How to Improvise a Song

Making up a decent song on the spot can be one of the most difficult things in improv comedy. It requires a combination of quick thinking, rhyming ability, and a general sense of how songs work. If you do manage to pull it off successfully, though, you're likely to wow the audience and receive copious applause. And heck, even if your song isn't perfect, you'll probably be appreciated for trying.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Background music (optional)

1. Ask the audience to suggest a genre for your song. If you do not have a musician who can adapt to different styles of music, or a good selection of CDs to play, skip this step.
2. Tell the audience to suggest a topic for the song. You may wish to guide their suggestions by asking for something they fear or love.
3. Begin thinking of related concepts as soon as you hear the suggestion. For example, if the audience suggests being afraid of the dark, you might think of lying in bed asleep, having nightmares, worrying about burglars, and bumping into things.
4. Start up the background music, whether this is pressing play on a boombox or instructing your pianist/guitarist to begin playing.
5. Take a few bars to dance around on stage while getting a feel for the flow of the music. If you are already familiar with the background music, use this time to think of more concepts related to the topic.
6. Sing the first line of your song. Your first line doesn't have to be about one of the concepts you thought of, but it should lead into one of those concepts. (e.g. "I was lying alone at night in my bed,")
7. Try to end your first line on a word that is easy to rhyme with (such as "bed"). Once you are good at making up songs, you may already have a rhyming word in mind (e.g. "head"), but as long as you end with an easily rhymeable word, your song should work fine.
8. Continue singing a second line that follows logically from the first line, being sure to rhyme. If possible, try to set up the concepts you thought of earlier. For example, "Visions of evil burglars danced through my head."
9. Continue with a few lines in couplets until you hit upon something funny, and then feel free to repeat the funny line as a chorus. This gives you extra time to think of ideas for the next verse.
10. Sing a few more couplets, and try to end on a funny idea.

Tips & Warnings

• Using the same background music each time lets you focus on the words instead of the music.
• Not everyone has a singing voice.

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