In this video, Charlie Puth is breaking down how he wrote his hit song, “Attention”. I have always been a HUGE fan of Charlie Puth and his music. I came across this video the other day and was really intrigued by his song writing process. Being classically trained, I am constantly looking at the sheet music and putting all my focus in that. Even when I wrote compositions during music school, it would be on sheet music. Charlie thinks outside of the box. He puts all of his music on his phone in his voice notes app when he has a song idea. What was interesting about this video is how he goes through his song writing process, by playing, mixing and layering different parts together into the final product. Charlie uses his ears and knowledge of different musical genres and backgrounds into his pop music and as he says, “likes to trick people into what they are hearing”. I love seeing what songs start out as and how they grow into the final product.
I thought about using this a couple of different ways. First, I wanted to remind myself to make sure my students know where different ideas in music come from as we are learning them (which I normally do, but this is important!). I also want them to play different genres of music so they have that knowledge. Secondly, I wanted to show them alternatives to writing music. Not everyone writes it down on sheet music. This also teaches how important it is to know your scales, intervals, and to use your ear, whether you are reading sheet music or if you are improvising or composing. I would like to implement more ear training into my lessons for my students.
– Ms. Kristen Hyatt
