Our Efforts

I was given a great day-starter on this fine Thursday, as Petra, one of my students has presented me with the writing below. Petra (25) is a music teacher and works with children, also she plays guitar and tutors young guitarists. She has a thing for good music, and was very excited to do the task I gave her. Below you will get a little insight on how Help Me English gives custom-fitted exercises to its students an thus differs from boring language schools. :)

The task

Listen to the following two songs by Mumford and Sons. Read the lyrics carefully and write a 200-word comparative essay. The aspects I would like you to tackle are these: lyrics atmosphere, harmony, style, tempo, instruments. Of course, you're welcome to compare further aspects as well. Make your writing personal and interesting!

Petra’s solution 

Mumford and Sons: Little Lion Man and Awake My Soul

I think the band found their own style, because we can recognize them from the first sounds, from the folk influence, from the singer’s rugged voice.

In the two songs the instrumentation and the structure are similar. Both of them are built on the rhytm.

They begin simply with just one instrument, then growing and finally becoming strong.

They like to use a guiding sentence, a guiding thought what they repeat many times at the end of the songs to give them more accent and function.

So, the style and the instrument are the same but the atmosphere is different.

Little Lion Man is faster, more excited and it sounds happier. The sond Awake My Soul is slower and more relaxed and like a meditation at first, then it speeds up.

They like to use human voice and acoustic instruments, they also like harmonies and choires. The songs’ sounds express the lyrics well. The Little Lion Man song is angry: they use bad words, they tear up the strings and they drum with their feet.

Awake My Soul’s lyrics are strong too, but more spiritual then what the music tries to show in the beginning.

After all, both songs are complete; I don’t miss anything. They would be various, interesting, comprehensible without the lyrics as well. Both are amusing, and make us think. I liked them very much and I’m curious about other songs of the band Mumford and  Sons.  

As you can see, Petra had very well followed the task’s instructions. Her word-count was slightly over the required amount [250 instead of two hundred], but the quality of the text compensates for that minor error. She had a few silly mistakes connected to spelling; yet ‘comprehensible’ is not the easiest word to spell perfectly.. :)

We congratulate Petra for doing such a nice job and hope to see further papers of the like! 

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