Thoughts from this year’s SWF2010 Songwriting demo panel, with our very special guest Eddi Reader.

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.