Compose a Work Song

In this task, you will work in a group of 3 or 4 to compose a work song with a "call and response" style.

Before you start! Discuss the following questions with your group, and share your answers with the class.

1. What do you think the function of a work song is?

2. What kind of work would you expect a work song to go with? 

3. Who sings work songs? 

What Makes A Work Song Leader from the album Prison Songs Volume 1, by Alan Lomax. The track is available as a download on iTunes. 

• The ‘call’ is not sung by the best singer, but by the person with the most experience and respect within the community of workers.

• Music provides focus and energy to alleviate monotonous and repetitive tasks, and ensures people work at a steady rate. 

• The songs also provides a distraction from the harsh physical labour of the task. 

Strong beats: We all have an unconscious urge to move on strong beats. 

Watch: London’s Millennium Bridge famously wobbled when hundreds of people unconsciously moved their feet together in time BBC News article from 2001: Wobbly bridge ‘could stay shut for months’. 

• This can reflect a challenge from your own experience, or a challenge experienced by a group somewhere in the world. 

Example: Stay on beat, and do not whine! (Stay on beat and do not whine!)

Wisk those eggs and make them fine! (Wisk those eggs and make them fine!)

Stay on beat, and do not whine! (Stay on beat and do not whine!)

Pancakes are coming in another line! (Pancakes are coming in another line!)

The aim of your work song should be to: 

1. Help your group to coordinate an activity (e.g. marching, hammering, jumping, working) through a strong pulse and motivating words.

2. Express something about the challenge the group faces Give hope to the group, so they can achieve new things.

Compositional Features of your Work Song:

1. Have a regular 2/4 ‘marching’ or ‘working’ pulse

2. Have clear strong and weak beats 

3. Consist of four four-bar phrases e.g. “We are march-in’ round the track-” 

4.  Each of these phrases will first be called by the leader, then sung back by the rest of the group. 

5. Lines 1 and 3 should rhyme and lines 2 and 4 should rhyme. 

6. Be in call and response form 

7. You should decide on a leader who does the ‘call’ while the rest of the group does the ‘response’. 

8. Groups can perform their songs marching, and/or using percussion instruments to represent the physical work their song helps with.

9. Once a pulse is set, each group can perform one after the other.

10. Groups should perform their work song with attention to performance practice, and also with an awareness of the context of the work song.