Songwriting Festival 2010 – a word of thanks
Dear songwriters, Two brothers, songwriting side by side Thanks to all (staff, volunteers, tutors, guest tutors, musicians, and songwriters) who contributed to the UK Songwriting Festival 2010. An amazing week and some top-notch writing. For those people I didn’t get to thank face to face during our busy final concert – you know who you are, and you know how essential your contribution was. See the video below for a few comments from... [Read More...]
“Our father, wi ‘chart in ‘eaven…”
House band session Today we began by looking at writing efficient chord charts. This is a mundane but essential part of the SWF because the band needs to be able to understand the structure of each new song quickly in order to create the best arrangement we can for each songwriter. (I explained a bit of the background to the house band system last year in the blog). We then moved into a brief discussion of one of my personal favourite songwriting... [Read More...]
Words are like cockroaches…
It’s day one of the Festival and we’re all about to meet in the University Theatre. One of the things that usually comes up in the first lecture is the broad field of ‘creativity’ as it relates to songwriting. We’ll be discussing this, but in a happy coincidence (surely an omen for a successful Festival!) I notice this morning that Charlie Brooker’s column in today’s Guardian deals with the ‘blank sheet... [Read More...]
If you’re ready…?
SWF 2010 begins tomorrow! We’re all getting very excited – we’ll have 50+ songwriters, a 4-piece house band, 10-strong studio team, a big support team and (if my calculations are correct) over 250 songs yet to be written. This year we’re using two sites – our main Newton Park campus (right) and our exciting new nightclub venue Burdall’s Yard, where we’ll be having our launch event on Sunday 15th August and... [Read More...]
Master’s degree in Songwriting
Hi all, SWF 2009 - Final Performance Night! We’re very excited to announce that the University’s Master’s degree in Songwriting has a new home, in the form of a purpose-built songwriters’ studio at our Corsham Court campus. The next enrolment is for September 2010 and we’re taking applications (subject to interview and songwriting portfolio) from now. To find out more about the course visit http://www.MASongwriting.com. You... [Read More...]
Final performance
Final Performance night - all the songs were written during SWF week. On the last day of the the 2009 Festival, we all got together in the cafÈ to play back the last of the week’s songs. Many people had delayed their live performance until this final session, due either to completing a particular song toward the end of the week, or the time taken in developing chord sheets for the house band. So the band had to learn around 20 songs in a 3-hour... [Read More...]
Demo panel
Day 4 – and the first demo panel. The demo panel 2009 - Boo Hewerdine, Andy West, Iain Archer, Chris Difford, Joe Bennett Our songwriters were invited to submit songs for group discussion for public critique (and many thanks to those who were brave enough to do this!). A recording of each song was played, with lyrics projected in the University Theatre. Our panel this year is Boo Hewerdine, Joe Bennett, Iain Archer, Andy West and Chris Difford. The... [Read More...]
House band sessions
The first house band song, performed on the Tuesday in the cafÈ. We’re two gigs in to the week now, and the house band members (Chris, Josh and me) are deep in rehearsal. The band system works like this; a songwriter completes their song (usually the same day), writes a chord sheet (or gets one of the tutors to write it), then brings this notation to our estimable ‘chord tsars’ Jo and Barry for checking. When the chart is complete,... [Read More...]
Lyric displays
I got the music in me! I’m getting lots of queries from current SWF songwriters who want to know how we project the lyrics for cover versions in our lectures. For those who missed it, here’s the link to the original blog entry where we discussed this in all its full technical detail. Teaching songwriting with a Mac Read More →
On the first day…
Richard works al fresco with one of our songwriters. We started today with my own introductory lecture and some discussion of songs. Many common songwriters’ issues and challenges came up, including chord loops, melodic structure, form and the concept of Big Idea, or core meaning. For many writers, this is the most difficult part of the process – nailing the single, simple idea at the heart of the song. And whenever it’s discussed,... [Read More...]
