Recap of the 4th Songcraft Session on 27th July – A Musical Gathering of Friends

If the Songcraft Songwriting Circle ever closes down for whatever reason in the future, at least I’ll always remember how much fun we had at the 4th session last Friday night and think to myself “Hmm, now that’s a memory I’ll cherish for a long time to come”.

(Pic courtesy of Betty)

Even though the turnout was the lowest we’ve ever had, I dare say it was the most fun-filled session we’ve ever had…packed with so much energy, creativity, and spontaineity. (That’s what happens when you put 7 songwriting enthusiasts in a room together.)

I had so much fun sharing such wonderful music with the rest, and I know that there were many others who felt the same way too.

My first song – “For He Is Wonderful”

This is the Christian song I wrote a few weeks back. It’s a short & simple song with only one verse (repeated once), and is meant to be a sing-along, Christian fellowship kind of song.

Thanks to Betty for singing harmonies with me for the 2nd verse. She did a great job. (Much better than my main vocals, in fact!)

You might notice that somewhere during the 2nd verse, there is suddenly a strange noise being introduced in the recording. That’s my handphone that chose to ring right at that very moment. (But I still continued with the song nonetheless.)

My second song – “But Nobody Stops To Hear”

One of my objectives for this song was to write the only song ever in the history of music to contain the word “mannequins”. (Just kidding.)

This one best lah. Right after I proudly presented my latest composition, Ivan gives the ultimate comment: “This sounds like…a beer song.” (You can hear the actual comment at the end of the clip above.)

That was followed by many blank stares going “huh?”. Then Ivan went on to explain that he means it sounds like a song people would sing in an Irish pub.

But you know what’s the worst thing? He’s actually right!!! Now that he mentioned it, I realised my song is actually an Irish pub sing-along anthem. Cos shortly after, Ivan played this song on the guitar, slowed down the tempo, and invited everybody to sing along with him…and boy did it sound like a pub full of Irish people!

(After last Friday’s session, I’ll never look at this song the same way again. Sigh.)

Kah Loong’s “I Love You (There Is None Like You)”, 1st take

Next up was Kah Loong, who presented his song “I Love You (There Is None Like You)”. He played the keyboards while I tried to play the guitar as well as provide some harmonies. (My harmonies were rather horrible, by the way. Sorry Kah Loong, I tried my best!)

Anyway, I heard this song many weeks ago when Kah Loong sent us this link, and I thought it was a very touching song. Over the weeks, the song has actually grown on me. I’m beginning to like it more and more. I think it’s got a very sweet melody.

My opinion is that this song is very suitable for the piano only (and not the guitar). It’s really a piano song. Kah Loong’s original arrangement on the recording is very good.

Kah Loong also has a pretty high tenor range, which suits his sentimental love songs really well.

Cool line: “You are beautiful, angels can’t compare to you…”

Kah Loong’s “I Love You (There Is None Like You)”, 2nd take

This time round, Ivan played the guitar while Kah Loong and I just concentrated on the singing. (My harmonies were still bad.)

As you can hear from the clip, Ivan took awhile to get used to the strumming pattern of the song (probably because he is used to playing a lot of rock but not sentimental pop)…but by the end of the 1st verse he more or less caught it already.

Firdaus’s 1st song – “A Lazy Song”

Next up was Firdaus with his trusty ol’ guitar! This was another one of those classic Firdaus songs – breezy, catchy, sing-along, with cute & interesting lyrics.

This song is basically a fun little song about somebody who’s too lazy to write a proper song. It has a great sense of humour about it, and it matches really well with the song’s entire melody and “feel”.

Cool line: “It took me ten minutes to come up with this song…”

(Which we later found out was not exactly true, haha! But it’s still a cool line anyway.)

Firdaus’s 2nd song – “If I Was Superman”

Another up-tempo number. Apart from my usual adjectives, I would use the words “cheeky” to describe the lyrics. Very cute, and a bit tongue-in-cheek. Highly entertaining!

Also, for this song I tried playing the egg-shaker together with Firdaus on the guitar. I thought it fit in really well with the whole “feel” of the song. However, for some strange reason, the sound on the recording became a bit distorted when I played the egg-shaker together with the guitar. Weird.

But trust me, it sounded pretty good “live”!

Firdaus’s 3rd song – “Take Care, My Love”

This is the song that made all of us want to cry, because it was so touching.

The story behind this song is quite funny: It’s a song about this guy who’s going to fight in a war, and Firdaus initially intended for it to be a song about “freedom”…but somewhere along the line it turned out to be an extremely touching love song instead. The “freedom” theme kinda got lost.

In Firdaus’s own words: “The freedom song turned into a love song.”

Anyway, this song has got moving lyrics and a great melody line. Almost all of us were very moved after hearing the song. It was a real hit with the ladies, especially!

I told Firdaus (enviously): “This is the song I wish I could write!”

Betty & HL’s Song – “Praise Him”

Due to the overwhelming success of their previous collaboration presented at the 3rd Songcraft session, the songwriting duo of Betty & HL decided to team up yet again for another musical collaboration.

As per the last arrangement, Betty wrote the lyrics to a piano piece which HL had composed earlier. This particular piece was my favourite piece from the 1st Songcraft session which HL played, entitled “Joyful Song”. This time, Betty wrote full Christian lyrics to the tune.

You can read a more in-depth account of the story behind this collaboration at Betty’s blog here.

Betty’s lyrics to the tune did indeed change the complexion of the song. Ivan commented that it’s interesting how when HL first played the piano piece at the 1st Songcraft session, it sounded like a Korean drama series song, but now when Betty sings the song with the new lyrics added in, it sounds like another song altogether. (That’s the difference lyrics can make to a song.)

There are many subtle things I like about the piece. One is, of course, the beautiful melody, both in the chorus and the verse. I love how the verse melody contrasts itself with the chorus by going into a slightly more melancholic shade.

And also, the lyrics. I like the use of “praise Him, come let’s praise Him” for the opening line…and how “praise Him” was repeated to coincide with the repeated notes in the melody, i.e. Bb-Eb. Very well done.

Betty & Jeremy’s Song – “But Not Before We Say Goodnight”

You can read the background to this collaboration here.

Basically it started with the line “you can tell me stories about your quiet little life”. I had this sliver of a song idea which I present during the 1st Songcraft session. However, all I had was bits of lyric here and there as well as a skeletal melody line. And I totally dropped the idea after that 1st session and didn’t pursue it any further. (Y’know, sometimes you get little song ideas, but you drop them because you don’t think that there’s any value in pursuing them.)

But a few weeks back, Betty reminded me about this song and communicated to me that she actually liked what she heard when I presented it back then in April. So we decided to collaborate on this and complete it into a full song. Betty wrote out the full lyrics apart from my opening line. And she graciously decided to keep the title too.

Anyway, the reception to our little collaboration was extremely encouraging. Firdaus commented that it reminded him of a “Disney” song, which was quite a laugh…since Betty only recently returned from HK Disneyland! But anyway, we took the “Disney” comment as a huge compliment. Ivan said that he “really liked this song”. Wow!

And the best comment came from Kah Loong (which can be heard at the end of the clip above): “The standard (of everyone’s songwriting) is getting higher and higher!!!”

Which brought about a roar of laughter!

Betty’s “It Don’t Matter (When You’re Here)”

This was easily the most hilarious portion of the evening!

Firstly, Betty sang her own solo composition in the most unique fashion – via a fuzzy recorded piano accompaniment played out on her own tape recorder. On hindsight, it was a good move actually, cos it allowed her to concentrate on her singing.

Then on Betty’s 2nd iteration of the song, due to the nature of the song – which kinda allowed for male voices to “echo back”, the guys had a whale of a time participating in the song. (You can hear how much fun the guys had singing along to the song on the 2nd half of the clip above.)

What an interactive song! We really had a hoot with this one.

Betty’s song is easily the most “Broadway musical” song we’ve had at the Songcraft sessions thus far. It was extremely light, cheery and catchy. And the lyrics were also very musical-ish.

What struck me most was the use of chromaticism in the melody, which I felt was a sophisticated compositional touch I had not yet seen in our previous Songcraft sessions. (I’m referring to the 2nd and 4th lines in the verses, e.g. “can’t be cured, can’t be cured”.)

This, to me, is a sophisticated compositional technique which is quite commonly used in Broadway music…which is one reason why I concluded that Betty’s “It Don’t Matter (When You’re Here)” is easily the most Broadway-musical song we’ve had so far.

Chris’s 3 Songs

Chris treated us to 3 of his songs. As described here, Chris to me is a grunge-rocker at heart.

I think Chris writes really high-quality songs. All his songs sound really polished to me. I commented to Chris that his songs “were so good they were all ready for recording”.

I like the 1st song quite a lot. The melody was catchy enough such that I got it quite quickly. I can see this song going far, especially when played with a full band.

The 2nd song was rather interesting. The entire song was basically constructed around a very catchy guitar strumming riff. I enjoyed it a lot. (Though it was rather tiring for Chris to play the riff the entire time!)

The 3rd song “Ashes” was one which Chris also performed at the 2nd Songcraft session. This one has the makings of a classic. I think it’s as good, if not better, than most of the rock songs on our radio today.

Not to mention that Chris is also a very good singer. (He sings lead in a band, you know!)

Luckily not all of us are into writing rock songs, cos Chris would definitely demoralise us, haha!

…

So there you have it – another Songcraft session, another meaningful musical gathering of friends.

How long can the Songcraft Songwriting Circle carry on? I don’t know.

Will the turnout be just as small, if not smaller, for future sessions? I have no idea.

But I’m really thankful for what we’ve had so far.

So far I firmly believe the formation of the Circle has successfully motivated at least some music-loving people in Singapore to get passionate about songwriting, and spurred people on to creating & sharing great new music with others.

So in that respect, I’m more than satisfied already.

Let’s hope it continues.