Dallas Songwriters,
I recently had the fortune to attend the ASCAP Expo in Hollywood, CA. I missed the Dallas Guitar Show, unfortunately. The conference was great and very informative. We had numerous master classes. We had speakers like Carly Simon, Paul Williams (ASCAP President), Allen Shamblin, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruno Mars and the Smeezingtons, Peter Frampton and many other household names in the music industry. All of them had a common thread to what they said. It took lots of work and even more luck to be these all time idols and superstars. They were very honest and open when they spoke. The work was learning to play and write songs, and the luck was being discovered. The discovered part was due to diligently chasing their dream. They left no stone unturned. They went out and performed their songs to anybody that would listen and they found people that could help them perform and write better songs. Peter Frampton admitted that he did not want to be a solo performer. He wanted to play lead guitar, but he got pushed into performing with Humble Pie after he left the band The Herd. Carly never thought she would perform in front of people because of her "stammer". Bruno Mars was singing with his musical family in clubs in Hawaii until he just up and moved to LA on a whim.
There is luck that "falls out of the sky" and there is luck that a person can shape and channel. Either type of luck takes getting out and practicing your craft. Unless somebody steals your notebook full of lyrics or your work tapes and just happens to get them into somebody's hands, you, the songwriter have work to do. This is where Dallas Songwriters Association is chartered to help. We provide educational and performance opportunities for songwriters. We bring talented people together and even provide opportunities for song pitching. We help you write better songs by providing realistic feedback and provide song critiques. What DSA does not do is go to your house and pull the TV remote out of your hand and say there is a mega-superstar in town, and they are might be looking for songs. We offer the opportunities, and if you want it bad enough and are willing to put in the work, then we provides paths that songwriters can explore and avenues to follow a dream. We as songwriters are all dreamers, but I would never expect Paul Williams to come to Dallas looking for me because he randomly pulled my name out of the phonebook, but I met him and talked to him at the ASCAP Expo. We need to dream big and act on our dreams, but also realize for every dream there might be a rejection. Rejection means that your song is not ready, or it may not have been the right time for you song. I was rejected by Jason Aldean because the song pitched sounded similar to one he was already putting on his album.
Some things coming up this month are: the first Monday Song Swap Monday May 7th at HalfPrice Books on Northwest Highway. Followed by our Tuesday night second Tuesday meeting at the Center for Community Cooperation. It looks like we will be doing a co-write session by popular demand. You will get an email a few days before the meeting with the tune we are going to write a song for that night. Do not bring lyrics you have already created, your group will be drawing a song topic to write about. To keep things rolling, we have third Monday Song Swap at Tino's, then we might go invade Mark David Mander's Songwriters in the round and get some folks up on stage. Did you realize people like Rudy Gatlin sometimes goes to Love and War in Texas, Plano location? That is where I met him. We have our third Thursday open mic on May 17th at Dunn Bros Coffee, the we have the Wildflower Festival May 18th through May 20th.
If you want to volunteer to work the Wildflower Festival and get a free shirt and day pass, contact Lisa Byrn. There are still available spots in Beth Nielsen Chapman's Songwriters School at Wildflower on Friday May 18th. You get admission for a day and a ticket to see Beth Perform at 10:00 PM Friday night. Zane Williams is headlining on Sunday and our very own Mary Guthrie and Merry and the Mood Swings is performing on the Bud Light Stage 11:30 AM on Saturday. We are co-sponsoring the Courtyard stage during the festival and we will have daily performances of DSA members and songwriter competition winners. Check out the list of performers on http://www.wildflowerfestival.com/index.html and you can also follow the link off of the Songwriters School page to signup for Beth's class. People that attended her class last July will attest to how great that event was, and this promises to be just that much better.
I want to see our members at events, and most of all I want to be able to say that I knew that superstar before they got their big break, and DSA helped them get there.
Good writing,
Roger
I recently had the fortune to attend the ASCAP Expo in Hollywood, CA. I missed the Dallas Guitar Show, unfortunately. The conference was great and very informative. We had numerous master classes. We had speakers like Carly Simon, Paul Williams (ASCAP President), Allen Shamblin, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruno Mars and the Smeezingtons, Peter Frampton and many other household names in the music industry. All of them had a common thread to what they said. It took lots of work and even more luck to be these all time idols and superstars. They were very honest and open when they spoke. The work was learning to play and write songs, and the luck was being discovered. The discovered part was due to diligently chasing their dream. They left no stone unturned. They went out and performed their songs to anybody that would listen and they found people that could help them perform and write better songs. Peter Frampton admitted that he did not want to be a solo performer. He wanted to play lead guitar, but he got pushed into performing with Humble Pie after he left the band The Herd. Carly never thought she would perform in front of people because of her "stammer". Bruno Mars was singing with his musical family in clubs in Hawaii until he just up and moved to LA on a whim.
There is luck that "falls out of the sky" and there is luck that a person can shape and channel. Either type of luck takes getting out and practicing your craft. Unless somebody steals your notebook full of lyrics or your work tapes and just happens to get them into somebody's hands, you, the songwriter have work to do. This is where Dallas Songwriters Association is chartered to help. We provide educational and performance opportunities for songwriters. We bring talented people together and even provide opportunities for song pitching. We help you write better songs by providing realistic feedback and provide song critiques. What DSA does not do is go to your house and pull the TV remote out of your hand and say there is a mega-superstar in town, and they are might be looking for songs. We offer the opportunities, and if you want it bad enough and are willing to put in the work, then we provides paths that songwriters can explore and avenues to follow a dream. We as songwriters are all dreamers, but I would never expect Paul Williams to come to Dallas looking for me because he randomly pulled my name out of the phonebook, but I met him and talked to him at the ASCAP Expo. We need to dream big and act on our dreams, but also realize for every dream there might be a rejection. Rejection means that your song is not ready, or it may not have been the right time for you song. I was rejected by Jason Aldean because the song pitched sounded similar to one he was already putting on his album.
Some things coming up this month are: the first Monday Song Swap Monday May 7th at HalfPrice Books on Northwest Highway. Followed by our Tuesday night second Tuesday meeting at the Center for Community Cooperation. It looks like we will be doing a co-write session by popular demand. You will get an email a few days before the meeting with the tune we are going to write a song for that night. Do not bring lyrics you have already created, your group will be drawing a song topic to write about. To keep things rolling, we have third Monday Song Swap at Tino's, then we might go invade Mark David Mander's Songwriters in the round and get some folks up on stage. Did you realize people like Rudy Gatlin sometimes goes to Love and War in Texas, Plano location? That is where I met him. We have our third Thursday open mic on May 17th at Dunn Bros Coffee, the we have the Wildflower Festival May 18th through May 20th.
If you want to volunteer to work the Wildflower Festival and get a free shirt and day pass, contact Lisa Byrn. There are still available spots in Beth Nielsen Chapman's Songwriters School at Wildflower on Friday May 18th. You get admission for a day and a ticket to see Beth Perform at 10:00 PM Friday night. Zane Williams is headlining on Sunday and our very own Mary Guthrie and Merry and the Mood Swings is performing on the Bud Light Stage 11:30 AM on Saturday. We are co-sponsoring the Courtyard stage during the festival and we will have daily performances of DSA members and songwriter competition winners. Check out the list of performers on http://www.wildflowerfestival.com/index.html and you can also follow the link off of the Songwriters School page to signup for Beth's class. People that attended her class last July will attest to how great that event was, and this promises to be just that much better.
I want to see our members at events, and most of all I want to be able to say that I knew that superstar before they got their big break, and DSA helped them get there.
Good writing,
Roger
No comments:
Post a Comment