Andy West

Andy is introduced by Joe as the bravest man at SWF as he is about to write a song live with no preparation at all in front of a crowd of songwriters.

He hands round pieces of paper and asks everyone to write down prospective song titles.
The purpose of this demonstration is to share one method of songwriting with the group. Drawing from his experiences in Nashville he explains how he formulated a method drawing from what worked for others he had met.
One songwriter he worked with would write notes of whatever they thought could go on in the song at the bottom of the page to have them there when they began writing the song. Andy has found this very useful and this is the method he is employing today. He goes on to say that the first thing they would agree on was the title.
He describes how he would look at the titles and see if there was something that he could relate to in order to take some ownership of the song and put something of himself into.
He discards some titles explaining why he is doing so as he wouldnít use those words himself. He isolates some titles that he thinks would sing well whilst also thinking about potential subjects for the song. There are some titles that he likes but he feels would take more than an hour to write and some that he would really like someone else to write.

Lyric suggestions come thick and fast from the audience...

He does a vote within the group and which coincides with his own choice. The title offered is Barry Shearman Brings the House Down.
Andy says the first thing to do is ask yourself whatís behind the title. He advises being the detective arriving at the scene of the title and asks for suggestions about what the title could be about. Blain notes down all the options on the screen and the background story chosen is that of a man who comes from a long line of entertainers but has ended up as a builder who is not very good at his new job.
Andy makes the point that because of the descriptive nature of the song he would have quite undemanding music. He references ëAll Along The Watchtowerí as a song that has very rich lyrics with an undemanding backdrop.
He likes the suggestion of having a chronological story and soon has the first four lines being about the entertainer’s background.
Andy says itís important to get as many points down as possible and something that feels like a good first draft without being overly critical.

He makes the point that it saves a lot of time if you write a song with a title that you feel you can say a lot about to begin with.
More suggestions are thrown out and Andy is careful to keep it in the same voice and make sure the references are not too obscure. He uses the storyline that theyíve decided on to keep things on track.
The question is asked around whether he is deliberately not playing the guitar. Andy says he prefers to get the lyrics right in the story, and as itís a story song he wants to concentrate on the lyrics primarily.
Once heís happy with the verse Andy plays it with the melody he has had in his head and more ideas come out which Blain notes down.
Ideas are coming thick and fast and one songwriter comes up with a killer line that finishes the song off.
Itís a great experience, really good fun and a real eye opener for everyone to a different approach to songwriting.

Songwriting in the sunshine

Todayís tutor is Andy White. He opens the session with a discussion of how he writes (chords first in Andy’s case), after which he plays a song and gets everyone joining in. Itís great and a good insight into another approach.
A question is asked around some of the chords and Andy demonstrates the effects of chord changes on the listener’s mood.
The first song played is a beautiful gentle song. Andy makes some chord suggestions and suggests some restructuring – an instrumental verse and then to sing the chorus again. He says that because the song is so melodically beautifully and has such great lyrics it doesnít need any more levels of complexity.
In contrast the next song played has been put down over Garage Band beats and is played over the laptop. It has everyone tapping their feet. The words on it are spoken rather than sung. And itís very much a social commentary. It has great content and is really fresh. Andy makes some structural suggestions and the songwriters made plans to work on it with a view to performing it later.
The next song is performed on the piano and Andy works with the songwriter to arrange the song.
After lunch we return and a collaborative song is played. Andy makes some structural suggestions and the songwriters try them out with Andy playing along before we finish to either go to an optional lecture or to our writing task for the day.

John Gill, our guest tutor for the Wednesday

Guitarist and songwriter John Gill is here to talk to us about writing songs for children.† He talks about his history and his experience in teaching guitar and music technology and playing in a skiffle band, touring and working etc.

He starts with talking about the only people who can give critiques on a kids’ song is kids themselves.

The session includes some tips on introducing fun, rhyming and repetition at a basic level to keep children engaged. He also talks about the value of ‘nonsense words’ in songs to keep kids interested. He demonstrates this and has the audience laughing and engaged straight away.

Conversation then turns to other facets of childrenís songs such as characters, storylines and actions. The group then discusses how lyrics can be made to relate to actual experiences in the child’s world.
He talks about the use of chords to evoke different moods and talks of strong and obvious use of dynamics, and gets the group to sing some examples, which raises gales of laughter as the adult group try to behave like a class of 6-year-olds. He says that kids like to hear really obvious things about the character, i.e. Joeís sitting here, hello Joe, Heís got big ears, theyíre really big. John plays along and gets the audience to join in.

To demonstrate sound of words, humour, action, dynamics, use of non musical aspects etc, John then gets the audience to stand up and makes the point that with children you have to be continuously keeping their attention. He demonstrates with the ëscarecrowí song getting the audience on their feet and cueing the audience in with actions and singing. He has them jumping around and singing, an excellent demonstration and everyone looks like they are really enjoying it.

A following demonstration does the same thing with a story-based exercise, where members of the group write alternative endings for the ëSharon Smedleyí story (from Jilted John’s song ‘The Birthday Kiss‘). He then performs an anti bullying song that he was asked to write for a musician-in-residence project. In the delivery of it he uses dynamics and the unfolding of a story to get a point across [editor's note - John describes the song as being based on a real-world situation, involving one adult bullying another - demonstrating that there is sometimes an overlap between the issues that adults and children may relate to in a lyric].

We then get into more musical territory – John talks about skipping and demonstrates effective use of 6/8 or swing rhythms in accompaniments and melodies. John then demonstrates a song which uses imagery as he says kids listen more in pictures than adults. He demonstrates this with his song about someone running a marathon.
He then goes on to demonstrate how songs can be used to teach the core curriculum – using his song about the Coelacanth fish! Itís brilliant and I now know more about this species than ever before!

Itís been a great session and everyone leaves with huge smiles having jumped around and joined in with all the songs!

Barry plays his trademark upside-down guitar chords for one of our songwriters.

We have a songwriting room which has a great view over the lake. Boo Hewerdine is our tutor today and he has just flown in from Glasgow and is straight into it! Weíre going round the group and playing from back catalogue.

Claire has just played a beautiful song that she wrote on the way back from Ireland after the applause dies down she is talking about wanting to break into different styles of playing and Boo recommends writing with other people and the benefits of this. The conversation turns to having to write quickly and it being getting into the practice of it.

He also encourages trying to write about things that you havenít written about before and having a solid reasoning behind them.
Antonia contributes a song, quite an up tempo number with a great theme and great tune.
The conversation turns to three chord songs and how strong they can be. The longer you hold the chord the bigger it sounds when it changes. Other chords can then be used for flavour. This is good news for me!
The next songwriter talks about how he finds the process of songwriting and Boo advises giving yourself a limitation just to get going for example having three verses and having an idea of what you want to say eg verse 1 introduce it, verse two develop it and verse 3 conclude it and make sure every line counts. He advises writing the song first before starting to produce it and maybe using ordinary language.
Kristian comes up with a title that he was thinking about developing which Boo thinks is a brilliant tile. He advised working on it and ensuring theres a beginning middle and an end. The point comes up about melody. Boo advises writing melodies without many notes if you donít have the range and says itís really good to give yourself boundaries when youíre writing to give you some focus.

Another great song is performed and the critique is that itís a great song and Boo gives some structural feedback around doing a solo after the bridge and do a short chorus and finish on the big note.
Chloe performs a song that she has given a new arrangement to which goes down well and we break for coffee before finding corners to write in to complete our task for the day. Luckily the sun is shining and soon there are fragments of melody coming from all around the place and new found friends are collaborating on new songs.

Deep in collaboration

Introductory session Day 1

Itís ten oíclock on a sunny Monday morning and Joe Bennett is welcoming everyone officially in the University theatre. The first task is for the songwriters to introduce themselves to each other with details of their favourite songwriters influences and the team 25 plus strong are introducing themselves and letting everyone know what their role will be during the week.

With some housekeeping and health and safety details dealt with, Joe goes on to give an outline of the week and making note that with 38 songwriters and five tasks that amounts to 190 song!! What an amazing thought!

Jo touches on the ethos of the SWF experience and the purpose of critiquing and being comfortable with giving and receiving it. i.e. strengths of a song and suggestions for future rewrites.

He outlines the tools and facilities available to songwriters both on campus and on the Internet and references the fact that as the 10th largest music department in the country there are pianos in any practice room and laptops available to borrow. Joe makes the distinction between song writing and performance; the focus here is on writing that great song and not judging performance skills, just focussing on harmony, melody and lyrics.

The discussion turns to the performance nights and songwriters are reassured that if they are not confident in performing there are others around who will do it for them.

One delegate asks the question as to whether there will be opportunity to have back catalogue critiqued. Joe reassures that that is the purpose of the first playback session today! After that it will be all new songs!

Joe talks about the small groups of around six songwriters and the value in that. He talks about the demo panel which students are encouraged to submit to which are critiqued by a professional panel, which will be critiqued objectively.

Mention is made of the songwriter John Gill who will be given a specialist lecture on writing songs for children later in the week.

The launch event of a gig from singer songwriters Boo Hewerdine and Iain Archer is talked about. Itís free to all SWF students. Brilliant! They are both such great songwriters and performers that everyone is really looking forward to it.

Talk moves onto the creative process and how to break out of habits and increase range. Common habits including guitar chords and four chord loops. Joe references existing songs out there that all do this well but says that the tasks are there to give you more choice in your approach. He talks about the tendency to be over protective of first ideas, resistance to rewriting, resistance to starting and of course the Demon of Doubt! The tasks are designed to break the back of these limiters and be prolific!

The lecture moves onto getting started with a song and using titles, a lyric phrase that suggests more, a verbal expression, a visual image such as a object, action or place and a melodic snippet or riff.

Joe gives examples of all of these and asks for some chords, he takes the chords shouted out and strums his guitar and adds a melody. He adds that drum loops can be a fantastic tool to get started with writing lyric and melody.

He pulls a drum loop up in logic and as thatís pumping round the room uses the chords that were shouted out earlier to put some guitar sounds over it. He then moves to the keyboard and uses that to demonstrate the same thing. The idea being that he is now playing things he wouldnít have played otherwise.

Changing the tempo of the drum loop helps ëforce him out of m id tempo hellí that people who write on guitars typically write at.
He reinforces that this is just another technique available to you.
The discussion moves onto craft of writing simple short songs as you develop with the advice of being clear about what is going on in your song.

We then talk about the difference between lyrical ambiguity and use of metaphors. One songwriter raises the question of how do some people write ambiguously and it means something and some it sounds like rubbish! Itís a good point!
Joe pulls up Strawberry Fields and talks about how it evokes a mood, a dreamlike state, it has an ëIí and ëyouí character, it is economical and everything comes together to set that mood. Also considered is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds as an example of very powerful use of imagery and originality with its line of tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

Joe then comes back to the idea that with your top ten favourite songs they are likely to have a very clear, specific core meaning. A ëBig Idea.í
Also discussed is the idea of not wasting intro time and demonstrates by playing an extremely long intro until people start to laugh. He stresses that it doesnít just apply to pop.

If choruses are used make them simple, clear, repetitive and summative. Donít feel restricted by sticking to exactly what happened–itís not a diary! The question is does the song communicate to the listener.
Joe then goes onto talking about pitfalls to avoid. ClichÈ being one and rhyme traps forcing you down a road of writing something that you didnít want to write about. He talks also about static melodies and being aware of them. He goes on to talk about too many lyrics, the song being too long and lack of repetition.
We then look at the teaching and learning methods employed at SWF i.e. analysing successful songs, analysing our own songs and using tasks to break habits and practice.

This leads nicely on to Task 1, which was to write 10 titles and choose one to develop into a song. Then write a chorus form song where the title appears twice in the chorus.

The session finishes with a recap of whatís going to happen next, and everyone heads off for a coffee break before going into their tutor groups.