Peterik Chapter 6: Creating Lyrics
Table of Contents
Introduction
I've taken a few days off from posting -- first to celebrate the Fourth of July, and second to prepare for Chapter 6, the longest chapter in the Peterik book. And there are several other things that came up during my week between posts.
AP Calculus Results
First of all, yesterday was the day that the AP results came out. So it was time for me to find out how well my own AP Calculus students fared on the exam.
But even before I saw the scores, I knew not to expect much. A few months ago when I was in the office, I happened to glance at last year's AP scores, and sadly, like at many schools with Hispanic majorities, the only exam on which anyone scored higher than a 2 was AP Spanish. Of course, Jaime Escalante showed that Mexican-American students can be successful at Calculus, but I'm no Jaime Escalante. And so, I'll just say that this week's results revealed that no Escalante-like miracle occurred at my school.
The lone junior in my class earned a 2 on the exam. All four seniors who took the test scored a 1.
Of course, there were many factors that were beyond my control, especially COVID-19. First of all, the pandemic led to the entire 2020-21 school year being online -- distance learning isn't ideal for math, and it likely hurt my students' Precalculus preparation. This year, the second semester started two days late due to COVID testing, and then I myself lost a week after testing positive. Then the week before the exam, a minimum day was changed to a regular day to make up for the lost days in January -- which would have been great, except that it became a block day on which Calculus didn't meet.
But my focus is on my decisions which I was able to control -- including the way I responded to some of those COVID-related challenges. I already wrote about some of these decisions in my June 1st post, but now that I've seen the AP scores, these are worth revisiting. And yes, I know that we're already looking back at my year at the old charter school in these summer posts. Well, it's also worth comparing some of the tough decisions I made in both Math 8 and Calculus (indeed, January was a critical month in both 2017 and 2022).
As I've said before, the lone junior in the class is the probably the smartest math student -- after all, that's why she took the class a year early. But unfortunately, she's a bit slow when it comes to tests -- and that's a liability on a timed test like the AP. Then again, I'm not worried that much about her -- she'll be taking Calculus BC as a senior as the main district high school, taught by a 20+year veteran who knows how to get his students to pass the exam. And I hope that her experience taking the test this year will help her answer the questions faster next year, enough for her to earn a passing score next year.
No, my worry is with the seniors who just graduated and earned 1's on the exam. Those students will now never get the chance to earn Calculus credit without having to take the class in college. And as I said before, one guy in my class is the son of two of Escalante's former students -- and of course, his score is nowhere near what his parents earned a few decades ago.
But as I wrote earlier, the key month was January, the start of the second semester. My original plan was to divide the semester into four-week units for each of Chapters 4-6, cover Chapter 7 in two weeks, and then that would leave two weeks for review for the exam. But when the first two days of the year were cancelled, I started considering a fifth week for Chapter 7 -- and once I caught COVID, that consideration became an actuality. Instead, I should have reserved the last two weeks for review no matter what, which meant starting Chapter 5 on Tuesday, February 8th (when I got back from COVID) no matter what. It was more important to start Section 5.1 on the 8th than to give the Chapter 4 Test -- either give a shortened Chapter 4 Test on the minimum day (the 7th) or no test at all.
Those two extra weeks needed to be for review, especially calculator and free-response questions. It's impossible to score anything higher than a 1 without getting significant points on the calculator and free-response questions -- as my former students just found out yesterday.
And I also could have reviewed free-response questions on AP Classroom -- that's what it's for. As I wrote on June 1st, whenever I assigned an FRQ assignment it would be one of two assignments -- and then I'd always go over the assignment that isn't FRQ the next day. In my June 1st post I also wrote about I might have assigned FRQ as the lone assignment at a school where classes meet four times per week instead of three (such as the flagship high school) -- perhaps at my actual school, I could have assigned FRQ on Mondays, when I usually gave only one assignment (as it would be due Tuesday).
If I had followed these principles, then my class scores would have been higher. No, I don't believe that all of my kids would have scored 5's. But perhaps my lone junior would have scored a 3 instead of a 2, and at least one of my seniors would have earned a 2. Oh, and the one senior who didn't take the exam at all would have gotten a score (as I should have reminded her to attend class during those two review weeks leading up to the AP exam).
Rapoport Question of the Day
Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
What is the maximum number of congruent circles that surround a circle and all touch it?
This is technically a Geometry problem, but in the end, either you know the answer or you don't. The correct answer is six -- the centers of the six circles form the vertices of a regular hexagon. Therefore the desired answer is six -- and of course, today's date is the sixth.
This is often referred to as the "kissing number," since the circles are all touching (or "kissing") the circle at a single point each. Today's question demonstrates that the kissing number is six -- at least it is for two dimensions....
...two dimensions, you say? Dang it, I was hoping that it would be eight dimensions, so that we could then ask the newest Fields Medalist to find the answer....
...oh, that's right, Fields Medals were just announced yesterday. Every four years, these are awarded to the top mathematicians in the world who are 40 years of age or younger. Although four mathematicians were awarded the medals this year, the sentimental favorite is Maryna Viazovska -- mainly because she's from Ukraine, where a major war is currently being fought. Indeed, the medals were supposed to be awarded in Russia, but they were given in Finland instead, presumably in deference to Viazovska.
Anyway, the kissing number in 8D is 240 -- and Viazovska received her Fields Medal for analyzing a lattice of 8D spheres where each one is touching exactly 240 other spheres. As you can see, these kissing number problems can be quite complex -- we don't even know the 5D-7D kissing numbers, and working with the 8D kissing number is enough to earn you a Fields Medal. Hmm, maybe we should just stick to the 2D kissing number of six after all.
By the way, Viazovska becomes only the second woman to become a Fields Medalist. The first was Maryam Mirzakhani (an Iranian), who sadly died of breast cancer at age 40.
Speaking of age 40, that's the maximum age at which one can win the Fields Medal. Rats -- I'm age 41, so that means that I can never become a Fields Medalist. (Of course, if I can't even teach AP Calculus students to get higher than a 2 on the exam, I have no business getting a Fields Medal.)
My Tweets
I think I'll continue to discuss Twitter here on my blog -- both my own tweets that only a few people are reading and the tweets that people are actually reading.
Let's start with my own tweet. This morning I actually tweeted out the line that I posted earlier in this blog about the Rapoport problem and the Fields Medalist (posted in response to another person responding to the Rapoport problem). One person liked the tweet.
Popular Tweets
The most popular teacher-related tweets now are under the labels "teachertwitter" or "clearthelist." This is now the start of the Back to School shopping season, but many teachers can't afford to purchase items for their classroom. This labels are used so that poorer teachers can post their Amazon wish lists, and then charitable readers can purchase the items and donate to them.
I guess I could post a wish list and ask people to donate, but I won't. I still have many items that I took out from my classroom last month (since we were closing, we needed to empty the rooms). What I need now isn't school items, but a new classroom to put those items in.
Peterik Chapter 6: Creating Lyrics
Chapter 6 of Jim Peterik's Songwriting for Dummies is called "Creating Lyrics." And here's how this super-long chapter begins:
"Lyrics can make or break a great melody. But coming up with lyrics is often easier said than done. In this chapter, we fill you in on some tried-and-true techniques used by the pros when they're setting out to write lyrics."
Several ideas for creating a lyric are listed here, including:
- A cause you believe in deeply
- A storyline you've imagined or lived
- A catchy phrase
Peterik now gives several steps that we can follow. His first step is to start with a title:
"If you're not sure what the song is going to be about, then sit down and create a list of different ideas that could be expanded and covered by your title."
Now we must find a place for the title within the song. Here is a table with lists "power spots for titles" and gives several examples of each spot. I'll only list one example in each spot here:
- At the end of each verse: "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" (Simon & Garfunkel)
- At the beginning of the chorus: "Baby, I Love Your Way" (Peter Frampton)
- At the end of the chorus: "One Sweet Day" (Mariah Carey/Boys II Men)
- In both the first and last lines of the chorus: "On the Road Again" (Willie Nelson)
- In the first line of each verse: "Just One of Those Things" (Cole Porter)
- In the last line of each verse: "My Way" (written Paul Anka, performed by Frank Sinatra)
The author's second step is to start with an idea or concept:
"Some of the greatest lyrics are remembered more for their idea or story rather than for their clever rhyme schemes, hooks, twists on title, plays on words, or expanded clichés."
Rather than provide any examples of real songs here, the book now suggests considering writing a song about taking a long road trip "Deep in the Heart of the Night" and ask ourselves the following:
- Am I writing from the personal perspective or am I telling a story about someone else or from another person's point of view?
- Am I writing about the trip in the present tense, looking back at a past trip, or dreaming of one in the future?
- What is going through my mind as I'm driving?
It's also possible, if we're lucky, to use a melody that suggests a lyric, as he tells us here:
"In this way, a melody can literally inspire a lyric -- as opposed to the other way around. On occasion, when one of my co-writers or I hit upon an interesting melody, I'll sing it out with what I call creative gibberish -- in other words, nonsense syllables that sound remarkably like words."
Peterik now moves on to finding the format for your lyrics. His third step deals with the verse lyrics:
"You may also want to set up your scene geographically ('In the town where I was born...') as to where the action takes place, or set the time perspective as to when the situation occurs ('Many, many years from now...')."
We can let the verse express the concept, especially in the opening line:
"Try and capture the listeners' imagination and curiosity as two where your song is heading. By looking at John Lennon and Paul McCartney's song 'Eleanor Rigby' we see an excellent example of verse progression."
Indeed, in the first verse of that song we meet the title character right after (someone else's) wedding, in the second verse we meet the town preacher, and in the third verse he is burying her after she dies. And other songs by The Beatles are listed as examples in this section ("Girl" and "Magical Mystery Tour").
The author's next step deals with the pre-chorus lyrics. He returns to his "Deep in the Heart of the Night" example:
"If your verse talks in very specific terms about the trip you are taking (the lyric, "Tulsa circled on the map," indicates a certain goal), then perhaps your pre-chorus (also known as a channel) could be very conceptual (perhaps something about your innermost thoughts as you are driving)."
Peterik now moves on to the chorus lyrics:
"Whether the listener is hit over the head with the lyrics of the chorus or seduced by it, it must be something they want to hear again (and hopefully, again and again). There is no law that says a chorus has to be exactly the same each time it comes around."
And, as he points out, the chorus contains the most important lyrics of the song:
"The chorus can be similar in tone to the verses, blending in with them, or it can become a surprise or a climax, such as we find in 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' (written by Robbie Robertson, performed by the Band)."
Other examples of songs with a memorable chorus include a pair of Elton John songs -- "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Circle of Life."
The author's next step deals with the bridge lyrics:
"The bridge of your song can be an important elements for a variety of reasons. It can serve to sum up in broad terms, the main idea of the song."
Indeed, the bridge doesn't need to be that long at all:
"Many current pop songs are using extremely short (often two or three lines) to change the pace without extending the song too dramatically."
The "bridge masters" are The Beatles -- John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who often wrote the bridges for each others' tunes.
Peterik now moves beyond format to sound. We should pay attention to the rhythm of the words -- as he himself once did when writing one of his popular tunes:
"The original opening line for my song 'Vehicle' (a number-one hit for my band The Ides of March back in 1970) was 'I got a set of wheels, pretty baby, won't you hop inside my car.'"
He ended up changing it to "I'm the friendly stranger in the black sedan," which changed up the rhythm of the opening as well. He points out that this anticipated the rap rhythms that became popular later on.
And we should also pay attention to the sounds of words within a lyric. We return to the example song "Deep in the Heart of the Night" given in the book:
"Notice the repeated 'w' sound in the words 'wonder' and 'why' (this is alliteration, which is explained later in this chapter), the exact rhyme of the words 'wheel' and 'heel,' and the rhythm of the syllables as they roll along (much like the rhythm of the wheels of the car). As you develop your lyric, try to include lyrical and poetic devices like these (and the many others we explore in this chapter) into your lyric."
The author's next step deals with noticing a lyric's point of view. Some songs are written in first person:
"The singer/songwriter era in the '70s spawned many songs from this perspective when the buying audience seemed fascinated by the innermost feelings of the introspective artists of that time -- such as Dan Hill, Cat Stevens, and Jim Croce. Even if you write a lyric from a personal perspective, before you finalize it, try changing the perspective to third person (see the next section) to see how you like it."
And, as you can already figure out from this, the other point of view is the third person. He tells us how he changes perspective in some of his own song, "Hold on Loosely," which starts in the first person:
"But when it hits the chorus, 'Hold on loosely, but don't let go,' the message now comes from the woman's point of view."
In addition to getting some perspective, it's also important to notice what tense our songs are written in:
"'We'll be together' (written and sung by Sting) is a good example of future tense. I sometimes like to combine past and future tenses in the same song."
Next, we should tune in to the lyric's tone and style -- what sort of words we use in our songs:
"Certain phrases in country, Christian, and easy listening are not going to sound appropriate against a balls-to-the-wall Aerosmith track or the latest by Linkin Park. Many times people ask what the difference between poetry and lyrics, and they often get one of a number of stock answers."
In fact, poetry and lyrics have more in common than we might suspect. (At this point I'm reminded of the line in Akeelah and the Bee, when the title character learns that her brother's gangbanger friend once wrote a poem in elementary school. He points out that rap is simply poetry.)
Both poetry and lyrics rely on repetition. We consider another song by The Beatles, "Hey Jude":
"The repetition of the 'na na na na' phrase in that same outro forms a hypnotic backdrop to the instrumental chaos that is mounting. Certain words can be repeated for emphasis or to adapt to a melody."
At this point, Peterik gives a long list of poetic devices that we can use in our songs. Let me list some of them right here:
- Rhyme: A regular recurrence of corresponding sounds, especially at the end of lines. Rhyme is one of the most basic spices that can bring out the flavor in any dish (or song). (Rhyme is covered in Chapter 7.)
- Simile: Comparing one thing to a dissimilar thing by the use of like or as. "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart" (written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Ed Holland; performed by the Supremes) is a good example, as is "Your Love Is Like Oxygen" (written by Andy Scott and Trevor Griffin; performed by Sweet) and "Like a Virgin" (written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg; sung by Madonna).
- Metaphor: This is a figure of speech where one thing is compared to another thing, as if it were that other thing (without using like or as). A few examples are "Love Is The Drug" (written by Bryan Ferry and Andy Mackay; performed by Roxy Music) or "I Am The Walrus" and "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" (written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon; performed by The Beatles).
- Consonance: According to Webster's, "a pleasing combination of sounds simultaneously produced." This word covers a lot of ground in lyric writing and harkens back to what we said on the subject of words sounding good and flowing well together."
"It'll help to make your song linger in people's memories long after the sun has risen on Tulsa and our solitary driver has found some peace of mind."
This takes us to the next "Practice Makes Perfect" section -- it's time for me to write a song now.
A Song for January
In our last post, we looked at what Math 8 Unit 4 would have looked like at the old charter school with these songs. Let's look at the ideal Unit 5, spanning Weeks 17-20 of school. The math standards to be covered are the F standards on functions.
As I wrote earlier in this post, this was a critical time of year in both 2017 and 2022, and so I can't help but compare the two years. In both years, winter break was extended by two days -- this year it was the first two days after the break, but at the old charter it was the last two days before the break.
And just like this year, it would be tempting to save 8.F2 for after the break. But no -- we want to make sure that the first post-break standard is 8.F3, not F2. So we need to find a way to cover all of F2 in just one day -- Tuesday, December 13th.
Recall that on the original timeline, I didn't really teach that many F standards at the old charter. So instead, we compare it to the long-term school, where I covered the F strand in October 2020. Indeed, I wrote about the F2 lesson in my October 19th, 2020 post -- and the students struggled with it. So it's not the sort of lesson that I'd want to teach in a single day on this timeline.
(Notice that it's possible that the lengthy Benchmarks in November would have prevented me from teaching anything that week, and so the standard for Week 17 would have been F1 instead of F2 -- and F1 is a much easier lesson that could be taught on the 13th. But for this post, we must follow the chart that shows F2 for Week 17.)
In the end, the most likely outcome is that I teach as much of F2 as possible on the 13th, and the parts that the students don't get (especially the slope-related parts) get saved for F3 after winter break. The assessment for this week is the 5's Hero Quiz, which can also be given on the 13th.
This means that the song for Week 17 becomes "No Zeroes" (the "No Scrubs" parody). My plan was always to perform it during the week of the 5's quiz -- on the original timeline this is after winter break, but on this timeline it's the last song before the break. I've already alluded to this song in previous Peterik posts -- it's one of the few tunes I performed with a pre-chorus section. (The original "No Scrubs" song also has a bridge, but I never included it in my parody.) Each of the four lines of this channel start with "I don't want," which according to today's Peterik chapter, counts as anaphora.
Wednesday, December 14th is a science day. Usually on Wednesday of the first week of the unit, the eighth graders do a science lesson on Study Island, and so the same can be done on this day.
After winter break, Week 18 is the week for F3. This will be a tricky lesson -- the students will struggle on the quiz at the end of the week. It's possible that I just repeat the y = mx + b song from Week 10 -- since, as I said over and over, the kids need as much help with slope-intercept as they can get.
For Week 19, we move on to F4. This is a tricky lesson as now the students are given applications and word problems that must be modeled using linear equations. But the song for this week will most likely be "Runnin'" -- the Hidden Figures song, in honor of the field trip on January 18th.
"Runnin'" is also notable for having a pre-chorus. I consider this channel to begin with the line "I know they say you crawl..." which gives the song a simple ABCABCBC form. But this means that the lines that start with "Runnin'" must be considered part of the verses, not the pre-chorus. We might call these anaphora as the word "Runnin'" is repeated, but since that's the title, these might be considered hooks instead of anaphora.
For Week 20, we move on to F5. This lesson might be thought a bit easier than F4, as the focus is on describing linear vs. nonlinear functions instead of calculating the slope. On the original timeline, I sang "Plug It In" that week, but that doesn't properly describe F5. One song that I performed slightly later than Week 20 was "Linear or Not," which was intended for one of the EE standards but could be made to fit F5. (At the long-term school, the F unit in APEX appeared to end with F4, so there was no song for F5 at all.)
By the way, another song I performed on the original timeline slightly after Week 20 was "Count the Ways" from Square One TV. Even though this song is already complete, I modified it using something mentioned in today's Peterik chapter -- changing the perspective. The original song (performed by the Judds) has a female point of view, so I changed it to a male perspective when I sing it. In particular, I change the lines about the mystery man from third to first person, and I drop the words "He said" at the start of the chorus since I am the one who's saying those words right now. (Technically speaking, the first song which I changed to a masculine perspective was "Meet Me in St. Louis/Pomona," and I might need to do the same if I ever perform Square One TV's "Graph of Love" or "Shape Up" in class.)
Another big thing about Week 20 was the start of SBAC Prep -- and this allows us to make another direct comparison to my Calculus class. Just as Calculus culminated in a standardized test (the AP), Math 8 ends with the SBAC. And our charter school spent as much time preparing for the SBAC as an AP class did preparing for that big exam.
And so, just as I should have spent more time on AP Classroom in 2022, I should have devoted more time to the SBAC Prep website in 2017. There are several ways of doing it, but if we're following this pacing plan, then it makes sense to have the students practice the F strand on Week 20 Wednesday (as this was the day that eighth graders had SBAC Prep).
Before we start our song, let's take one more look at the science for this unit. For Week 18, the students work on Newton's Laws of Motion where students play Tug of War with a rope and measure the motion of toy cars to determine how force, mass, and friction are related. For Week 20, they create a small electric circuit and show that it generates a magnetic force as well. I'm not sure whether I'd be able to collect all the needed materials for this one. (And it would feel awkward for me to teach it as I didn't learn this until AP Physics C Electromagnetism, yet it's now included in the Grade 8 standards.)
OK, let's start the song now. I think we'll write a Week 20 song -- "Linear or Not" might be already adequate for Week 20, but it's a bit on the short side. Still, I'll use "Linear or Not" as an inspiration -- take the original song and expand it.
Here is the standard for the new song:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.8.F.B.5
Describe qualitatively the functional relationship between two quantities by analyzing a graph (e.g., where the function is increasing or decreasing, linear or nonlinear). Sketch a graph that exhibits the qualitative features of a function that has been described verbally.
By the way, I've performed "Linear or Not" a few times since the old charter school -- and each time I made it into a rap. So I'm leaning towards setting this up the same way I did with "Is This Relation a Function?" in my last post. The verses are rapped, and I generate a 14EDL tune in Mocha to represent the chorus only. This time, there will be three verses for each of the nonlinear functions, and another coda/outro to represent the function that is linear.
In fact making this song underlies the similarity between determining whether a relation is a function and whether a function is linear. We check to see whether there is something that makes it clearly a nonfunction or a nonlinear function (one x with two y's or an exponent on x respectively), and absent that, the relation is a function and the function is linear. The only difference is that there are more "yes" examples in the function song and more "no" examples in the linear song.
So instead of "Linear or Not," let's make the title a question "Is this function linear?" and go from there.
20 FOR V=1 TO 1
30 FOR X=1 TO 15
40 READ A,T
50 SOUND 261-N*A,T*2
60 NEXT X
70 RESTORE
As usual, click on Sound before you RUN the program.
When I first generated the Mocha melody, I chose to make 10 measures. But measures 2-9 sound better together, so I included only these eight bars in the song. The resulting bars 1, 4, 5, and 8 all contain long notes for the "No" and "Yes" responses -- which officially makes this a melody-driven song, since I created the melody and then fit the "No" and "Yes" lyrics to them.
The verses are to be rapped. The title line "Is the function linear?" (placed at the beginning of the chorus -- one of the power spots for the title) is also rapped, and then the melody starts at "No."
Once again, we only need four bars for the second line of the chorus. We hit the Esc key to break the program while rapping the third line, and then we run the code for the fourth line. The only time we run the entire program is during the coda/outro.
I also decided to include a perfect rhyme in the chorus -- "fine" and "line." This serves to remind the students that "linear" means "line" -- if we were to graph the linear functions, we'd see a line. The verses don't contain a rhyme -- instead, I took lines from the original version of the song. In each verse, I give the formal name for the nonlinearity (for example, "exponent") and then the informal name for what the students need to look for (for example, "little number").
Conclusion
I'm still upset over the AP Calculus results, knowing that I could have done better. All I can do now is hope I can get into a new classroom this year and avoid making those same mistakes this time. And I know that the songs I'm writing now can help make my classes more effective in the future.
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