1-MINUTE PROMPT:
How are you doing? Look within and make note of whether you’re feeling content, bored, sad, elated, confused, irritable, or anything else. Write a couple lines of a blues song about your current emotional state.
5-MINUTE PROMPT:
A producer has asked you to compose a catchy chorus for a superstar’s next hit song. Grab your phone or open your computer to find the last email or text message you sent. Use at least one of the words from your recent digital missive in the lyrics of this radio-friendly chorus.
10-MINUTE PROMPT:
Find a clothing label on something you’re wearing. (You know, the one that says something like “See Reverse for Care.”) Use the words on this label to write the lyrics to a simple country song. Consider the tone, whether it be sincere, darkly humorous, or sickly sweet.
20-MINUTE PROMPT:
What if your life was a theatrical production? Write a musical number about your day leading up to this very moment. Treat it, and what’s happening around you, as if it were the pinnacle of an epic day, even—and especially—if everything’s been relatively mundane so far.