I’ll write you a song Dr Ross McLennan! - Composing “Mechanical Brain”
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There are many great reasons to write a song. One reason is that you need to complete a university song writing assignment!
I got into music in my early 20s and spent my formative years gigging with indie bands. This school of being booed when you’re terrible is brilliant but you don’t really learn music, you absorb it osmotically.
After a while I realised that there was all this stuff I didn’t know. In fact I didn’t even know what I didn’t know!!!
So I went back to university and studied music.
My lecturers were brilliant. They understood their craft and were keen to share their knowledge.
My song writing lecturer was Dr Ross McLennan. Like me he’d cut his teeth in Brisbane’s 90’s music scene. Unlike me he’d studied music at the Queensland Conservatorium and later at Cambridge University.
Dr Ross described how jazz composers create new work by using an existing piece as a template. He encouraged us to analyse a song we loved. He told us to look at its rhyming scheme, rhythmic structure and melodic form. Our assignment was to write a song based on this template.
I quickly realised was that once you’d written your first draft you could throw away the template and make something truly original!
Previously, when someone asked me to write something I would mainline a few genre albums until they got under my skin. Dr Ross’s method let me fast track that process.
I chose “Let’s do it - Let’s fall in love” for my first assignment.
Here’s a link if you’d like to check it out.
https://youtu.be/MvykElIXtic?si=g_jhXegtR1Vd5NBQ&t=46
Diving deep into Col Porter’s lyrics and melody gave me a solid start but I still needed a subject.
Lack of sleep was all the inspiration I needed! So here’s a song dedicated to all the students out there!!
When deadlines creep your brain is tick you just can’t flick, you toss and turn until your bed’s a mess that no-one wants to share!!!
This performance features Kate Schirmer on vocals, Annie Silva on violin, Emma Hales on ‘Cello, Geoff Ahmet on guitar and myself on flute.
Enjoy!!
