Making Original Music Videos Part II: How my students might do it
I think it’s prudent to start the process of making music videos by watching them. Music videos exist as an independent genre, combining music and images to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. I have already shown students my own video, but perhaps we should take a look at some professional music videos on MTV and VH1. This will help students consider the many ways in which musicians, filmmakers, artists, editors etc. shape music videos to convey a variety of messages. Perhaps I can have each of my students working on the project choose a music video to present to the class, and lead a discussion on it.
The next part of this process will be to have my students choose a song to put images to. Song choice will of course depend on the student, but I will encourage my students to choose songs with powerful lyrical content. I think this will provide an opportunity to not only interpret song lyrics, but to consider the ways in which we emotionally react to lyrics, and then to find images which reflect our responses.
I think it’s a good idea to have my students find as many images as they can. Fortunately, google images provides a seemingly indefinite number of options. I think my students should print out the lyrics to the song they are using, and then find images which they feel correlate to the specific lyrics. This is also a good opportunity to teach the difference between denotation and connotation. I’m sure my students will find images that work on a literal level, but I will encourage them to go beyond the literal and into the symbolic. This will hopefully lead into many discussions about the difference between the literal and the symbolic, and how to use both in different contexts.
Once my students have collected their images, they will begin the process of selecting images to use in each part of their song. This will be a great time to discuss the concept of how the images might flow with the music. Images can move quickly, in a rapid fire way, or slow down and zoom in. Images can blend into one another, as in my video where the image of an old woman transformed into the moon, or cut in jagged manner. Special effects can be added as well, but as Amanda and Mandy said during their presentation, sometimes less is more. Special effects should never be added for their own sake, but only in the context of what the artist wants to express.
I think there are probably a lot of unexpected ways in which my students will get creative with this project. As with any authentic educational activity, there will be opportunities for teachable moments every step of the way, and I will do my best to help them make connections in whatever context we find ourselves in. Part of teaching the creative process is encouraging students to take risks with their work, and to find their own way. I have to be careful not to interfere too much with how they go about making their videos. Once they’re finished, there will be plenty of opportunities for comments and revision.
The more I think about it, the more I believe writing an original song will be much harder for my students than I had imagined. The first part of this process will have to include just playing with the Band in a Box software, plugging in chords and styles and seeing what they sound like. Perhaps even before this I should talk with my students about what kind of music they like and what they like about it. As I did with the music video portion of the project, I could have my students bring in songs they like, and lead discussions on them. This will help all of us consider what elements go into a song: melody( sometimes), rhythm, lyrics, instrumentals, vocals, mood, subject matter, etc. Through a critical analysis of songs, they can start the process of deciding what types of songs they would want to write. As they play around with Band in a Box, I can help them choose chord changes that might reflect the kind of music they’re interested in.
As they experiment with writing music, they can begin to experiment with writing lyrics. Once again, modeling is in order. Students will choose lyrics that are meaningful to them and lead discussions about why. Perhaps I will bring in a Dylan song, maybe Subterranean Homesick Blues, and talk about how the lyric works both in a literary way, and a musical way in terms of where the beats lay out, and the inflection points. During these conversations, we might see how many different kinds of lyrics there are; some lyrics have choruses, others do not. Some lyrics tell stories, others seemingly have no linear form to them, but center around a common theme. Some lyrics rhyme, others don’t.
I might have my students use the form of their favorite lyric (the rhyme and meter) and insert their own words. Perhaps I’ll just have my students free write on a topic that evokes a strong reaction such as love, war, friendship, family, etc., and then use the free write to craft a lyric around what they feel is their best line. Maybe that best line could become part of the chorus. Once again, so much of what happens will be determined by how my students react to the assignment; I will no doubt have to improvise and find ways to connect the dots.
Putting music together with lyrics will be a tricky process. My students could always come up with raps for their songs, but I think some of them will actually want to invent melodies for their lyrics. Fortunately, Band in a Box has a feature that lets you write notes on a musical staff, which you can play back for immediate feedback. I think that by playing around enough with the ways notes can fit together, students will come up with musical ideas that they didn’t even know existed. They could potentially write songs that other people could then sing, if they happened to be shy about their voices.
Once students are finished with their songs, which might take weeks, or even months to complete, they can begin the process of making their videos, as outlined in the beginning of this blog. I know that this is not going to be easy, and that my students will no doubt get frustrated along the way; but I will do my best to explain the idea of ”process”, and communicate that one is never finished with an artistic work. I will also use my own songwriting and video making experience as a continual example of how many ways there are to shape a given work, and that there are really no right or wrong choices–only varying degrees of insight and interpretation.
Jonathan
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