Funeral Song-writing Lesson
In a sense, by having your own self-composed song to bid farewell to this world, you will be present at your own funeral, documenting your reflections on death in chords and verses. As traditional funeral songs are seldom played today, it is up to the deceased to prepare their own. In the Funeral Songwriting Lesson workshop, you can learn how.
Included in the workshop will be discussion of the correlations between sound and death, a lyrical and musical exploration of pop songs related to death, and a review of different types of funeral music. All these activities will aid participants in deciding what kind of music they want for their own funerals (eg, fast, slow, instrumental). As a final step, participants will work individually or in groups with the aid of a tutor to compose the lyrics and melody of their own short funeral piece. Works will be shared in the workshop, along with each individual’s views on death itself.
About Leaving
About Leaving aims to help people prepare objects in advance of their own deaths, including final letters, urns and funeral music—things that are only useful after death. We hope to probe into the topic of death during the course of three workshops, encouraging participants to contemplate death in a welcoming and liberal setting, and start preparing for finality in ways that suit them best.