Creating music is a delicate balance of creativity and technical skills.
Saturday, Sept. 21, Pierce Church hosted a songwriting workshop to help musicians turn their ideas into art. Audrey Felger (‘08) led the three-hour lesson on coming up with ideas and effective lyrics.
Inspiration for the workshop came from Aaron Keyes’ 10,000 Fathers Worship School’s lessons on worship and music. This resource provides training to worship leaders so they can be more well-rounded and confident in their abilities. Felger has spent the last year attending classes through this school.
“I've learned so many tools of songwriting that I wish I had been aware of earlier in my journey, and I am excited to share these with other creative folks,” Felger said.
The workshop focused on how to efficiently come up with song ideas, figure out rhythm variations and rhyme words in interesting ways. Lessons varied between conventional presentations from Felger and projects to practice brainstorming and writing lyrics.
The biggest focus of the lesson was collaboration between artists. Felger demonstrated how multiple writers could use a Google spreadsheet to write song lyrics and shared a template with the group.
“One of the main goals of the songwriting workshop is to make connections between creatives in the area, and begin a conversation between them,” Felger said.
About ten people attended the workshop, including Taylor students and faculty. Many of them came because of their connections to Pierce Church, or like student Eric Kim, they heard about the event from posters around campus and decided to attend based on their interest in the topic.
Clifton Davis, professor of music, was another one of the participants in attendance.
“I enjoy writing music and am deeply committed to collaboration in creating art, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to grow along with other song writers,” Davis said.
Felger plans to hold a workshop on the third Saturday of each month to help students learn to write songs. The next meeting will be October 18 at 9 a.m. Anyone with a passion for music or writing is invited to attend, even if they missed the workshop on Sept. 21.
On Oct. 27 musicians will have a chance to share the music they have written at Taylor. The group hopes this will be the first of many ways they work with each other and connect with the community.
“I hope this Saturday is a seed that might grow a culture of creating together: encouraging each others' efforts, making each other better, spurring each other on and stewarding our gifts well,” Felger said.
