Indiesongwriter.net now has a new look, a new log:

… and a new facebook page, which you should come a ‘like’.

This is a piece composed and recorded by Matt Stevens for a friend of his. A wonderful piece, and a reminder of how powerful this artform of ours can be.

From the description of the piece:

This is a song for our friend Dan Wilson, who was a lovely,inspirational,kind man,a wonderful film maker,friend, and musician and missed by us all. He passed away last Sunday. Played live and improvised to digital tape 7/8/2010.

I’ve made a small update to the comments function which should mean you can subscribe to recieve replies to comments you have made. Just the check the box under the comments box.

 Hopefully this will help to encourage debate and interaction on the blog.

Why not dip your toe into the comments on my recent posts.

Let me know if it doesn’t work!

This Sunday I’ll be guest speaker at the London Songwriters Meet-up. Here’s the schedule and blurb. It would be great to see you there!

LOCATION of meetup on Sun 18th:
College Arms
18 Store St
London WC1E 7DH
Function room (downstairs)

AGENDA

12:00-2:00 Collaboration activity
2:00-2:30 Collaboration playbacks
2:30-3:00 Networking break
3:00-4:00 Songshare & feedback session
4:00-4:30 Networking break
4:30-5:00 Guest speaker: Tom Slatter*
5:00-5:30 Networking break
5:30-6:30 Songshare & feedback session

*Tom Slatter is a composer, singer and songwriter who writes, records, plays and teaches in London. He will be coming in to talk to us about his recent project – publishing a songwriting e-book, and how he went about organising it and making the project come to fruition. He will be answering questions regarding the above, as well as questions about live internet gigging, his songwriting methods, and songwriting blogging.

So if you’re wondering what happened to the song I started improvising a couple of posts ago, it’s track number 2 on my new solo album.

Download for free:

Last week, after asking you to email me if you fancied being interviewed for www.songwright.co.uk, I recieved an email. Nolan Smock, from the fantastic band the Charming Youngsters, asked if he had to be ‘established’ before I would consider him for an interview.

Of course I answered that I was interested in interviewing him because he’s a great songwriter, established or otherwise.

Here’s what we talked about: 

1. – When and how did you start writing songs?

High school. To be cool! I found I really enjoyed the process, though. I wrote a lot on the acoustic guitar but also started getting into remixing and recording with DAW software. It wasn’t until 2006 or so that I feel I really hit my stride when my engineering collided with my songwriting. I chart that moment as the song “Inaudible Chatter” from my first LP. It was the first song I had finished before I hit “record”. It was a big moment for me!

2. – I love the lyrics on Bone Pickin’ – Do you start with lyrics when writing songs?

Thank you! I’m happy with them too. With “Bone Pickin’” I had the chord progression and the melody already sitting around for a few weeks. The words to that came in one stroke. It was one of those really easy moments.

Most ideas I have start with a chord progression and I’ll improvise with made up words and sounds (really embarassing) to find a melody. Once I have something I like, I will fit the words to it. There’s been a few times where I’ll write the music to fit some lyrics but I have the most fun fitting words into the already established boundaries. That isn’t to say I stick to those boundaries though. I am constantly refining the melody to fit different lyrics and vice versa through live performance, where some of my favorite songwriting ideas happen.

3. – We all have songwriting habits (I overuse the same chord progressions) – Are there any songwriting ideas you use too often?

Absolutely! I use chromatic descension too much so sometimes I’ll try to hide it. On “Bone Pickin’”, the verse chords are A – A/C# – Cmaj7/G – G6 which is a fancy dress for the notes that make up this walk-down: A – C# – C – B. There’s something about downward movement that I love singing over. The band also gives me a hard time for using a capo on the 4th fret for the majority of the songs. I think I just like the feeling of that particular tension under my fingers.

4. – How does songwriting work within the band? Do you all write?

At first, I was dictating parts of already recorded songs to the band members, but lately the ideas I bring the band are much more minimal and everybody plays a part in fleshing out the song since there are no recordings yet. They’ve also added a lot to the earlier songs since we started as a band.

We really deconstruct our songs during rehersal and make sure every musical idea has a purpose and is presented as strongly as possible. I’m really happy I’ve found three other musicians who want to dig as deep into the songs as I do, even though sometimes we get a little too neurotic. Or maybe that’s just me.

5. – How important is recording technology to your songwriting?

Right now it’s not as important as it used to be, but I am religious about using Notepad for lyrics! Like I said before, a big turning point for me was using all my recording tricks on songs that had been worked out in pre-production, but now my computer is dead and I don’t really have my sandbox anymore for demoing songs.

Now most of my ideas are worked out with the band in rehearsal or with me and a guitar. Simple. A lot of the habits I had when technology was a part of process were lazy and I don’t miss them. However, toying around with effects is a whole different story and when it comes to a finished record, I will always want noises. Lots and lots of noises.

Go listen to the Charming Youngsters Here.

If you want to do a songwriting interview for songwright.co.uk email me at tomslattermusic AT gmail.com

I wouldn’t be much of a songwriter if I didn’t share my own songs. My own current project, is a serialised album called Songs for the End of the World with my duo We’ll Write.

Below are the recordings so far. In the next two or three months I’ll go back over these, fix the parts of the recordings that need fixing, and see about getting some proper CDs pressed. That’s the plan anyway. Hope you enjoy! 

Songs for the End of the World

Download Measure Of A Man
Download Demon
Download Bleached Bone Fields
Download It Never Seems to Rain
Download Just Sleeping
Download Stand and Clap
Download Sugar and Dust
Download The Trampoline Song

There are loads more songs availble in the Fans’ Area of www.wellwrite.co.uk, which you can access via the mailing list: