Category Archives: songwriting

Shell #makethefuture music contest

Posted on March 29, 2015 by crowther

From the Shell oil company comes the following STEM music contest…. Can you write a song that inspires others to #makethefuture better? If so, you could win $15,000! Shell challenges musicians to write an original song using creativity, talent and … Continue reading →

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The first-ever Sing About Science podcast!

Posted on December 5, 2013 by crowther

Fundamentally, music is an auditory channel of information, so podcasting about music is a logical thing to do. I have no special expertise in audio recording or producing, so I’ve been slow to attempt this, but today I present an … Continue reading →

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Summer catch-up, part 3

Posted on September 21, 2013 by crowther

This might not be a real trend, but it sure feels like one. Facilitating student science songwriting and performing is hard, and past efforts along these lines have seemed pretty intermittent and isolated. But a number of additional related projects … Continue reading →

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Science songster interview #16: Jeremy Long

Posted on April 30, 2013 by crowther

As someone who sees lots and lots of STEM music videos, I’m rarely surprised by new creations in this realm. But surprise is exactly what I felt upon discovering Prof. Jeremy Long’s 2nd annual Chemical Ecology Filmfest, in which teams … Continue reading →

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Science songster interview #12: Monty Harper

Posted on January 5, 2013 by crowther

Monty Harper’s 2010 album Songs From the Science Frontier is, in my opinion, one of the best science-themed albums of all time. I greatly enjoyed meeting Monty last month at his Stillwater, Oklahoma residence, but we had so much to … Continue reading →

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Anatomy of a science song, part 2

Posted on September 7, 2012 by crowther

One thing I didn’t emphasize in my previous “Anatomy of a science song” post is the importance of the revision process for me (and, I assume, for most other songwriters). Above is a partial draft of my just-completed song MTA, … Continue reading →

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Links: The Rhymebosome (Tom McFadden) on the Krebs cycle and student songwriting

Posted on September 20, 2011 by crowther

• Lord, save me from the Krebs cycle Did you understand what they were singing? In its friendly, unscary way, it’s just as dense as the diagram at the top of this post. Instead of being frightened and mystified, this … Continue reading →

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Another songwriting contest!

Posted on September 9, 2011 by crowther

We’ve mentioned the USA Science & Engineering Festival’s song contest over and over and over, so perhaps the Eco Arts contest deserves some space here too. As the website explains, Eco Arts is “an annual competition in six creative genres … Continue reading →

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The anatomy of a science song

Posted on September 1, 2011 by crowther

The basic challenge of the USA Science & Engineering Festival’s song contest is to convince kids that science is cool. But this begs the question: why exactly is science cool? My simplistic idea is that most people who like science … Continue reading →

Posted in conferences/festivals, new releases, songwriting | 1 Comment

Feedback: not just squealing noises from loudspeakers

Posted on July 13, 2011 by crowther

Several years ago, in a sciencesongs listserv discussion of songwriting, Monty Harper wrote the following: It seems to me that often those folks most motivated to write science songs are science teachers, who understand the need for such things. There … Continue reading →

Posted in classroom, conferences/festivals, networking, songwriting | 2 Comments