If you want to learn how to write a song, do what all great songwriters do: Study great songs! If you want to be a master songwriter, you must learn from the masters.
If you’ve been writing songs for a while, it’s very likely are doing something right. When you write regularly, you tend to get a feel for it. You develop an instinct for what is catchy, memorable and engaging. But you can take it a lot further than that.
Think of a craftsman, say, someone who is good with wood. He may have a natural ability to carve or construct things from wood. If he does it all the time he’s going to get really good at it.
Now, if that same person studied woodworking as an apprentice, imagine how much faster he will learn his craft. By studying with the masters, he will learn shortcuts and techniques that might take him years longer on his own.
It’s the same with songwriting.
By studying the techniques of hit songwriters, you learn what works and what doesn’t. You learn how to write songs. You learn how to write songs that resonate with people on a deep level. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your natural style, or change who you are.
It simply means you learn better ways to present your unique ideas.
By studying song form you can learn to better express those ideas which are unique to you. You learn to build a better vehicle to take your song ideas where you want them to go. So how do we study hit songs?
Listen to the radio! Listen to the radio with a critical ear. Listen closely and ask yourself a series of questions:
1. Why does this song appeal to me?
2. What is it about the chorus that I find so irresistible?
3. What emotion/s does the melody evoke?
4. Why do the lyrics speak to me?
Keep on asking yourself these questions. Keep digging deeper for more answers. There can be many reasons why a song is so appealing. Find and analyse the reasons why it appeals to you.
Realise also, the importance of rewriting. If you settle for the first draft, you’ll never find out how good your song can really be. That’s what all great songwriters have done and continue to do.
It’s an ongoing process. You never stop learning. So don’t ever think you’re done!
Growing an adult Bible study class is not easy, but there are some simple steps you can take to help grow your class attendance. These few steps have helped my class more than double in just a short time. I hope these tips will help your Sunday school class grow as well.
Make your lesson active not passive. Adults like to participate in the lesson just like kids do. If your style is to talk and everyone just listen you will have a difficult time attracting people to your class. I like to quickly give a brief synopsis of the lesson and then start getting people interested in the lesson by asking questions. I want each person in my class to feel important and they will feel important if their opinion is being heard. Try to focus on one or two questions per lesson. Make it a question that really doesn’t have wrong answers.
Find people to help you take care of the needs of each class member. I have care group leaders whose job it is to take care of five or six people. The care group leader will call each person each week to encourage them to come to class or to find out why they haven’t been coming to class. Sometimes the class member has some problems and the job of the care group leader is to see if they can help. People want to know that they are needed and that someone cares for them, so make sure you take care of the people who are already in your class.
Grow from within. It is a lot easier to get current class members to find other people to attend your Bible study. Each week I encourage my class members to invite others to our class. Have them make a prospect list and take them out to dinner and have a discussion about who are on their list. Getting people to just write down a few prospects is a big step in growing your Sunday school class.
There are many ways to grow your Sunday school class. The above tips do work if you will just try them. Have fun!
This July 24th marks the 65th anniversary of the German retreat from Brittany and Normandy just a month and a half after the D-Day invasion of World War II. Heralded as the major turning point on the European front, the Allied invasion of Normandy remains one of the most celebrated military operations in living memory, having helped put an end to what is commonly known in America as the “Good War.”
While buzzwords like D-Day, Allied Forces, and Good War give WWII an honored place in American culture, they can also obscure the fact that this war remains the most gruesome conflict in all of human history – and one in which Americans initially fought tooth-and-nail not to get involved. So before you saunter confidently into your next US history exam, consider using the following facts to enhance your personal study guides.
In the summer of 1940 – nearly a year after WWII started with the German conquest of Poland – only 21% of Americans polled said that they weren’t outright opposed to entering the war. (Compare that to the roughly 75% of Americans polled who supported the Korean war in 1950, the Vietnam War in 1965, or the Iraq war in 2003.) American sentiments against intervention were so steadfast that in 1941, President Roosevelt was forced to wage an undeclared and arguably illegal naval war against German subs in the North Atlantic; only by claiming that the Pan-American Security Zone somehow stretched all the way to Iceland could he bypass the otherwise strict laws against this type of involvement.
In addition to its reluctance to enter into WWII, America demonstrated little interest in accommodating the Jews, Slavs, Roma, and other ethnic and minority groups targeted during the Holocaust. While some few thousands seeking asylum – including Albert Einstein – were lucky enough to gain admittance to the US, many thousands more – including Ann Frank’s family – were waitlisted in accordance with the nation’s restrictive immigration quotas. And although America’s initial disinterest can partly be attributed to a general lack of knowledge about the Nazis’ activities, the US State Department eventually did receive a cable detailing the plans for genocide in August of 1942 – and nevertheless decided to keep the intelligence a secret. Over the duration of the Holocaust, an estimated 11 to 17 thousand people, including 6 million Jews, perished in slave-labor and concentration camps.
After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor finally catapulted America into the fray, over a million African-Americans reported for duty. Since their sacrifice was not considered on-par with that of their white counterparts, black servicemen were frequently relegated to menial positions that segregated them from other soldiers. In fact, Nazi POWs were often allowed to dine with white US soldiers from whose company blacks were excluded. This sad state of American civil rights prompted some blacks to defy the draft board by using racial stereotypes to their advantage. Malcolm X, for example, enthusiastically expressed a desire to “kill some crackers” in order to be disqualified from a war in which he did not feel morally obliged to participate.
Most astonishing of all is the fact that of the approximately fifty million people who were killed during World War II, about 20 million were classified as noncombatants – even though both sides agreed not to target civilians in 1939. After the repeated bombings of thriving cities like Tokyo, Dresden, and London, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 became very representative of the Allies’ so-called “tarnished victory” at the end of an unprecedentedly devastating conflict.
Considering that WWII happened less than 70 years ago, it is remarkable to think how many facts have already been overlooked. If any of them came as a surprise to you, make sure to pick up a study guide on your way out.
