Full Recap of Songcraft Session 6

Ok, let’s begin.

Firstly, the new venue at the YMS Arts Centre was Perfect with a capital “P”. I was extremely pleased with it, from the soundproofed walls, to the cosiness of the small but comfortable room, to the Yamaha upright at our disposal, to the quality of the chairs in the room, to the dedicated parking lot for my car just in front of the building (hah!), to the fact that there was a Coffee Bean conveniently located nearby so that we could just walk there for coffee after the session to chill out. Everything was just Puurrrrfect.

If there’s one word I could use to describe last Friday’s session, it would be “inspiring”. I say that because I heard the term “inspiring” being bandied around quite a number of times that night, e.g. people were being inspired to write more new songs after sitting through the session last Friday (which was a fantastic session, as usual!).

I was also pleased to hear that a lot of us actually got down to do some serious songwriting because of the session, and they would otherwise not have had the motivation to complete their songs if not for the session (me included.) 

This is actually one of the main reasons why I decided to do the crazy thing of starting the Songcraft Songwriting Circle back in April this year - It’s simply because many of us don’t have a proper avenue to share our songs. And as such, we tend to question the rationality of writing songs just to sing to our bedroom mirrors, or our pet goldfish. I mean, there will always be the truly hardcore songwriters who will be motivated enough to write songs no matter what. However, I’m not one of those people. I’d like to know that if I write a song, there’ll at least be some friends whom I can share the song with. Otherwise, the song never gets to see the light of day, which is really sad…especially if I think it’s a nice song.

One thing I love about our little group is the huge “social” aspect to it as well. Because we all share the common passion for music, we all get along pretty well socially, and we’re all able to gel so well with one another even though some of us might be seeing each other for the first time. I suppose Music is the universal language after all. It transcends age, gender, race and culture.

Anyway, you can read (here) for more of my long-winded reflections on last Friday’s session.

For now, let’s get to the songs:

…

Firdaus’s Song - “Baby”

The full lyrics can be found on Firdaus’s blog (here).

Firdaus is a truly loyal member to the group. Even though he couldn’t physically join us that night, somehow his song still found it’s way to the session…which was great.

His message to the group (via sms) before we aired his song read as such: “I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Jamiroquai lately so I guess this song is influenced by his style. I used the Windows version of GarageBand - Mixcraft to do the song. Bought it online for $80. Took a couple of hours to finish the song. It’s nothing special, just a simple pop song to test out the new software. Hope you all like it!”

Like it we did. And we were highly impressed too.

For those who are still unaware, Firdaus is a multi-talented musician who plays multiple instruments such as the guitar, the saxaphone, and the keyboard, amongst others. (I’m sure he plays some more instruments, it’s just that I do not yet know what they are.) And he sings well too.

I thought the song “Baby” definitely sounded like something Jamiroquai would do. And I was very impressed with how Firdaus managed to create and put together all these sounds in just “a couple of hours”! Definitely lots of talent and creativity shown there.

Kah Loong’s 1st song - “You”

See also this blog post for the recorded version. 

This is one of those songs where the melody immediately jumps right at you. In other words, it’s extremely catchy. I don’t think there’s anyone who hears it for the first time and is unable to remember the melody.

Betty says that this song is both catchy and uplifting, which I agree. I can just imagine this song fitting in perfectly in a praise and worship setting.

I have some arrangement ideas to this song, but for some reason I found it really hard to articulate it that night.

But overall, this is a strong song, with a memorable melody which Kah Loong is adept at creating.

Kah Loong’s 2nd song - “Thank You”

Kah Loong performed this song on the piano, although the recorded version on his blog (here) is done on the guitar. (The song was originally composed on the keyboard.) To quote from his blog post, “this song is talking about how a guy fell in his journey in life & how he nearly lost God. But God is gracious & this guy has been uplifted.”

It’s a kind of a “redemption”-themed song, and I think the song brings that out rather well.

Someone asked if Kah Loong writes his melody or chords first (that’s a good question), and Kah Loong said it was the chords which came first, and then he would fit the melody in. It was also commented that the chorus of the song was a rather tuneful & memorable one. 

Later on, Betty offered to play the piano accompaniment for Kah Loong, so that he could focus on the singing alone…and it turned out better. (You can hear it on the same clip above.)

Jeremy’s 1st song - “It’s In The Morning”

Jeremy’s 2nd song - “Dear Emily” 

The lyrics to these two songs can be found (here).

I wrote two piano songs for last Friday (as presented above). Betty was kind enough to agree to sing the first song “It’s In The Morning” for me, and I think she did a very commendable job…considering we did not really have much time to rehearse together at all. And, it has to be said that I did not give Betty much time to learn the song (only two or three days actually), so what she delivered that night was definitely more than what I could ask for.

Personally, I like both these songs. I really don’t know which one I like better. They’re both rather special to me, and I like each of them in their own unique way.

I shared more of my thoughts on these two songs on my blog (here).  

Jeremy’s 3rd song - “This Time We’ll Make It Better” 

What can I say? This is a crazy song.

I don’t really know what came over me when I wrote this, but I just decided to have a blast with writing whatever lyrics I wanted. I just wanted to be free from any lyrical restrictions and wrote whatever I fancied. I guess you could say I was a bit inspired by John Lennon’s “I Am The Walrus” and “Come Together”.

For this song, I focussed on the “internal rhyming” in the lyrics, e.g. the rhyming of words within the same line. I just thought it would have been fun to try that.

I envision this song to be done in a pop-rock band kind of setting. Maybe something like what the Lightning Seeds would do. I dunno, I think that would sound nice.

Carrie’s song - “What If”

Firstly, I really liked the fact that Carrie distributed songsheets of her song on little sheets that were around 1/20th of an A4 sized paper each. Truly a friend of the Earth. Way to go!

I liked Carrie’s song. It’s in her usual style, which is so uniquely hers and hers alone. I noticed Carrie uses some really exotic guitar chords. She mentioned that she isn’t really conscious of what chords she’s using, just as long as it sounds right. Which means Carrie is someone who goes a lot by “feel” when it comes to music (totally opposite from me). I really respect musicians who play by “feel”. A lot of jazz musicians play by that way too.

Ivan mentioned that Carrie’s lyrics are almost like poetry. I totally agree.

What I really liked about this song was its premise. The whole premise of the song could be summed up in the first line (“What if love was just a word”…). I thought it was fantastic. The best songs are usually the ones which have one single and clear idea, and this one definitely has it.

Geoffrey’s 1st song - “Never Give Up”

Geoffrey’s 2nd song - “Aisha”

Geoffrey’s 3rd song - “Hollow”

Geoffrey is an extremely talented singer, songwriter and guitarist. And he is also an extremely humble guy. He shared with us that he is a professional singer-songwriter, and it certainly showed. We were all well aware that he was kinda on a different level from us, haha!

You can see (here) for more on Geoffrey’s background.

We were all awestruck by the quality of Geoffrey’s singing, guitar-playing…and of course, his songs. “Never Give Up” is an optimistic number with a very bluesy feel to it. The song ”Aisha” was named after a girl, and since the song was in the style of Stevie Wonder, Geoffrey decided to name the song after Stevie Wonder’s daughter “Aisha”. The final number “Hollow” is a song about the meaningless-ness of life and how we need to set our goals high lest we live “hollow” lives.

If not for Geoffrey’s insistence on stopping at 3 songs, we would have made him go on for the rest of the night!

Hui Leng’s song - “我思念你”

(Note: This is a pre-recorded clip, not a live recording.)

We at the Songcraft Songwriting Circle do not discriminate against Chinese music or any other language or genre of music. Hence, we openly welcomed Hui Leng’s latest song “我思念你” (my best attempt at an English translation: “I Miss You” or “I Think Of You”). The tune comes from the piano piece which she presented at the last Songcraft session in September, and she recently added the Chinese lyrics to it.

Geoffrey said it sounded like a “hit song” to him. I think Hui Leng is very adept at writing tunes and lyrics that make good Chinese pop songs. And the way she plays her piano arrangements is very good too. (You might notice a slight mis-synchronisation between keyboard and vocals, but that’s because Hui Leng did the recording in two tracks.)

The full lyrics are as follows:

我思念你
在这个寂静夜里思念你
你腼腆笑容总是不经意地
出现我眼前
无法忘记你容颜

我思念你
在这个寂静夜里思念你
为什么我们的爱那么崎岖
明明相爱却不能走在一起

副歌：
他们说
真正的爱情必须经过考验
若没有困难
又怎么知道我们的爱比金坚
我问自己
如果太辛苦是否应该放弃
但如果你想继续
我怎能轻言离去

我思念你
在这个寂静夜里思念你
你腼腆笑容总是不经意地
出现我眼前
无法忘记你容颜

副歌：
只能在梦里
和你一起漫步在那月光里
在朦胧中偷看你那使我心醉的侧脸
我问自己
什么时候我还会再见到你
听见你声音
依偎在你怀里

Ivan’s music video - “Dolphins Galaxia”

 

Ok, mark this as a first for the Songcraft circle - An original MTV screening! Ivan shared with us a live video screening of his music video entitled “Dolphins Galaxia”, which is going to be one of the tracks on an upcoming album called “SeaStars 2007″ , which is a collaboration between his friend Adrian and himself. Cool huh?

So what happened was that we switched off all the lights in the room and enjoyed the music video. It was very well done. I can see the effort which Ivan put into his video. It must have taken him many painstaking hours to complete the video, as the synchronisation was very well done too.

You can read this blog post on the official SeaStars 2007 blog for more details on this music video.

Mart’s 1st song - “Will You”

Mart’s 2nd song - “One Dream”

Mart is the songwriter amongst us with the greatest professional accomplishment, and once again he did not disappoint. I think Mart has this innate ability to write commercially successful hit songs, especially when the songs receive the full professional arrangement and sound production.

“Will You” is a kind of a romantic love song. Mart calls it a “typical love song”, from the heart. 

“One Dream” is a song of hope for Mart’s country, the Philippines. It was very interesting because he already had an arrangement on file, all prepared for this song. And the arrangement was very well done, professional-quality in fact. It was done by one of Mart’s friends back home, who is one of the more well-known arrangers in the industry.

I really like the song “One Dream”, both the tune and the inspirational lyrics. I can imagine it being an NDP song for the Philippines, if ever there was such a thing. It also reminds me a bit of some of Whitney Houston’s songs, which is a great compliment.

Kenneth’s Piano Piece

Kenneth presented a piano piece to us. It’s currently just the tune, and he’s not yet thought of the lyrics yet. But he did hum out the tune as he played the piano, though. What struck me was how high the song went at one point - High B! And Kenneth managed to reach it! Amazing.

Ivan commented that he liked the starting of the song. I think the song has some nice chord progressions going on, and the melody is rather strong. I think if Kenneth were to write the full lyrics to the song, it would make the song pretty good. All that is lacking are the lyrics. One thing I could see also was that the song had a very solid structure to it.

I think we could sense the great potential in the song.

…

I really enjoyed last Friday’s session, both the music that was shared as well as the socialising with both old friends and new.

It seems to me like the circle had kinda started a new chapter in it’s life, because we’ve found a new home at the YMS.

Goodbye Substation, hello YMS.

Let’s look forward to even better sessions ahead…especially the year end mini-concert in December! 

(*All photo credits go to Betty, our resident photographer, for taking such good shots and sending them to me.)