SAC Songwriting & Blogging Challenge #2 - A Story Song Blog 2

As mentioned in my first blog on this second challenge, I did think of another little story. I drafted the verses and chorus, and have been working on it this week. This time, I had hoped to get it and the post to my blog submitted well before the Saturday midnight deadline. Maybe even a day in advance! Ha! Being at a cottage for the last half week with my daughter's family made me almost as late as I was for the first challenge. The internet was non-existent, and my data plan connection very weak. I spent far too long trying to play, listen, and respond to other songwriters - and one afternoon attempting to reply to Roseanne's comment on my post. It does not help that I have an iPad #1.

So.. Today I was home just long enough to pack a bag for SongStudio - the fifth time around for me. For those of you who do not know it, SongStudio is a week-long songwriting intensive. This year it is July 16-22. During the meet and play/sing session today, I was able to warble through my answer to challenge 2. That means there is some hope that one of the musicians in the program will be able to accompany me on it. But not today. So my song demo is a Capella again, and very rough yet.

Overall, this song has emerged within the musical theatre genre, I believe. That is the best way to describe it. Although the chorus has an old-fashioned, singalong sound to it, very appropriate for the setting. But the verses have that slightly operatic, almost recitative quality, with a sort of conversational feel to the way the words are strung together, uneven lines, and internal rhyme in a lot of places. It is still rough, as I said earlier, and I am finding it particularly difficult to sing the same melody in the top half of the second verse as in the first. The chorus and the second halves of the verses do not pose that problem. It is an arch in the line that I want which tends to elude me the second time I come to it.


I hope this blog does give a few of those who work from an instrument a bit of an idea of how I work as an a Capella songwriter. And do enjoy the story of a Port Stanley Summer Love!

SAC Songwriting & Blogging Challenge #2 - A Story Song Blog 1

Of course. Because I just finished recording the best story song I have ever written or likely ever will. The most important new song for me. And just heard the mix today. So the idea of writing another story song just now was a little daunting. I surveyed through my brain for the songs I have written before that might be story songs. Let's see. Stay Down Here With You...yep. That is the story of someone going to Australia, falling in love with the land, finding the love of a lifetime and deciding to stay. And my song Reunion, it's a story of meeting an old flame, remembering how it was, and admitting to having been in love at one time. But what will be the first song on my new EP, to be released in the fall, that song, Swing Daddy, is my father's story, started the summer he would have been 100. It's the best I can do.

However, I did think of another little story. So I have drafted the verses and chorus. It will take the rest of the week to get it in shape for recording. This time, I will get it and the post to my blog submitted well before the Saturday midnight deadline. Maybe even a day in advance!

Singing at 120 Diner July 12 at 10 - Special Guest of Chris Birkett

So this is exciting.

My wonderful producer, and brilliant songwriter and musician, Chris Birkett, invited me to appear as a special guest for indie night at 120 Diner, July 12, at 10 p.m. If you haven't been to 120 Diner, you must go. The food and ambience is great! The music will be wonderful. Chris performs with Shari Tallon on keyboards and flute and with the amazing Jeremy Erwardes, who plays every sort of harmonica or clarinet. It remains to be seen who and what will be playing for me.

You see, I am an a Capella singer-songwriter. There is nothing quite as exciting as hearing music played for recording one of my songs - it is fantastic that I can sing it and they can get it. However, when I perform, I usually stick to a Capella - singing the sounds in my head. However, I have sent Chris the potential song list, so come on down to 120 Diner and see whether anyone will play for me, or if I have the mic to myself, singing my words and melodies on my own.

Hope to see you there!

SAC Songwriting Challenge #1 I Do Not Speak The Language

So...

I have not written a blog for ages. And I do have a website via WordPress under construction. But I keep spending my money on recording, and mastering, and so forth. So the web site design has had to wait. Therefore, this old blogspot will have to do for the challenge. If others read it, well so be it - I am pretty sure it is linked to my fb page.

As  I told North, I must have been out of my mind to accept a spot in this challenge. My time this summer is very limited. But one advantage of being an a Capella songwriter is that it can be done in the background of the brain while, oh, I don't know, taking the grandkids to Wild Waterworks, for instance. Or the market. Or to buy penny candy at Bulk Barn while I buy gluten free cornbread mix to make for dinner. 

However, and what the many of you who are musicians will not understand, I do not speak the language of chords and riffs. Consequently, I was about to bow out and leave my spot for someone else. Rosanne suggested that I find two notes to build a melody over. Hmmm. Maybe. Both explained that a riff was like a repeated melody or line. Well, that gave me a starting point. All I have been thinking for days is, "people, please, put down your guns." So, that is what I built a gentle little folky protest song on, and I finally posted it to the group. 

Now, I do not know if we are supposed to critique ourselves. I will wait to hear if I met the challenge. What I do know is that to me the song is repetitious, a little precious, a lot trite, but somehow heartfelt. And sad. Because nowadays it all seems so impossible. And yet, 50 years ago, it is what we did. Regardless of Put Down The Guns future as a song, there is a starting point in it that may develop into a song or poem that I love somewhere down the road.