Young songwriters need to learn their songwriting craft, and you may be just the right person to help them.
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Written by Gary Ewer, author of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 10-ebook Deluxe Bundle.
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This is the time of year — January to March — when musicians, especially songwriters, find it hard to keep writing. If you find yourself struggling trying to finish any of your songwriting projects, it might be time to try something different, something inspirational: helping the music teacher at your local school.
Depending on your age, you may be surprised by how diverse and interesting music education has become since the days that you were a junior or senior high school student. Back in the 70s and 80s, music at school usually meant either playing in the band (concert band, jazz band or marching band) or singing in the choir.
These days, music education has branched out, and it’s easy to find schools that are teaching songwriting as a unit within a larger course. And you’ll also find that young people, from age 12 or so, are becoming very interested in expressing their thoughts and emotions by writing songs.
Most music teachers are stretched in many different directions, teaching other completely unrelated courses, and moving from school to school throughout the day. They just don’t have a lot of time to develop a songwriting course. And many actually don’t feel all that comfortable doing it.
And this is where you can be a big help.
Your talents as a songwriter can be just what the young people in your local area need. Volunteering your songwriting skills can be an enormously rewarding use of your spare time.
If you want to help out the music teacher, it’s best to give some thought to what you’re proposing. There are many possibilities, but here’s one: you could suggest that you work on a 4- or 5-week project with a particular music class in which you do the following:
- Week 1: Give a class-long interactive talk (45 minutes) to a group of interested students on your own approach to songwriting, and give them the basics of how a song usually comes together.
- Week 2: Start a class songwriting project in which the students, in groups of 4 or 5 individuals, begin to write a song. You act as a mentor, moving from group to group.
- Week 3: You perform a song for the students that you’ve written, explain as best you can how you wrote it, and then allow the students to continue with their projects.
- Week 4: Students who are ready perform the songs they’ve written.
- Week 5: You do a short performance of 2 or 3 songs in which you describe your songwriting process for each one, and invite solo performances by willing students.
There are actually many benefits that you will derive from this. In addition to the rewards, both psychological and creative, that can come from doing this sort of work, you’ll also expand your potential audience base, and that’s never a bad thing. You also get to know the music teacher a little better, and trust me, they will appreciate your work!
If you’re not in a position to volunteer, many schools have access to money through grants or their school boards to pay you an honorarium for your time, and they are usually happy to try to pay you something in any case.
In most areas of the world today, anyone working with students in public schools needs to have a criminal record/child abuse register check done ahead of time, so don’t be surprised (or alarmed) if they request that.
So give some thought as to how you can help enrich the lives of young people in your area, and pay the music teacher a visit. They will appreciate your initiative!
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.
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