Week 2 Outline

Goals:

This week you'll learn how to add movement to your story by developing it over a series verses, and to harmonize your melody with the diatonic chords I, IV, and V.

Finish a refrain chorus song in a country / folk style. Covering a theme that's appropriate for that genre and sticking to I, IV, and V chords will make it sound more authentic.

Study:

The unit is divided into the following topics:

1. Rhyme schemes: AAAA, AXAX, ABAB, etc.
   
   
2. The cleverness of lyrics in country music.
   
   
3. Read Chapters 2 and 3 from Andrea Stolpe's book about sense-bound writing and toggling between internal and external details.
   
   
4. Story development: developing your story through a series of "boxes" - Pat Pattison's tool to visualize the development of a song
   
   
5. Finding the natural stress in lyrics.
   
   
6. How to harmonize a melody with I, IV, and V chords.
   
   
7. How to write chord symbols with standard chord symbols. There is no one way to do this, but for the purposes of this class you need to follow these guidelines.
   
   
8. If you think you might ever work with musicians in Nashville, check out the Nashville Number System.
   
   
9. Ear training: drill on identifying I, IV, and V chords with the Speaker Chords game levels 1-5 of the Theta Music Trainer software. You can use their website or get the app for iOS or Android. Try singing the root of the chord along with the progression. For example, if you're in G major, sing "One" during the G chord, "Four" during the C chord, and "Five" during the D chord.