This songwriting exercise that I’m going to show you is a great example of a powerful technique called brainstorming.

Brainstorming is being able to spontaneously come up with ideas on a given topic or a problem at hand, but in this case we want to fill a page full of possible song titles.

The task is not to write a song but to come up with possible titles for a song. I try to do this at least twice a week. I have pages and pages of possible titles for me to look back on.

To start the exercise, write the first thing that pops into your head and then using that phrase start writing song titles making sure that the next phrase is derived from the first phrase.

Heres a short example:

Cry Baby
Baby Don’t Cry
Don’t Cry For Me Baby
Don’t Cry
Why So Sad?
Im So Sad
Im Leaving Today

(I’m hoping you get my drift here)

Remember, because you are brainstorming you can write anything down, go off on any tangent you like and not worry about whether you are going to use it in the future or not.

Incidentally, your critical inner voice hates this kind of exercise as it has no control over what you are doing.

In fact, when you are doing this exercise don’t even think about what you are writing. Just be automatic and spontaneous. Have fun with it.

Set yourself a target of doing this for 30 minutes, two to three times a week and build up a body of possible song titles.

After a couple of weeks have a look at what you have written. Pay close attention to the rhythm of the words and I’m sure that something will jump out at you and BINGO! You have the beginnings of a new song.

Looking back on what you have written can be a very interesting experience in itself. Its amazing what you write down when you stop judging what you write.

In the meantime, give it a go and see what happens.

I personally use brainstorming a lot in getting my songwriting ideas. It’s a great way in freeing myself into being in the now when I write.

If you’re going to try the ‘possible song titles’ exercise I suggest that you write as blindly as you can and try to make your word associations rapid-fire.

Write down the first thing that pops into your head. Do it for thirty minutes and see where the spontaneity takes you.

?In part 1 of this series, I mentioned how the “Do-Re-Mi” song from “The Sound of Music” can help your child learn how to sing more effectively. There are 2 ways to use this song. The first way is called “Interval Training”.

The “Do-Re-Mi” song fiddles around with what’s called a “major scale”. There are lots of different types of scales in music, but as the saying goes – “This is a very good place to start.”.

Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do represent all of the notes in a single octave, or iteration, of a major scale. Without getting into the technicalities of what a major scale actually is, understand that the distance between each note is defined in music as an “interval” i.e. An interval is the distance between 2 notes – not only adjacent notes such as Do to Re, or Sol to La ?- but between ANY two notes. Here’s where interval training can be used.

Start your child out with the simple Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do ?going up – making sure that each note is sung accurately. Start from a point where your child can ?sing each note comfortably. After a certain comfort level in singing this scale is achieved, then have your child then go down the scale Do-Ti-La-So-Fa-Mi-Re-Do – again stressing the accuracy of each note. Once your child is comfortable with this then go up and then down the scale in the same exercise.

Now, have your child sing the Do-Re-Mi song (Do, a dear, a ?female deer…). This is really good interval training as the notes in this song jump up and down quite a bit. After that, if you happen to have “The Sound of Music”, refer to the part where Maria sings “When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything.”. This is REALLY good interval training as these notes really jump around.

This is the first step. Getting the notes right, and being able to accurately jump around inside the “Do-Re-Mi…” scale. It’s also a fun way to do it.

In part 3 of this series, I will talk about the second way to use “Do-Re-Mi” ?- to develop different ways, or styles to sing these notes.?