The SOI Declaration prompts songwriters/facilitators to employ certain constraints in collaborative songwriting sessions

– Firstly, the song must be written on the basis of a give-and-take-conversation during which the facilitator takes notes, which can be used as starting point for a lyric.

– Secondly. the songwriting must involve a melody game that destabilizes the facilitator’s usual ways of working and which levels the playing field between facilitator and co-writer. Below follows an example of a melody game – but this creative constraint can take many forms.

– Thirdly, a song must be written on location with the co-writer(s), although edits and amendments can happen after.

Below follows helpful take-aways from the thesis Songs in the Key of Collaboration (Høybye 2023, 2024):

 

Collaborative Songwriting Framework

This framework describes the use of give-and-take conversations in one-to-one collaborative songwriting sessions.

  1. We have a give-and take conversation, setting the stage, adjusting to the space of the songwriting session.
  2. A theme or problem is given attention in thought and feeling, and written notes are taken.
  3. A melodic brainstorming takes place using a melody game, humming/singing along with the words, different rhythmic approaches can be tried out as the theme or problem influences as an underlying current.
  4. Any further words or lyrical lines that come to the fore are written down – this intuitively can be a part or the heart of a lyric.
  5. Verses are developed.
  6. A chorus is developed (if the song calls for a chorus).
  7. A song structure is worked into form, playing the parts over and over as ideas settle. In this process intuitive edits are continually made (adding/removing chords, words, song parts).
  8. Once a song has taken shape it is immediately recorded as a rough demo – one with the vocal, and one with guitar backing only. The latter to allow for the collaborators to revisit the song and sing it to internalize it, while allowing us to not be locked in to the first version that was sung.
  9. In the following days/weeks/months the song is revisited, perhaps edited further. The documented conversation and the newly written and documented song are kept as two equally important sources, and any files can be shared with interlocutors for further inspiration or reflection.

The use of a Melody game in collaborative songwriting sessions

According to Martin Høybye:

“In the collaborative songwriting sessions of my research project, I believed that we could fully be co-writers of a song if we: a) used the jotted notes from a give-and-take conversation to create the lyrics, and b) engaged in co-composition of the melody.

To that end, I introduced a melody game. Both to prevent that I be cast in the role of being the sole composer, and to destabilize myself as a musician. The destabilization of myself as a musician refers to an inconvenience caused by the constraint of the melody game. Not knowing what the melody game would yield, but knowing that I had a responsibility as facilitator to “make the music work” for us within the short time span of our session, troubled my usual ways of working and of composing melody.

This destabilization made the songwriting process more unfamiliar to me, like the songwriting process would be unfamiliar to most of my co-writers.

In the melody game I used a color-coordinated, metal glockenspiel, and the color-coordination would allow us to refer to the individual colors rather than their corresponding musical notes.

The game involved chance, as collaborators would choose to either go for odds or evens, and then throw a die across the keys. We would then write down the color of the note.

The sequencing would often be conversation and words first. Once we had written notes or the beginning of a text that we liked, I would ask my interlocutor to play the melody game. When we felt that we had enough music to work with we would try to sing the words using this melodic strand. We would then change the melody and words to our liking as the songwriting progressed.


References cited in the SOI Declaration and project description

Cave, Nick, and Sean O’Hagan. 2022. Faith, hope and carnage. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.

Høybye, Martin. 2023. “Songs in the Key of Collaboration: engaging with Anthropocene moments through personal and collaborative songwriting.” Aarhus University.
—. 2024a. “Album: Songs in the Key of Collaboration.” May 3, 2024, Denmark: Songcrafter Music.
—. 2024b. “Working in the Key of Collaboration: Songwriting and Alternative Ethnography as Research Practice.” Qualitative inquiry.

Gauthier, Mary. 2021. “Saved by a Song, The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting.” New York: Macmillan Audio.

Ridgway, Clive. 2022. Head, Heart and Hands: A brave new approach to songwriting. Cape Town: Naledi.