music is to ask my close friends who love music. So if you've got any friends who are music lovers, they might send some interesting music your way. In the deep songwriting workbook, I've listed some musicians that came to mind now in a few different genres, and that might start you on a little journey of discovery. I also like it if I go on Spotify or music streaming services or Youtube, that when you watch one thing, it sometimes recommends something. In a similar vein, sometimes it's off and you don't like it. But it can be quite interesting to see what is recommended to you. And I have found many artists that I love. For example, Volfpeck through curated playlists that are on, I personally use Apple music as a streaming platform, so you might discover new music like that. Discover it on band camp. You might, I don't know about you, but I don't think people so much read music magazines or music blogs. But when I have done that, I found interesting music. So if you're going through a bit of a drought and you run out of music to listen to ask a friend, use the Internet and use my little list to get started. If you really want to get the most out of listening to music, you need to practice active listening. Active listening means that you are 100% listening to music. So often music gets used as a d backdrop to our lives, which is lovely. You know, you play it in the car when you're with your friends. You play it maybe when you're doing housework and it's something just to cheer you up. But active listening is where you sit down, get comfortable, and you listen to music as if you're watching a movie. And you really actively listen to the lyrics to what's going on with the music, the different instruments. And that's how you really get more out of the music. The more attention you pay, the more you will receive from the music. Next step on from that, from active listening is memorizing it. Through memorizing good poetry and good music. It gets into your body, it goes into your brain, your neural pathways. I think this is the way that I've really improved my lyrical skills and my melody writing skills is by learning really good music. I also think if you look into the science of this is really good for your brain and your memory to memorize things. For example, Julia Donaldson's room on the broom book moved me so much that I've memorized the whole book. I'm not going to do the whole thing now. I'll just do the first line because it's just so nice. The witch had a cat and a very tall hat and long ginger hair, which she wore in a plait. How the cat and how the witch grinned as they sat on their broomstick and flew through the wind. But how the witch wailed and how the cat spat when the wind blew so wildly it blew off the hat. It's a brilliant book, recommend reading it. And through the art of memorizing it, it has definitely improved my songwriting. On some level, I'm going to try and not go into a rant now about music, but basically, music used to belong to people. We would get together with our instruments, with our voices, and make music together. And it would be a very participatory, active process. When recorded music came out, it was brilliant and I love recorded music because then music can travel all over the world. But the problem with recorded music is it made people passive, like they couldn't get involved. You go and watch a good band and you're just watching them. Oh, I couldn't do that. Part of my work as a song leader, I run singing groups with women, is that I want to get everyone singing. And this is just a bit of encouragement for you that you definitely can write songs and you definitely can sing. But maybe because of being born in the here and now with recorded music, it sometimes feels like it's a special skill that only a few people have, but really it's a skill for everyone. How do you memorize lyrics and songs? Keep repeating it, keep practicing it. Make pictures in your mind. Really good poetry is actually easy to memorize. I really took very little effort in memorizing room on the broom. I just loved it so much and seeing the picture book really help me as well. So in my mind I see the pictures when I recite the poem, experiment with different ways of memorizing. I love learning songs as well as memorizing poetry. If you go to my teacher profile as of making this video, there's two other classes which involve learning songs. There is singing for self soothing and intuitive harmony, in which I teach you songs by ear, which is how we always used to learn songs. We listen to a song, we sang it back. So if you'd like to practice your song learning skills and your musical memory in that way, head to my teacher profile and you can go to those classes. I've also put links to them in the deep songwriting workbook. A little challenge for you. Set aside ten to 20 minutes this week to memorize one of your favorite songs or poems. The best way to memorize is little and often start a memorizing practice now. And then share any insights in the discussions tab. See you in the next lesson. 8. Observation and Listening: Welcome back. In this lesson, we're going to talk about starting an observation and listening practice. So I personally keep a journal, and I recommend that all songwriters keep a journal and that you just start paying attention to life. And that means paying attention to everything that's going on around you. Everything you can see, everything you can hear. And also paying attention to your own inner experience and having a go writing about it. And then you will develop your own language for describing your world both on the outside and on the inside. It's a way of being present in life, and to me, that's a very healing thing to do. It brings wholeness when you don't reject anything. When you just see and are present with. What is there to improve your observation and listening practice? I have written out a few creative prompts or games that you can play. You'll find them all listed in the deep songwriting workbook. And I'm just going to talk about all four of them right now. The first one is called Look Up, Look Down. And so often in our life we just keep our eyes at eye level and just notice what's going on at eye level. So the challenge is here to walk or spend some time in nature where you either look down or look up. And you might like to set a timer for a certain amount of time to walk around and look down for 10 minutes, or walk around and look up for 20 minutes. It's particularly interesting in cities. When you look up, you'll notice some funny things about buildings that you might have walked past your whole life. And you didn't notice it until you started looking up. Then after the experience of either looking up or looking down, you write down in your journal what you observed. Number two is streams of consciousness. This is basically where you just get a pen and paper and you just write a stream of whatever is going on in your mind. I find this particularly useful if I'm feeling very overwhelmed or stressed. If I just write right, right, right, right, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm a bit confused. What am I writing about? It's this thing that's bothering me. You just keep going. Writing, writing, writing, same with the other exercise. It might be nice to set a timer for 10 minutes, 20 minutes just to write everything out. And this can be a very clearing process to clear your mind before a songwriting session onto game three. Call this one, Look and Listen in the city. And that is exactly as it describes. You bring your journal, you go and find yourself in the town or the city, and you just start to pay attention to what you can see, what you can hear, and what you can feel, and write it down in your journal. With the other exercises you might like to set a time or two. And then the fourth exercise, which is a bit like the look and listen in the city. But it's just look and listen in nature. Go out, find a spot in nature and observe what you see, what you hear, and what you feel. I used to live in London, and I really notice now if I go into a busy town or a busy city, what it does to my body and mind. And this process, for you might be quite interesting to see. How does the town or the city make me feel? What do I see? What do I hear? What do I feel? And how does nature, how does, how does that make me feel? I have a challenge for you. Can you set aside ten or 20 minutes this week to try out one of the creative prompts? You will find them all in the deep songwriting workbook. And if you'd like to talk about your experience of working with one of those prompts, please head to. Please head to. Please head to the Discussions tab where we can have a chat about how the experience was for you. Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Songwriting Recipe: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to talk about the four things we need for our songwriting recipe. Number one is time, two is space, three is intention, and four is a structured practice. Let's go over each one number one time. This is so obvious, but so fundamental that we need to set aside time for our songwriting practice in order for it to develop. For example, when you arrange to meet a friend, you set a date, you set a time, you make a commitment, you put it in your diary, and you don't let anyone mess with it with our creative practices. Often they get put at the bottom of the list and we make time for other things. What I would like you to do is set aside time in your diary. Now you might like to pause the video and work out a time that works for you. We're all a bit different. I'm more of a morning person. I'm much fresher in the morning. Other people are more creative in the evening. So think about yourself. Pick out the best time for you, a creative time for you, and set aside some time. Now, how much time should you set aside? This is totally up to you. I find that the minimum, bare, minimum time for songwriting is 15, 20 minutes, but that's not very long. You might want more like 40 minutes or an hour. And then I also say, you don't want too long for me, anything over an hour, I get distracted. Songwriting requires a certain head space, and I think it's better to do little and often than set aside really long periods of time. Also, your concentration will develop over time to develop a longer practice, if you wish. Number two is space. I've set aside a whole lesson on this. It's the next lesson, we will get to space in the next lesson. Number three is intention with low pressure. If we have two people, one who says, I think I might try writing a song that sounds like fun, or I could never write a song. This is pointless. Why do I even bother? Which person is more likely to write a song? Is this person just setting some simple and kind intention? Then on the other hand, when it swings too far, is this person who says, I'm going to write a number one hit song, that's going to be a hit song all over the world, or I'm going to have an enjoyable songwriting practice. Who's more likely to write a good song? This option here puts too much pressure on yourself when you are trying to do something really good. That is not a good idea, setting your intention and a low pressure intention. Then number four is a held and structured practice which we're going into. If you don't have a practice, a way of writing songs, it can seem very alien and strange and you just sit down with your blank paper and you don't know what to do. But in this class, we have a very structured practice which best puts us in the creative space and is conducive to writing songs. So those are the four things we need. Let's dive into the next lesson where we're going to go into the nitty gritty of setting space. See you in the next lesson. 10. Setting Space: Setting space, it's really important to find a space for ourselves where our nervous system feels calm and we can be creative. You might have a private space in your home that you like to retreat to. Or if your home is very noisy or you're likely to get interrupted, you might like to go out and find a spot in nature. As part of your space setting practice, it can be nice to develop a ritual. For example, I like burning sage. To burn some sage in my space to make it smell nice. I like to make myself a nice hot drink, Maybe a hot chocolate or a herbal tea. All these things I do signal my mind to get into a creative space. As part of your space setting, it's nice to prepare what you'll need. It's good to have a journal to write down any of your lyrics, and it's also nice to have a recording device of some kind. I like to use my phone and I sometimes put it on airplane mode or do not disturb mode when I'm having a creative session so that I don't get disturbed. Once your outer space is set, you're either in a private space in your home or you're out in nature. Then you can take a moment to set your inner space, which is what we do in the vocal, warm up, take some nice calming breaths, warm up our body. You might even have your own warm up practice that involves some yoga stretches for example. Then it's nice also to set your intention, you might like to say something like, I'm setting aside this time for myself to express my creativity. I'm setting aside this time for myself to enjoy the art of songwriting. All these things set the scene so your mind, body, and heart are all aligned to start writing songs. Let's head into the next lesson where we're going to learn about song seeds and song spaces. See you in the next lesson. 11. Songseeds and Songpsaces: We've prepared ourselves. We've got our space all prepared. We've done our relaxation, set our intention. Done a warm up. We've got our journal, We've got our phone ready to record. We sit down with the blank paper. And now what this is where newcomers and maybe even people who have been practicing a while might draw a blank. That's why I've created song seeds and song spaces. Song seeds are a little idea, a little moment, planted into your mind to get you started with your songwriting practice. These five song seeds I've created are common starting points that I use. And if you listen to other people's songs, you'll find that they are using similar starting points. To this, these song seeds get right to the heart of the matter. They are an opportunity to feel, to heal, and to express your creativity. Then onto song spaces. As with a blank sheet of paper, it can be hard where to start. If we are sat in silence, it can be hard to start too. Song spaces are a sound for us to work with. We have a rhythmical beat, and we have a drone, playing at one note, playing at a chord. That chord and that beat hold us in our songwriting practice. All the song spaces are in different keys. If you're not familiar with a key, it's just a family of notes that sound good together. When you sing over that drone, you can play with what sounds good working in that key. All the song spaces are also in different tempos. Some tempos fit very specifically into a genre. For example, hip hop is at 85 to 90 05:00 P.M. and house is commonly in 115 to 130 PM. Saying that many of these rules can be thrown out the window. For example, folk music can be found in many different kinds of tempos as can pop music. When you try out all the five different song spaces, you might find a key and a tempo that work best for you, that most inspire your songwriting. The other thing to mention is you might play a song space and find it irritating, or find that it's not inspiring you. I recommend then to just sit with it. You could sit in silence and just listen to the beat, because the beat will naturally get you into the theater creative state. And you could just write what you think about or you could just sit with it. Because when we start a creative practice, it can make us feel all edgy and antsy. And we just need to sit with that edginess anciness and see what comes. The song spaces I've recorded are 10 minutes long. That's if you've just got a really short time that you will definitely have time to complete the practice. If you would like to practice for longer, you can just rewind to the beginning of the song space. I'm going to make sure the videos have a timestamp on them, so it's easy for you to rewind back and to play the song space again. As of making this video now, I had to go with one of the song spaces. And I found in 10 minutes I just wrote two lines. Don't be expected that you're going to write a whole song in that time. In 10 minutes, something might come out, you might be really inspired and just loads of lyrics and melodies come out. Or you might just sit there and draw a blank for a while. And then maybe just one or two lines will come. And you'll need to listen to the song space. Again, set aside more time to complete the song. Okay, that's it for song seeds and song spaces. I'll see you in the next lesson. 12. Designing a Session: Signing a songwriting session and about song seats. The number one thing, we've talked about it before, is that you need to set aside time. So if you haven't done that now, please stop the video and take a moment to think about a good time for you that you can set aside for a songwriting practice from 20 minutes to an hour. Then when you set aside that time, this is how I would make the best use of your songwriting time. First of all, you set your space. You prepare your space in a way that makes you feel creative. Then you do a warm up of some kind. I've got my vocal warm up. If you'd like to warm up in that way, then take a moment to set your intention. You might like to speak this aloud or write it in your journal. Today, I am setting aside time for myself to explore my feelings through songwriting or an intention which more fits with you. Make sure you've got your journal and your recording device handy, and then all you need to do is headphones recommended, listen to the song seed and the song space, and that will get your creativity flowing. Once you finish your session, you might like to make a recording on your phone of any ideas that came up, or make some notes in your journal. The five themes of the song seeds are comfort, connection, catharsis, clarity and celebration. If one really jumps out at you, if one of those words really jumps out, you might like to head straight to that one. Or you could work through all five in succession. And then once you've had to go at these five, you might find and create your own song seeds to work with. Later on in this class, there is a lesson called examples, where I am going to link you to some songs which I think are perfect examples of songs that link with the song seeds. And then when you're sat down in your practice, you can use the four S to help you scene sounds, style and switch. So the first one is the scene, so we've talked about this earlier in the class. We set the scene, we set the scene outside inside, describing what we can see on the outside, describing what we can see and feel on the inside. Make your description of the scene vivid. Then number two is sounds. Earlier in this class, we explored rhythm and meter. Use rhythm and meter to express yourself and make sounds. Some people find that the melodies come first, some people find that the lyrics come first. So for me, it's a bit of a mix of both. But sometimes when I'm writing I just might Dava, whoa, what am I doing? It sounds like I'm saying words, but I'm actually saying nonsense. And that can help me melodies together. So you might like to try a bit of that. Da, so just exploring with making sounds over the drone and over the beat. Third S to think about is style. Are you writing conversationally or poetically, or a bit of both? The number four is switch, this is if you get stuck, so you can switch between different things. Switch between describing the outside to describing the inside. Switch between writing conversationally and writing poetically. Switch the perspective you're writing from. Are you writing from the perspective of you or from someone else or an observer perspective are you writing from? And then switch your focus. Switch your focus from lyrics to melody. If you're getting stuck on the words, you might like to come back to the melody, keep singing the tune you're coming up with. Or if you're getting stuck with a melody, just start jamming out lyrics, something else to know. It is completely normal to have a quiet moment or draw a blank in your songwriting practice. This does not mean you have writer's block, and we don't need to make a big story or a song or dance about it. We can just sit with whatever's there. Like I said, you can sometimes get a bit antsy and frustrated, or bored, or all of these things. And that's why we set aside this time, this 10 minutes. And we just sit with whatever comes up and we allow it to be and we express whatever's there alongside this. We can also have the critic who comes up and says things like, you're never going to write a good song. Or I've written, I've been writing songs for ten years and my in a critical say things like you're never going to write another good song. All of the ideas have been written about. What's the point? If your critic is saying things like this, you might just like to write what your critics saying down. You can either, it's your choice, invite the critic. Oh, you can just sit here and watch if you like, or if your critics really annoying you, you could just say, excuse me, I want to just join my songwriting practice. So I'm just going to invite you, Mr. Critic, to just wait outside there in the waiting room and you can come and give me your opinion later. We all have to find our own way of working with the inner critic. It exists for everyone. The next lesson is exciting. We're getting into our first song seed and song space. Let's just check, we're already, have you set your space? Have you warmed up? Have you set your intention? And have you got all your bits that you need with you? Your journal, your recording device? Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson, where we are going to get into our first song and song space. See you in the next lesson. 13. Songseed and Songspace 1 - Comfort: Welcome to Song seed and song space One. The theme today is comfort. We are going to offer kindness and comfort to get into our practice, we're just going to make sure we're sat comfortably. Wherever you're sat, just find a nice comfy seat and make sure you've got your headphones ready and you're listening through headphones when you're already. You can close your eyes now, your eyes are closed. Let's take a moment to check in and notice our inner experience. Often we hold tension in our jaw, in our shoulders. Just take a moment now to relax the jaw. You might let the jaw hang open slightly, let the tongue rest in the mouth. With that relaxation of the jaw, let that spread down to the neck and shoulders and centered in the here and now. We all need to be comforted at times in our lives. Today, we are going to act as a good friend to ourselves and offer comfort. I want you to recall a moment that has troubled you lately. Don't pick the most troubling thing, if you've been experiencing something very stressful recently, Pick a moment that you can handle that you are ready to search in your memory for a moment that needs soothing. A moment where you needed kindness and comfort. Once you arrive in this moment, notice your surroundings. What can you see? What can you hear? How do you feel? Make it real in your imagination. Looking around the inside. Looking around the outside. Take a few breaths and a few moments to survey the scene. What can you see? What can you hear? How do you feel? Make it real in your imagination? Then a kind and comforting figure appears. It could be a being from spiritual realms, a god, deity, angel. It could be a family member or friend. Or it could be a creature who gives you great comfort. Take a moment to observe the look of love they are giving you. They are here to soothe you. Look into their eyes. As you lock eyes, feel yourself drawn into the gaze so deeply situation switches. Now you are looking at yourself, from the eyes of this being. Look at your eyes. What do you want to say to yourself? What words would comfort you in a moment? The song space is going to play. You might like to keep your eyes shut and speak out, or sing what you felt or experienced. Or you might like to open your eyes and make some notes in your journal as a starting point for singing and sounding. Enjoy this time for self expression and connection. That's your songwriting finish for today. Doing in a work like this can sometimes leave us feeling unsettled, maybe a bit emotional, or a bit shook up, if you feel like that. Here's a few things that you can do. You might like to go and drink some water or make a nice tea or hot drink for yourself. You might like to splash your face with cold water or have a shower or a bath. Or you might like to go outside for a walk or just take a moment to sit outside and ground yourself. Or you might need to eat something. Part of being an artist and having creative practice is to take care of our own needs. Now you've finished this songwriting practice. If you're experiencing any challenge, just take a moment to notice what you need and give that to yourself. To close, we are going to chant sat num, which is a Kundalini chant, which means truth is my name. It's just like drawing a little Z, Z. Closing our practice and finishing for the day. We're going to rub our hands together like this. Place our hands on our heart. Take a nice deep breath. Si, no, si num. Last one n just taking a little bow, bowing to yourself for making this time for yourself. Feeling gratitude. Feeling thankful you might want to just the jaw and the shoulders relax again. May the act of making time for creativity for yourself bring you peace, wholeness, joy and connection. Well done. 14. Deep songwriting Songseed 2 - Connection: Welcome to Song Seed and Song Space number two. The theme today is connection. We are going to connect with ourselves and whatever is present. Take a moment to get comfortable. Find a comfy seat. Make sure you've got your headphones in, and then we're going to gently close our eyes to begin. Now your eyes are shut. Take a moment to notice your inner experience and relax in the here and now relax your jaw. Might soften and open it gently, let the tongue hang, breathe a sigh of relief. Let the relaxation spread down to your neck. Your shoulders present and resting in the here and now. Now is the time to allow your mind to wander. Let your mind travel through moments from the past week and let a moment claim. It could have been something hard, it could have been something beautiful drifting through time, run back through the days, walk through the week, until you arrive in a memory that would like your attention yesterday, the day before that, the day before that. The day before, a moment claims you. This could even be the moment you found yourself in for song seed one. We will be looking at it from a different perspective. You can do this exercise as many times as you'd like. Don't worry about finding the perfect moment. Just pick what comes up, something present. If there is a big stressful event going on in your life right now, please be gentle with yourself and choose a moment you can handle taking a few more breaths to find the moment. Arriving in this moment. See everything in full color. Listen to what you can hear. See what you can see, feel what you can feel. Make it real in your imagination. Tuning into your vision. Are there any colors or objects that catch your eye? Make a mental note. Tuning into your hearing. What is the sound you can hear? What is the quietest sound? Make a mental note. And most importantly, now tuning into your feelings. Notice how the feelings affect your body. Tuning into your hands, your temples, your jaw. How is your throat? How is your chest, your heart center, your belly? Traveling down to the feet, what sensations can you notice in the feet? What emotions are present? Are you tight or relaxed and soft? Are you light or heavy? In a moment, the song space is going to play. You might like to keep your eyes shut and speak out, or sing what you felt or experience. Or you might like to open your eyes and make some notes in your journal as a starting point for singing and sounding. Enjoy this time for self expression and connection. That's your songwriting finish for today. Doing in a work like this can sometimes leave us feeling unsettled, maybe a bit emotional or a bit shook up, if you feel like that. Here's a few things that you can do. You might like to go and drink some water or make an ice tea or hot drink for yourself. You might like to splash your face with cold water or have a shower or a bath. Or you might like to go outside for a walk or just take a moment to sit outside and ground yourself. Or you might need to eat something. Part of being an artist and having creative practice is to take care of our own needs. Now you've finished this songwriting practice. If you're experiencing any challenge, just take a moment to notice what you need and give that to yourself. To close, we are going to chant sat num, which is a Kundalini chant, which means truth is my name. It's just like drawing a little zip zoo closing our practice and finishing for the day. We're going to rub our hands together like this, Place our hands on our heart. Take a nice deep breath. Si, no, si. No last one n just taking a little bow, bowing to yourself for making this time for yourself. Feeling gratitude. Feeling thankful you might want to just the jaw and the shoulders relax again. May the act of making time for creativity for yourself bring you peace, wholeness, joy and connection. Well done. 15. Deep songwriting Songseed 3 - Catharsis: Welcome to Song Seed and Song Space Three. The theme today is catharsis. And we're going to use this seed and song space today to hold experience and feel difficult feelings. We're going to make time for more challenging emotions to be seen, heard to be witnessed. Let's get ready. Just finding ourselves comfortable in our seat. Make sure you've got your headphones. When you're all comfy, close your eyes. Now your eyes are closed. Time to focus on your inner experience. Pay attention to your jaw and let your jaw, it might drop open slightly, breathing a sigh of relief. Let that relaxation from the jaw spread down to the neck, shoulders, all the way to the toes relax present here and now today we are going to allow hurt. We are going to let our mind wander to a moment where someone hurt our feelings. It could be a colleague, a friend, a family member. Somebody disappointed us, hurt us, let us down. Maybe we have been carrying a resentment. Maybe we can't forgive someone if there is a big stressful event going on in your life Now, please be gentle with yourself and choose a moment you can handle Taking a few breaths and allowing our mind to open and find the memory we want to be with. Travel to a specific moment. A moment that commands attention. Breathing, notice the moment. Notice what you can see. Notice what you can hear. Notice what you can feel. Make it real in your imagination. Noticing the person who you are with. What have they said or done to cause hurt. Feeling a strong, fierce, vibrant dragon force growing in your belly. Dragon in your chest. Dragon in your throat. Dragon in your hands and feet. A force for change. Make it real in your mind. Dragon energy is present. It says it how it is now in your mind, say what you want to say to this person. Don't hold back. Tell them how they've hurt you at them. Tell them what they have done wrong. Let it all out, breathe fire in a moment. The song space is going to play. You might like to keep your eyes shut and speak out, or sing what you felt or experienced. Or you might like to open your eyes and make some notes in your journal as a starting point for singing and sounding. Enjoy this time for self expression and connection. Or make a nice tea or hot drink for yourself. You might like to splash your face with cold water or have a shower or a bath. Or you might like to go outside for a walk or just take a moment to sit outside and ground yourself. Or you might need to eat something. Part of being an artist and having creative practice is to take care of our own needs. Now you've finished this songwriting practice. If you're experiencing any challenge, just take a moment to notice what you need and give that to yourself. To close, we are going to chant sat num, which is a Kundalini chant, which means truth is my name. It's just like drawing a little zip zoo closing our practice and finishing for the day. We're going to rub our hands together like this. Place our hands on our heart. Take a nice deep breath. Si, no, si num. Last one n just taking a little bow, bowing to yourself for making this time for yourself. Feeling gratitude, feeling thankful you might want to. Just the jaw and the shoulders relax again. May the act of making time for creativity for yourself bring you peace, wholeness, joy and connection. Well done. 16. Deep songwriting Songseed 4 - Clarity: Welcome to Song Seed and Song Space Four. The theme today is Clarity. We are going to take this time to access and enjoy wisdom. Take a moment to get comfy in your seat. Make sure you've got your headphones on, and then when you're already, you can close your eyes. Your eyes are shut. It's time to focus on your inner experience. Relax your jaw. Let the tongue rest in the mouth, breathing a sigh of relief. Let the relaxation from your jaw spread down to your neck, shoulders traveling all the way down to your toes resting in here. And now, wisdom is always accessible to us. We just need to make time and space to access it. In this session, today, we are going to access our inner wisdom. What obstacle currently exists in your life? You might go back to the difficult person that you worked with in the last song, Seed, or is there a problem with your work or with a certain relationship? The obstacle could be a pattern of behavior that you keep repeating. Something you do that bothers you. Take a moment to find your biggest obstacle right now. Breathing. Let that obstacle present itself in front of you. Looking at your obstacle, what color is your obstacle? What texture? Hard, soft, hot, cold. What feelings does your obstacle present? Feel yourself within the obstacle, trapped within the obstacle. Now inviting wisdom into the space, a wise being enters. Who is it? A spiritual being, angel, God, deity, a family member, an ancestor, an animal. Make the wise being real in your mind. This wise being looks at you inside your obstacle. They know the solution. Feel yourself stepping out of the obstacle, you might slip out, rise up, roll over, then step into the wise being, look through their eyes, see it as they see it, hear the solution, experience the solution. The solution to my obstacle is in a moment, the song space is going to play. You might like to keep your eyes shut and speak out, or sing what you felt or experienced. Or you might like to open your eyes and make some notes in your journal as a starting point for singing and sounding. Enjoy this time for self expression and connection. Or make an ice tea or hot drink for yourself. You might like to splash your face with cold water or have a shower or a bath. Or you might like to go outside for a walk or just take a moment to sit outside and ground yourself. Or you might need to eat something. Part of being an artist and having creative practice is to take care of our own needs. Now you've finished this songwriting practice. If you're experiencing any kind of challenge, just take a moment to notice what you need and give that to yourself. To close, we are going to chant num, which is a delinichant, which means truth is my name. It's just like drawing a little z. Closing our practice and finishing for the day. We're going to rub our hands together like this, Place our hands on our heart. Take a nice deep breath. So, so, um, last one s, um, just taking a little bowing to yourself, making this time for yourself. Feeling gratitude, feeling thankful. You might want to just let the jaw and the shoulders relax again. The act of making time for creativity for yourself bring you peace, wholeness, joy and connection. Well done. 17. Deep songwriting Songseed 5 - Celebrate: Welcome to Song Seed and Song Space Five. The theme today is celebration. We are going to take some time to think about what we're grateful for and celebrate the joy in our life. Make sure you've got your headphones on. Take a moment to get comfy in your seat, make sure you're warm. Then we are going to close our eyes. Now your eyes are comfortably closed. Taking a moment to focus on your inner experience, relaxing the belly, noticing any tension you're holding in the belly, relaxing the shoulders and relaxing the jaw with a sigh. Comfortable in your seat in the here and now. Today we start by focusing on gratitude. Despite whatever is going on in our life, we have something to be grateful for. If you are listening to this, you are lucky enough to own a gadget that accesses the Internet. We are grateful for technology, that we can share information so easily. My work can travel to you all the way from a little village in England to wherever you are, from my laptop to your gadget for your ears, heart and mind. Take a moment to think about people you are grateful for. People who bring joy to your life. With a few breaths, picture them in your mind. Now turning your attention to things in your immediate surroundings that you are grateful for. Your comfortable chair, your desk, things in your home that bring you joy. Take a moment to think about them. Take a moment to think about creative activities that bring you joy and a therapeutic view, singing, writing. What other creative activities do you love? Think about how those creative activities make you feel. Now take a moment to think about a person who brought a huge positive change into your life. Picture them in your mind and feel thankful for them. Now take a moment to think about a beautiful place that exists somewhere near to you. A spot in nature that captivates, make it real in your imagination. Feeling thankful that such beauty and peace exists. In a moment, the song space is going to play. You might like to keep your eyes shut and speak out, or sing what you felt or experienced. Or you might like to open your eyes and make some notes in your journal as a starting point for singing and sounding. Enjoy this time for self expression and connection. That's your songwriting finished for today. Doing in a work like this can sometimes leave us feeling unsettled, maybe a bit emotional, or a bit shook up, if you feel like that. Here's a few things that you can do. You might like to go and drink some water or make an ice tea or hot drink for yourself. You might like to splash your face with cold water or have a shower or a bath. Or you might like to go outside for a walk or just take a moment to sit outside and ground yourself. Or you might need to eat something. Part of being an artist and having creative practice is to take care of our own needs. So now you've finished this songwriting practice. If you're experiencing any kind of challenge, just take a moment to notice what you need and give that to yourself. To close, we are going to chance sat num, which is a cundini chant, which means truth is my name. And it's just like drawing a little Z. Closing our practice and finishing for the day. So we're going to rub our hands together like this. Place my hands on our heart. Take a nice deep breath. Nu, nu. Last one s n, just taking a little bowing to yourself for making this time for yourself. Feeling gratitude. Feeling thankful. You might want to just let the jaw and the shoulders relax again. The act of making time for creativity for yourself, bring you peace when joy and connection. Well done. 18. Examples and Discussion: Welcome back. In this lesson, I'm going to share some discussion points and also point you to some examples of songs which link to each of the song seeds. First of all, I'd like to say, well done. If you have got this far, I'm assuming you've at least listened through one of the song seeds and song spaces. And I'd be interested to know where you're at When you experience the song spaces, Did you experience any irritation or frustration? Did you have any blank moments? Did you write anything, even a line or two, or did you write a whole song? The Discussions tab exists on Skillshare as a place we can chat. Here's some questions that I'd love to know the answers to. How was your experience? You have a favorite song space, a favorite tempo, or a favorite key to sing in. Write a comment in the discussions tab and we can have a chat about it. In the deep songwriting workbook, you will find an example for each one of the song seeds. And listening to them might just give you another perspective on that particular song seed and how to work with it. I'll just tell you those five songs now. For comfort, we've got Guilt by Mountain Man For connection, we've got Cold Water by Damian Rice For Catharsis, we've got Cleaning out my closet by M and M. For clarity, we've got Heartbeat by Dante and for celebration, we've got L Mysterio by Rayna Schuunobrand. Always find his heart name hard to pronounce, but so all of those are written down in the deep songwriting workbook. So download the workbook now. Have a listen to those songs, and then when you approach the song seed again, if you'd like to, it might give you another perspective. A way of looking at that particular idea. Okay, let's head to the next lesson where we're going to talk about finishing songs. 19. Finishing Songs: Back in this lesson, we are going to discuss finishing songs. Finishing a song looks very different for different people. I have got three different types of finished. Number one is satisfied. You've written out your song, you've maybe written the lyrics in your notebook. You maybe recorded them on your phone and you like singing it to yourself, and you feel satisfied that it's finished. The second kind of finished is shared. You might like to share it with a friend, either offering them a live performance or sending them a recording. You might like to do an open mic or you might like to share it on social media. The third kind is professionally finished. This might mean that you make a professional recording in your home studio or at studio and release that song. What does finished mean to you? Work that out now, does finish mean to you? You want to be satisfied with it, you want to share it, or you want it to be professional? Then now I'm going to go into how you can finish on each of those three levels. For me, songs exist in different stages of finished. I like it when I'm just satisfied with a song and I've finished it, it might never get shared. I might just sing it at home, and that's its purpose served. Then some songs get shared, whether I put them on social media or share them with my singing group. And then some of my favorite songs I pick out and I get professionally recorded. Let's work through those three levels of finished and see where you're getting stuck. Talking about finding satisfaction in a song, you might be unsatisfied with your song for many reasons. One might be that just your inner critic is very harsh and is being mean about your song. And maybe you just need to let it sit and wait and come back to it on another day. The song might actually need more time and more work on it. If, for example there's a lyric you're stuck with, You might like to set aside a session just to work over that particular line, those particular lyrics that are irritating you, that you're not happy with. And make some time and space for new lyrics to come. Sometimes we get stuck on a particular word or phrase that annoys us. In my third album, which I'm currently working on, there's a song called Cambo. The first line of the chorus just came like that. I loved it. And then the second line I tried about five different iterations and I was like, I'm not sure of any of these five, what I want to say then in the end, I just picked out the best one out of those five and I just went with it. And then a few months later, I did actually love it. And now I like the way the whole chorus sounds, but sometimes you just need to a bit of space from the song to find love for it. Again, I keep coming back to this theme of time. Songwriting is not something you just sit down with for 5 hours on one day and write an amazing song. It's something you just little and often keep coming back to and keep improving day by day. If you're more stuck on sharing, I think it's a really good idea to find your edge when it comes to sharing and not pushing it, so it can be very, very vulnerable. Sharing a song, if you put a song, for example, on the Internet and you're already feeling a bit raw about it and somebody writes something not very nice. It can be a bit too much, too soon. When I first started writing songs, I shared them with my very close friend. I have a precious moment in my mind in London, sat on my best friend, Adeline's sofa, and singing my first song I've written on my guitar to her. And I was just so nervous, shaking. And she gave me lovely feedback and that gave me confidence to go and then sing a open mics and eventually make professional recordings. Find your own edge. Don't push it too much. Push yourself into the stress zone. Find a way of sharing your songs that feels like you're challenging yourself. If you're getting stuck on recording, you might like to check out my Y album class on skill share, which talks about how to DIY your own recordings. Because there's something very satisfying about completing and finishing and recording a professional recording and sharing it with the world, head that class. Now, if you need more help with getting a professional recording from watching this lesson, have you decided what finished is for you and found your solution for finished, and would you like to share the song with me? Skill Share offers the project section where students can post their project. If you would like to share your song with me, I would love to see it. You can post a link in the project section If you feel a bit more shy, you might like to DM me on Instagram, a link to your song. Just so you know, if you share your song with me, I'm only going to offer encouragement. And if you want more critical feedback, you might like to write a question with your upload. So you might like to say, do you think the lyrics in the second half makes sense? Does this bit work? You know, so if you want more critical feedback, please just write a bit of a comment or a question about what critical feedback you like for your song. I know that sharing songs can make you feel so vulnerable. So I will only offer kindness and kind encouragement when it comes to your songwriting. If you're feeling really brave and you want to share it on social media, I'd love you to tag me at Laura Lamb. Let's head into the last lesson. We're going to summarize and say goodbye. No, see you in the next lesson. By 20. Goodbye: Welcome to our final lesson of this class. Well done. Well done. Well done for sticking all the way through. Now you finish your class. You should be offered the option now to download a certificate. I personally love the certificate feature on Skillshare and it's something that you can show your inner critic to say, ah ha, you said I can't write songs. Look, I have a certificate and I can, and I have written a song. So download your certificate, print it out, and put it somewhere with pride. If you've enjoyed this class, I'd really appreciate it. If you write a review, you can go to the Reviews tab and just write one or two words, or one or two sentences. And that really helps other students find this class. If you'd like to stay in touch and find out more about my work, you can head to my teacher page which will show you all my other classes I have on skillshare and also other projects I'm involved with there. You will also find a link to my e mail list where I send out friendly e mails once or twice a month. As well as that, there's my social media links, Facebook and Instagram. May the art of deep songwriting bring peace, joy, clarity, and fun into your life. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.