Songwriter's Workshop

The Warren United Methodist Church hosted a songwriter's workshop on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011, and I thought I should tell you about it.

In a nutshell, it would appear that everyone in attendance had a blast.  Two fellows from the Bristol UMC came, and one woman from the Tilton UMC.  It was promoted mostly through the NH-VT Methodist district, as "Songwriting from a Christian perspective," but everybody was invited.  We were hoping to get 5 or 6 people to come, but it worked out to be a good-sized group overall, giving everyone plenty of opportunity to get a word in and play several of their own songs.

Also there were three very good songwriters I invited to participate in a roundtable discussion.  There was Jim Tyrrell, from Campton, NH, who is one of those rare local musicians who's actually making music for a living.  He has several CDs out and has toured extensively.  We've played in a couple of bands together, and I have immense respect for him.  He talked a lot about a website he's a member of called Songfight.  It's a tool for exercising your "writing muscles," and he played a couple of songs he wrote for them.  Basically, they give the group a title and everyone has to write a song on that theme.  My personal favorite was "God Hates Penguins."

Sky King was also there, who is a very good friend and one of the best natural songwriters I've ever known.  He actually does have considerable knowledge and background in the nuts and bolts of music, but his songs feel so natural that you might be tempted to think of them as old, traditional songs.  "The Carpenter's Song" stood out for me.

Tod Moses rounded out the group.  Tod is from Thetford, VT but is originally from Ohio and spent about 20 years in Nashville on the edges of a big-time music career.  He learned the craft of songwriting from the pros and writes brilliant stuff himself.  His band, That Band, recently released its first CD and he's about to release his latest solo effort.

With such an A-list of writers, I began to worry that the others would feel intimidated.  I needn't have worried, as it only whetted their appetite to show their own work.  John Moore played us several songs that were very good indeed, and has a music ministry with his wife.  Some of his songs had a very classical feel to them, with very strong melodies.  Kathy Smith, the woman from Tilton, played us songs she'd written back in the 70's when she was still quite young.  It was like peeking into someone's diary; very personal and very moving.

We started in the morning with a basic class, led by me, on music and composition.  This made for a lot of give and take and made us all think about the process a little deeper.  Lunch was provided by the Green House, and it was delicious!  Thanks very much to Cheryl and Gary for the outstanding pizza.  The roundtable was after lunch, and we had some good home cooking for supper. 

The only unfortunate thing of the whole day was that nobody from town came for the pot luck supper.  It seems we were up against a supper and concert at the Wentworth church.  These things happen, I suppose, and I'm told it was a very good show.  But by the time we were done with our evening meal we were all pretty worn out, so we opted out of our own show.  This was sad, because we had held back Bob and Sue Moulton, and then nobody got to hear them play.  We'll have to correct that sometime very soon.

All in all, we had a great time, made some new friends, learned some good stuff, and are hungry to repeat the event sometime in the future.  Hopefully, we'll get the word out a little better and get a few more people involved.  It was a good experiment, and worthy of repeating.