Ben demystifies the creative process to illustrate how great songs, like great stories, follow a narrative form with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Employing basic concepts in literacy, students brainstorm specific imaginative details to create compelling characters and events and then translate these ideas into lyrics. Using this participant-generated material, Ben demonstrates how a range of musical styles including funk, rock, reggae, bluegrass, and jazz can be paired with lyrics to invent a fully formed new song.
