Song

Do you like to sing a song? Most people will surely say yes because song is something very interesting and entertaining in our lives. It can make us happy when we are sad, energized when we are reluctant, and most importantly we can express our feeling and learn something valuable from a song.

Singing an English song can help us to learn English, why? Because:

  1. You’ll learn in a fun way. It will make you faster in understanding and mastering the skill you learn.
  2. You can learn vocabulary and pronunciation.
  3. A Song contains repetition, and repetition can enhance learning.
  4. A song lyrics can contain culture and history so it can increase your knowledge as well.

A. Definition

Before talking too much about song, first, let’s see some definition of song taken from some sources:

  1. A Song is a short piece of music with words that you sing. (https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com).
  2. A song is a musical composition intended to be vocally performed by the human voice. (https://en.wikipedia.org)
  3. A song is a single work of music intended to be sung by the human voice with distinct and fixed pitches and patterns using sound and silence and a variety of forms that often include the repetition of sections. (https://www.academia.edu)

B. Social Function

The social functions of a song are:

  1. To entertain the listeners;
  2. To teach moral value through the lyrics;
  3. To provide a way of managing the relationship between public and private emotional life;
  4. To express personal feeling and cultural values;
  5. To give someone to not only shares their emotions with others, but also to have an emotional connection that just can’t be experienced in any other way;

C. Generic Structure

The generic structures of a song are:

1. Intro

The introduction establishes melodic, harmonic, and/or rhythmic related to the main body of song.

2. Verse

It is the section of the song structure that tells the story. This is the exposition, describing the scene or the person, or an emotion. There are usually two or three verses in a row that have the same musical structure, the same rhyme and poetic meter, but different words. The second verse builds on the picture painted in the first verse, etc.

3. Chorus or Refrain

A chorus is the most repeated section, so it’s the easiest to remember. A chorus is the summary of the song’s story. All the verses have been leading up to the chorus, and is usually the part of the song people sing along with. A chorus can come at the beginning of the song structure; it can also start in the middle, or come at the end. In fact, some songs don’t have choruses at all. Some people are usually confused to differentiate between choruses and refrain. A refrain is any line that repeats in the song lyric, while a chorus is any group of lines that repeat.

4. Break

A break is actually a brief “rest” or “pause” for the core melody within a song used to add further dimension and excitement. It may include a quick instrumental solo or drum interlude or it may be a brief moment of silence, or a combination of each of these elements.

5. Bridge

This is the part of the song that shifts. It can suddenly change tempo, or volume, or instrumentation. The bridge is the section that gives the audience time to reflect on the story, or gives them the “climax” or conclusion of the story through verses and chorus. Bridges can be used to give the singer a break.

6. Outro or Coda

This is the end of the road for a song. It can repeat the intro, chorus or a refrain as an outro, or a bridge with an instrumental solo.

D. Language Feature

The Language Features of a song are:

  1. Lyrics

Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. (https://en.wikipedia.org)

2. Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounding words, occurring at the end of lines in poems or songs. (https://literarydevices.net)

3. Alliteration

Alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

4. Amusing word play and slang language

Some songs use amusing word play and slang language. A word play is the manipulation of language (in particular, the sounds, and meanings of words) with the intent to amuse; verbal wit. Slang is kind of language consisting of very informal words and phrases. Slang is more common in speech than in writing, for example: gonna, wanna, ain’t, etc. (www.ayokbelajar.com)

EXERCISE (QUIZ)

I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying
“I love you”

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more
Than I’ll never know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Oh yeah

Post Views: 1,226

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!