Live Songwriting

SWF tutor Andy West writes a song live in front of an audience – SWF 2008.

Every year at the Songwriting Festival, Bath Spa songwriting tutor and ex-Nashville songwriter Andy West writes a complete song in front of the SWF audience, and explains his processes and problem-solving techniques throughout. The lyric, as it evolves, is transcribed and projected at the back of the theatre, and the song is then performed at the end of the hour.

When Andy writes he divides the process into two parts – creative and editorial. For the creative part, he often uses dummy lyrics or even cliches, returning to improve the early draft later when he’s in the editing phase.

The main purpose of the lecture is to break up the songwriting process into a series of clear choices; it also demonstrates one of the SWF core principles – that writer’s block doesn’t exist!