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letter analogy
The most obvious analogy to the concept of song construction must be a letter in an envelope. The envelope represents the tune, which carries the letter, and the letter represents the words and is comprised of one or more sheets of note paper containing a message of some sort.

But I sense the teams are missing the point here, as there is another vital element - the stamp. A postage stamp to the correct value must be attached, that is if you define value as paying 28p for a 1 in 4 chance of having your mail lost. The postage stamp represents that third essential component, a musical instrument and must be stuck in exactly the correct position. Fortunately, we have with us someone who knows exactly where he can stick it. At the piano, Colin Sell.

light bulb analogy
Each member of a team is presented with a song from which the words have been omitted and replaced with the lyrics of a second song from which the tune has been discarded. Still not clear? Try to imagine you have two electric lamps but in one of the lamps the light bulb has failed. You could swap it over for the good one. It doesn’t matter why one of them has failed, although it is almost certainly because you bought them cheaply from some dodgy market trader - their light bulbs are certainly good value but they do have a habit of going out if handled badly - they are not built to withstand rough treatment such as putting electricity through them. To be fair they probably work well enough where they come from, some sweatshop in Uzbekistan no doubt, where if the mains supply goes above 7 Volts they classify it as a power surge. Finally, in those places even a dead light bulb is considered something of a luxury compared with what they normally have. I know what you are thinking - what could possibly be more dim than a dead light bulb? At the piano we have Colin Sell.

lock and key analogy
This simple and well known concept will require explanation only to someone who has been out of touch and living in a cave for the last 35 years, so this is how it works. A song is made up of two basic elements - the tune and the words. To put more simply these two elements are like a lock and it’s key. The lock represents the tune providing security for the words to be inserted just like the key to open up a world of musical wonderment. But not all locks have keys do they? Certain types of locks such as those used to secure bank safes, bicycles, or other low value items, employ a secret series of numbers which create a mechanical code to thwart any would be thief. But for this to be effective you must have the most baffling combination it is possible to devise - at the piano Colin Sell.

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