Language of Flowers list:

Apple blossom - preference
Amaranth - immortality
Ashphodel - my regrets follow you to the grave
Ambrosia - love returned
Buttercup - childishness
Bay - glory / I change but in death
Bluebell - constancy
Borage - bluntness
Camomile - energy
Carnation - fascination
Clover - industry
Cowslip - pensiveness
Daisy - innocence
Dandelion - faithfulness
Daffodil - conceit
Dahlia - yours till the end
Elder blossom - compassion
Euphorbia - vanity
Everlast Pea - rememberance
Everlasting (Helichrysum) - attachment
Fern - concealed love
Foxglove - treachery
Fuschia - anxiety
Forget-me-not - love in absence
Gillyflower - affection
Goldenrod - encouragement
Hydrangea - show-off
Honeysuckle - ties of love
Hyacinth - rashness
Helebore - derilium, madness
Ice plant - heartless
Iris - my compliments
Indian pink - I die if neglected
(Canna) Indica - Chivalry
Jasmine - amiability
Juniper - I confide in you
Jonquil - egotism
Japanese Kerria - thoughtlessness
King-cups - desire of riches
Lotus - eloquence
Lupin - voraciousness
London Pride - frivolity
Lucerne - life
Magnolia - love of nature
Marigold - grief
Meadowsweet - uselessness
Mustard - indifference
Nasturtium - patriotism
Nightshade - sorcery, dark thoughts
Night convolvulus - transient beauty
Orange blossom - purity
Oleander - beware
Osmunda - dreams
Ox-eye - patience
Pansy - you occupy my thoughts
Peach blossom - you hold me captive
(Sweet) Pea - departure
Periwinkle - memory, friendship
Quaking Grass - agitation
Quamoclit (cypress vine) - busybody
Queen's Rocket (hesperis) - fashionable
Quince - temptation
Ragged Robin - wit
Rhododendron - danger
Rose - love
Rosemary - revival
Snapdragon - presumption
Snowdrop - hope
Sunflower - adoration
Sweet William - gallantry
Tansy - I declare against you
Thistle - austerity
Tulip - fame
Trefoil - revenge
Ulex (gorse) - humility
Vetch - shyness
Violet - faithfulness
Veronica (speedwell) - fidelity
Wallflower - loyalty in misfortune
Wood sorrel - joy
Xanthium (cockleburrs) - Rudeness
Yarrow - cure for love
Zinnia - thoughts of absent friends

-Alocasia's Songwriting Workshop

Hi SWCers, and welcome to my Songwriting Workshop! A little about me… I’ve always loved both music and creative writing, and I’ve been releasing my original songs on Scratch since 2020. I hope my advice will be of use to you as you complete this weekly, and that you enjoy our deep dive into this form of writing. While you read through, I recommend that you take pauses to listen to the songs I’ve linked, if you are able to.

You’ve probably written your own fiction and non-fiction before, since you’re assumedly part of SWC; you might even have experience with poetry. But it’s very likely that some of you reading this have never thought about writing your own songs before. A lot of people put themselves down and say they ‘can’t sing’ - but without getting into whether or not that’s actually true, let me propose that it isn't about how well you can sing anyway. Songwriting (like any form of writing!) doesn’t have to be a perfect polished product for potential publication. In the end it’s a creative outlet like any other, and I hope you can give it a shot.

WHAT IS SONGWRITING

Songwriting is the act of writing a song - a song, that is, being a set of words (following a rhyme scheme) put to music and sung.

ON THE MUSICAL BASICS

This isn’t a music theory workshop (sorry zai) so I’ll try to keep this brief! The music behind a song is made up of chord progressions. In music there are eight base notes (A B C D E F G). These notes can also be sharp or flat. Chords are collections of 3+ notes; major chords sound happy, and minor chords sound sad. There are other types of chords, too, that achieve different effects - they might have longer names, but don’t let that put you off them.

If you can play an instrument, you can either sing along to your playing or record a backing track for you to sing along to. But even if you don’t, there are still other ways into songwriting! Acapella singing is when you sing without a backing track. Some people form acapella groups and use their voices in the place of instruments - Pentatonix is a famous acapella group you might have heard of!

You can produce a song sung acapella by simply recording your voice. Use the scratch sound editor or a free program like Audacity.

You can also write a song using an instrumental someone else has written. You can find lots of royalty free instrumentals on online video platforms! This will limit your creative control and if you want to share your work, you’ll have to get permission from and credit the original artist, but it’s a great starting point if you don’t feel confident composing your own music yet. An example of this is Blixemi’s Stride by Stride adapted from Morning Walk by Jonny Easton.

ON WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT

If you’re starting the songwriting process with a blank piece of paper and a blank mind, it can be a challenge to know where to get started. Lots of songs are about love; that’s because it’s a topic many people can relate to, and listeners are most attracted to music that touches them personally. According to a study by researchers at North Carolina State University*, the most common themes in modern music are loss, desire, aspiration, nostalgia, pain, breakup, rebellion, inspiration, jadedness, escapism, desperation and confusion. If any of those themes resonate with you, or get your creativity fired up, try pursuing one! If your focus wanders from your original intent, that’s okay too – not all songs have to have a linear narrative, and you don’t necessarily need to resist if your writing starts to waver from your initial plan.

ON STRUCTURE

Songs are made up of verses, the chorus and the bridge. The verses usually share a (similar) melody but have different lyrics each time. The chorus is the same every time, and the bridge is a separate entity with lyrics and melody distinct from the rest of the song. An optional element is the pre-chorus, which comes before the chorus, and is usually the same every time too.

When you create your verses, I’d advise you to lead with strong imagery and emotive language. You can even focus on specific moments or events to give what you’re writing about a sense of authenticity. Your chorus will likely be less specific, and lean more heavily on descriptions of how you feel and the effect the subject of the song has had on you.

The standard pattern for a song, by my eye, is verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus. But all of this has been me explaining the basics - and if you want, you can always mix it up. Songs with alternative structures, like Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) and I Got A Boy (Girls Generation), are just as ‘valid’ as anything that follows more conventional guidelines. If you want your song to have twenty-five verses, no chorus and a bridge constituted entirely of yodelling, go for it.

Additionally, there is such a thing as a hook. The hook is hard to define, but it’s usually That One Line That Gets Stuck In Your Head – it’s the bit that hooks you in. You’ll usually find them in the chorus. (Hooks can be lyrical, or part of the instrumental – such as the BAM BAM BAM in Sweet Caroline, or The bass line in Under Pressure by Bowie and Queen. If you’re specifically developing a hook, try out lots of different melodies to find out which one is catchiest; when it comes to the lyric, if applicable, you need something memorable. Often, it’ll feel like the ‘mic drop’ moment. What lyrics can you imagine a stadium shouting back to you?

ON FUNDAMENTALS

Decide on your person and tense - first person being from your own point of view, second person being from ‘your’ point of view, and third person being about other people as opposed to the thoughts and feelings of the narrator. Most songs are in first person, but not all (Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles is in the third person, and For No One by… the Beatles is an example of the second person. And today I learned the Beatles liked writing songs in uncommon tenses.)

Your song can be in the past tense, present tense, or future tense - or move between tenses. Taylor Swift’s All Too Well starts in the past tense as she recounts her love story (I walkED through the door with you / The air WAS cold), but the perspective swings to present tense as she sings about her feelings post-breakup (And I KNOW it’s long gone / and that magic’s not here NO MORE). Songs written wholly in the future tense are thin on the ground, but if you keep an ear out you’ll hear plenty of individual lines written in future tense (such as the titular lyric of I Will Always Love You).

ON ACTUALLY WRITING

Since you’ve made all those basic decisions, it’s time to actually write. If you have any ideas in your head, from the imagery you want to use to potential lyrics, now’s the time to write them all down in one place. They might be disconnected right now, but viewing them as a whole will help you put them together properly, if that makes sense. What follows is a list of ideas and things to consider when you’re constructing your song.

- As you move through the song, mix up your rhythms (patterns of notes of various length and pitch). Repetition can be important to the identity of your song, but if you use the same rhythm everywhere then the entire song will blend into itself. Go listen to your favourite songs right now, and think about how the writer varied the rhythms throughout.

- When constructing your rhythms, think about the styles your notes will be sung in. What notes will you accent, or put stress on? Staccato means your notes are short, detached and articulate; legato, or slur, means the notes are smooth and run into each other – they’re slurred, or like the Italian says, tied together. What effects can you achieve with areas of legato and/or staccato in a song?

- An ascending melody line will feel more uplifting than a descending one.

- Make the nature of your music reflect your topic. My song Chlorine tells a story where two ex-friends meet again after a serious fight, and explores this through oceanic imagery. The nature of the repetitive, run-on melody reflects the rise and fall of the waves, and the relentless pace forces the singer to very literally gasp for air between beats. Still Got Time, in comparison, is slow, loving and measured – it’s literally about still having time – but is subtly tainted by bittersweet minor chords, reflecting the singer’s quiet terror that they might lose their love in the future (I don’t know if we’re forever).

But more than anything, write what moves you. Be honest with yourself, and indulge in all your emotions unashamedly – sometimes, shining a light on the ugliest parts of ourselves makes for the most beautiful art, and can be healing, too. Only you can tell your stories.

ON BEING A SONGWRITER + CONCLUSION

Here’s some final pieces of advice, especially for those of you who wish to continue to pursue this practice – but also for writing in general.

- Firstly, be conscious of the world around you – inspiration will only come to you if you invite it in. My songs and stories have been born of stalking scratch comments, the landscapes I know best and misread signposts – which leads to my second point…
- WRITE DOWN YOUR STUFF. Because you will not remember it otherwise, no matter how much you tell yourself you will. Carry a notebook or use the notes app on your phone – if something catches your interest, in it goes. Whatever you use, make sure you can always have easy access to it. Similarly, it’s very useful to be able to record yourself (I just use a video, but there are specialist voice notes apps too) in case you come up with a melody on the go.
- The smallest details can be the most significant.
- Don’t delete any of the work you make, even if you think it’s rubbish. Give your ideas time to grow, and they might be of use to you in the future.
- The very best way to learn is to engage with different sorts of music - modern, classic, vocal, instrumental, everything. It’s why there’s so many links in this workshop! When a lyric or technique grabs your attention, think about how the songwriter and/or the musicians accomplished that effect - equally, when you don’t enjoy a piece of music, that’s a learning experience too. My all-time favourite piece of instrumental music is called The Shepherd’s Boy, by Murray Gold, and I urge you to listen to it all the way through. I love it because I can hear a story in it, even without words.
- Songwriting has a lot in common with poetry; that said, if you’re interested in learning further about the technicalities of writing in rhyme, I’d like to redirect you to Zai’s Poetry workshop. He covers a great deal of information, but the Sound Mechanics and Literary Devices Used in Poetry sections are most relevant to what I’ve discussed today.
- Keep writing.

Thank you for reading – I hope you’ve enjoyed this foray into the world of songwriting! If you have any questions, contact me in this forum thread for the best chance of me seeing and replying to your comment.

*Source: “New Study Figured Out The 12 Most Common Themes of Music’s 1 #Hits In The Past 50 Years”, as written by Wendy Stokes.

~

Extra Resources:

The Song Plan

This is an optional sheet that you can use for help with your weekly activity! If you do want to use it, I recommend you either print this out or copy the following text into a writing document so you can customise the elements as you like.

Theme:
Mood:
Person: 1st/2nd/3rd (circle all that apply)
Tense: Past/Present/Future (circle all that apply)
Imagery:
Events:
Potential lyrics:




Working title:




Verse 1:




Pre-chorus:




Chorus:




Verse 2:




Pre-chorus:




Chorus:




Bridge




Pre-chorus:




Chorus;




(Chorus Repeat?)




End

NOT SURE IF I SHOULD COMMENT HERE BUT THIS WORKSHOP IS SO COOL <33