(This is Part I of an ongoing series describing the Songcraft journey, to commemorate Songcraft’s one year of existence.)
There is no manual for starting a songwriting circle, and there certainly isn’t any formula for success (depending on how you actually quantify the term “success”).
It’s amazing how much can happen in one year.
…
The Beginning
Last March, after watching the movie “Music & Lyrics”, I suddenly started seriously thinking about Songwriting, especially in the Singapore context.
I had long been fascinated with music and composition, but had never really sat down to seriously write songs.
I’ve been studying and appreciating music all my life. I grew up with classical music training, and I have been listening to most kinds of music all my life, from classical to oldies to pop to rock to jazz. And I love appreciating good music, as well as analysing what makes good music, well…good music.
But somehow I just never had the resolve to do my own music-writing.
In my opinion, there was one MAJOR problem when it came to writing songs - the lack of people to share the song to!
I know different songwriters think differently, but personally, if I write a song, I would want at least one other person to hear it. And this “at least one other person” shouldn’t refer to a sibling or close friend who has been coerced into sitting down to hear your song just because he is your sibling or close friend.
No, ideally a new song should be shared to friends who love music and are genuinely interested in hearing your new original song…not someone who is listening to the song just to appease or humour you.
The WORST thing ever is to write a great song and no one ever gets to hear it.
I felt something had to be done.
There should be a platform, some kind of a forum for budding songwriting enthusiasts like myself to share their new songs to one another in a friendly and non-intimidating way. That would be an ideal atmosphere to help cultivate the songwriting interest, as well as encourage the creation of more wonderful music.
Hence I thought of the idea of a songwriting circle.
First things first: Is there such a thing already existing in Singapore? If so, I would just join it and be happy.
But after quite a bit of researching, I realised that there probably wasn’t such a thing around (well, if there was one, I couldn’t find it!). Which meant I had to consider starting one.
How many hit songs had I written? None.
How many complete songs had I written up till that point? Well…maybe about two-and-a-half.
Was I a prominent songwriter in the music industry? Nope.
Did I have the credentials to start a songwriting circle? Probably not.
Therefore, did I think that I was fit enough to start a songwriting circle? Nope.
But I did it anyway.
In one weekend, I started a blog, I did a writeup of what the circle stood for as well as its goals & objectives, I set a time & date for the first meetup, I started looking out for places where we could possibly hold our first session, and I thought of a name for the circle.
Oh yeah, the name…
…
The Name “Songcraft”
The circle needed a name, for sure.
You can’t just say “our songwriting circle” all the time. You need a name.
I wanted the name to, of course, hint at the art of songwriting. It had to ideally have two syllables. It had to be catchy. It had to NOT be too commonly used already.
I ended up choosing the word “Songcraft”. (It took me about 10 minutes to come up with that.)
It wasn’t a commonly used word, and the domain was still available on WordPress!
I settled on it immediately.
(It might be debatable whether the word “songcraft” is actually a word. I’d like to think that it is. It’s a legitimate word just like “stagecraft” or “racecraft” or “woodcraft”. Basically “songcraft” refers to the skill or craft pertaining to creating a song. And that is basically what we are all trying to hone - our songcraft.)
…
The Goals of the Circle
The goals of Songcraft were simple. I was clear about them from Day One.
One, I wanted Songcraft to be a forum where people who love writing music can come together to share their new songs with one another in a casual and informal way.
The focus would not be so much on “performance” (like many other open mics), but the focus would be on the songwriting itself. I felt that this kind of forum was something which might have been lacking in Singapore.
In Songcraft, there would be lots of discussion on the craft of creating a song. There would be exchange of ideas. There would be sharing of tips and techniques. All that kind of stuff.
Two, I wanted to start breaking down all our fears and reservations when it comes to original music. There seemed to be a huge negative bias against music that is “original”, as if everything that is self-composed is inferior to the songs we hear on radio.
I hoped that as people come together to share their songs with one another, they would start to get over their shyness about their original songs (myself included), and can start to grow to love songwriting more and more.
Three, I ultimately wanted to spread the passion for songwriting…and the love for music in general.
Looking back, I think our circle has done really well in keeping focus of our goals and objectives.
(To be continued in the next post…)
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