How did you write that song?

Rachel Hore is a songwriter, a teacher and a choir leader who started writing songs in an a cappella group and got into writing folk songs (with instruments) much later. The strength of Rachel's voice skills and experience is clear in her songs but she says that she is so busy with her choral work these days that she doesn't have a lot of time for songwriting.

Rachel feels very grateful to have met Australian songwriter Christina Olsen early in her career. Christina taught Rachel the craft of songwriting and encouraged her to be courageous and begin her own solo songwriting and performing ventures.

We played a recording of "Angry Child" written at a time Rachel was holding down a day job teaching (blessed with a very supportive boss) whilst performing music all over the country. The song is about a very angry special needs student Rachel taught and eventually encouraged to write poetry to channel his anger. It's a beautiful song with a dark interior - full of beautiful harmonies and hopefulness.

A big motivation for Rachel is sharing her songs with others and this has led to her passion for choral songwriting, teaching and performing and it has become her life's work. She founded the pop-up choir in Canberra which is open to any singer of any skill level or experience. She says she writes and arranges the choir's songs to be interesting enough and accessible enough so that anyone can participate in the choir. Anyone who has seen and heard a pop-up choir performance will know that they are stunningly good!

Rachel uses her musical training to help with writing and arranging song melodies and harmonies but it still comes down to feel and instinct working with other choristers to develop songs.

We also discussed "Winter Song" and "The Big Sing in the Desert", important songwriting festivals and workshops where Rachel works with participants to arrange and perform choral songs. The Big Sing in particular is a very special opportunity to work with indigenous singers from six central desert communities. Rachel recounted an experience where she went to the Big Sing with a two-line melody "I want to go back to that land. Bring me home" which came to her after seeing an exhibition of objects which had been taken from Country during colonial times. By the end of the workshop indigenous singers had translated the melody into three central desert languages and it had become an amazing whole song! The song continues to grow and has now been translated into several other languages by traditional singers. We played a recording of an amazing performance of the song at the Big Sing.

Rachel's advice to other songwriters - hold on to that small idea - it might just grow into something amazing!

For more about Rachel's choirs and music: https://rachelhore.com/

Canberra-based singer/songwriter David Mason grew up in the Yorkshire Dales in the UK. Whilst he's played music at various points in his life starting out as a drummer and then a guitar player, he only wrote his first song during the Covid lockdowns.

David's songwriting is shaped by his interest in place, memory, myth and the folk tradition. It is also strongly influenced by his roots and connection to where he grew up. David mused on how those connections to home have become stronger in recent years and have had a lot to do with getting him started as a songwriter.

David stores a lot of song ideas in the "cupboard" of his mind. He typically starts by strumming his Celtic-tuned guitar to get ideas. These musical fragments suggest story ideas and David often spends quite a bit of time researching and finessing the lyrics to finish the song.

We discussed David's song "The Strid" which is a story song based on a legend from his homeland - a cautionary tale of a quiet wood, a rushing torrent and a luckless dreamer (or two). We played a recording of the song taken from David's album "Kite" and discussed how the studio producer also becomes part of the songwriting team.

David has written an ebook about The Strid - https://somefabulist.wordpress.com/about/

For more of David's music - https://david-mason.bandcamp.com/album/kite

Lisa Richards is an acclaimed singer, songwriter, musician and voice teacher. She very kindly found the time to stop by the studio to discuss songwriting and play one of her songs live just ahead of a busy tour. In fact it was the first singing performance she had done for a few months after an illness-related layoff.

Lisa has been writing songs for 25 years since she formed a songwriting partnership with a guitarist and they both ended up in New York. Songwriting is how Lisa processes the world, herself and her relationships with others.

Her songwriting process typically starts with her instrument, could be a melody, a bass line or chords. When she finds musical elements that inspire her, she starts to sing and the lyrics come. Realising what the story of the song is can often be the last part of the process for Lisa. It is important for the lyrics to "sing" right - to feel good as Lisa is vocalising them.

We discussed Lisa's song, "Waiting for love to cure me" which weaves together the story of immigrants arriving into New York and making traditional pickles from their home countries with the experience of being an older woman and how the concept of love changes from the myth of love taught to young people. Lisa's performance of the song, live in the studio, with her gentle but driving guitar rhythm and Bille Holiday-like vocals is a beautiful thing!

Lisa writes songs for herself and it's a bonus if other people like them. She encourages new songwriters to do exactly that and to not curtail their creative selves or be too concerned about what other people think. To find out more about Lisa's music: https://www.lisarichardsmusic.com/

I had a fabulous chat with internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter Michael Simic (aka Mikelangelo) when he was in Canberra workshopping a new solo musical theatre production.

Michael writes dark, funny, crooning folk songs influenced by his European heritage, often with a raucous theatrical vibe. He's been performing these energetic original works under his stage persona of Mikelangelo for more than thirty years.

He got into playing music as a teenager inspired by his brother's punk band but discovered his songwriting in student digs teaching himself to play a friends guitar. It was like the guitar was a portal to songwriting.

The lyrics and music typically come to Michael at the same time and he demonstrated in the studio on his guitar how he generates chord shapes that lend themselves to a lyrical idea for a song.

He explained how his on-stage persona Mikelangelo developed influenced by his musical collaborators and his family experience as the child of European migrants. Mikelangelo the character was instrumental in pulling Michael the person back into songwriting during a difficult period in his life. It was as if the energy of Mikelangelo "spoke" to Michael and carried him forward.

Mikelangelo is a story teller and has explored many subjects including an account of people who worked on the Snowy Mountains scheme, many of who were European migrants after the Second World War. Michael's Croatian father is a big influence on his on-stage persona.

Michael sees songs as coming from within and from without with their own identities which can develop over time as they are performed and iterated with other members of Michael's band "The Black Sea Gentlemen". It takes time for Michael to learn what it is that his songs are telling him. Stories of human vulnerability are of particular interest.

We played a recording of Michael's song "Formidable Marinade" which is the song most loved and covered by his fans and musical acquaintances. I'm pretty sure the song will surprise you!

He also played a wonderful acoustic version of a beautiful, haunting brand new song "Crosses and Flowers" live in the studio.

It was great to have a wide-ranging discussion with Michael about life, the universe and everything to do with songwriting!

for more about Michael and his music: https://www.michaelsimic.com/

In this episode it was great to catch up with Margaret Lewis who is literally at the very start of her songwriting journey. Margaret stopped by for a chat with Jo Evans who was the subject of last week's episode.

Margaret has spent her whole life loving music and singing in choirs and in her words she's "wanted to write songs for a long time but didn't have the intestinal fortitude". Recently she decided to take on her internal critic and give songwriting a go!

She's checked out lots of online resources such as the website https://howtowritesongs.org/about/ which have provided a lot of useful guidance. Most importantly she has found people who can encourage, advise and support her to jump over the hurdle of writing her first songs. Connecting with people through songwriting has been a very rewarding experience for Margaret.

She has sung in choirs with Jo, felt naturally drawn to singing harmonies and has written harmonies to some of Jo's original songs. Jo acknowledged how Margaret's harmonies take Jo's songs to another level and give her more confidence to perform them live.

Margaret finds the harmonies come very naturally when she's listening to Jo's songs but she needs to write them down and record them on her phone as they come to her or they get lost!

Jo and Margaret performed live a wonderful acoustic version of Jo's song "Battle On" about the efforts of firefighters in the 2019 bushfires.

For Margaret songwriting is a different and new way of expressing herself and extending her creative writing. She's loving it and cannot recommend highly enough to others - just give it a go!

it was a great pleasure to chat with Margaret and hear her insights from the songwriting starting line.

Jo Evans writes folk songs about important times, places and people in her life. She is an accomplished singer from years of choir singing and has actively taken up songwriting quite recently. Jo talked about some of the important influences and mentors which have encouraged her to write songs including a songwriting workshop she attended recently - The Big Sing in The Desert - https://bigsingcommunity.com/events/big-sing-in-the-desert/#:~:text=A%20unique%20four%2Dday%20singing,%2C%20art%2C%20conversation%20and%20community. The workshop encouraged Jo to map out concepts and build songs in more of a structured way than she'd done previously which she has found really helpful.

She also has a group of musical friends and colleagues that she draws heavily on for advice and feedback which has helped her enormously.

Jo recollects the time she realised that writing songs was a way to provide an outlet for and communicate about issues that are very important to her. This realisation and the support from her musical community has given her confidence to keep on writing, and more recently, performing original songs!

We discussed Jo's song "Night Visitor", a very personal song about the unexpected loss of a close friend of hers many years ago. The loss of Jo's friend was a very difficult experience and writing the song all these years later has been an important way for Jo to process what happened. She played the song live in the studio and what a beautiful song it is!

We also discussed how Jo built the structure of Night Visitor from a couple of musical ideas which led to the song emerging within an hour! Other songs take Jo much longer to write and need many iterations over months before she's happy. She is very encouraging of others to give songwriting a go!

Resh, Sofia, Sylvia and Brian from Napoleon Ice Cream stopped by for a songwriting chat and to play some acoustic versions of their songs live in the studio. Describing themselves as "Aussie Asian Nerds who should be home studying but snuck away to make rock music instead", Napoleon Ice Cream craft funky rock songs with a 70s/80s vibe. Resh is the chief songwriter in the band but all four of them are part of the writing process. Sofia for example expresses her songwriting feelings through the instrumental parts she creates in the band's songs. We discussed how the different training and musical experience each of them have influences the songs they write. Sylvia was trained classically, Resh learnt traditional South Indian music whilst Sofia and Brian learnt by strumming guitars with friends.

Resh describes the songwriting process as both an expression of herself and a conversation with the audience. She spoke about trying to decide how much of her vulnerability to express in songs and how much to hold back. She has been pleasantly surprised by how audience members sometimes interpret her songs in a way she'd never thought of which leads to her also thinking about the songs in a different way.

It is also clear that all of the band are conversing and vibing with each other when they play together.

Resh spoke about being delirious, tired and hungry as a key ingredient in a songwriting session with Sofia which produced the song "Unexpectedly" a song about escaping a place to get to somewhere better. The band played an acoustic version of the song live in the studio which they had reworked from the funky 80s version they usually play with drums and electric guitars. They also played acoustic versions of two other songs live - Perfect Happy and Teddy Bear which you can hear after the closing credits of the episode.

It was great to chat with these talented, motivated songwriters and musicians!

To find out more about Napoleon Ice Cream: https://linktr.ee/napoleon_ice_cream?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=4e7cf3de-0ae9-4c7e-baf8-f4cf63f0ab37

Ben Drysdale has been writing and performing songs for 20 years in various duo and band projects. For much of that time he was a solo songwriter but more recently has got into collaborative songwriting which has significantly increased his output. Curiously collaborative songwriting has also significantly helped him launch a solo career.

We discussed Ben's forthcoming single "Listen Now" which was inspired by a difficult conversation he had late one night with a distressed friend. Writing the song was a powerful experience for Ben and was greatly appreciated by his friend.

Ben played Listen Now live in the studio and (if you stick around until the closing credits) you can hear the fully produced band version on Ben's new single. I enjoyed hearing the differences between the single and the pared back acoustic version Ben.

Ben had some great advice for new songwriters about it never being too late to revisit the basics. After nearly 20 years writing songs Ben did a songwriting course and found it transformative. In his words "Learn the rules and then learn how to break them!"

For more about Ben's music, including the details of his new single launch: https://www.bendrysdalemusic.com

NOTE: This episode contains discussion of an instance of suicidal ideation which could be distressing for some listeners.

Jenny Spear and Bridget Croft are two good friends who write intense, energetic songs with awesome harmonies - think Vika and Linda meet Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings in a roadside diner. They have both written and performed songs separately in different bands over many years but are really enjoying co-writing in their current duo (although sometimes 3, 4, 5 or 6-piece outfit) "What She's Having".

We played a recording of their single "The Sky" written about a fictitious character who was in jail but now she's on the road. Bridget wrote the lyrics whilst driving and sent them to Jenny who wrote the music in Bridget's preferred key and sent the song back. Jenny describes receiving lyrics from Bridget as like getting Christmas presents.

We then discussed other songs that Bridget and Jenny have written around the theme of the same fictitious character. She's broken out of jail, she's on the road, on the run and there is a murder ballad!

They played their song Blood Moon live in the studio which is in the episode and look out for two other ones - Good to You and Still on the Run - we recorded which are included after the closing credits. These are all powerful songs with beautiful harmonies.

Bridget and Jenny described a range of things that help them with their songwriting and are good advice for other songwriters - capture ideas in the moment, share them with people you trust, listen to lots of music for ideas, don't let your self-critic get in your way, don't try to make your songs too complex, leave spaces in the songs, enjoy yourself!

Having fun is paramount and I reckon Jenny and Bridget spent as much time laughing as they did talking and singing in the studio. It was great to meet both of them.

Here is where you can find the songs in the episode:

The Sky (recording) - 19:05

Blood Moon (live) - 26:16

Good to you (live) - 40:05

Still on the Run (live) - 44:10

To check out more of Jenny and Bridget's music:

https://linktr.ee/whatsheshaving

Nick-Lee Murphy lives for music, by day fixing guitars at a music store and at other times playing in bands and musically supporting a bunch of different community groups. Nick started writing songs out of a feeling of envy when he saw his mates performing their own songs so he got a guitar and started writing songs himself. He reckons it took him a couple of years to develop his songs to the point where he could play them in a band.

Songwriting has been with Nick at the highest and lowest points in his life and the things that drive his songwriting have changed over the years. Earlier on he really needed affirmation from others when he wrote songs but now he writes just for himself and doesn't mind what people think. Interestingly he gets more positive feedback these days!

Nick finds the songwriting process difficult - like he's in a boxing match with a version of himself who is his harshest critic. He throws a lot of songs away but the ones that get through to the end of the boxing match are ones he loves.

He played one of his keepers, "Crave Love" live in the studio and explained how it was written a long time ago for a particular part of his life but the meaning of it has evolved for him over time and is still very relevant today. The song has a strong vibe of one of his songwriting heroes, Robert Plant.

Nick had a lot of fabulous music stories and had me in stitches telling his story about singing songs as a door to door electricity salesman to try to drum up business. It was a pleasure to meet him and hear his songwriting story!

To hear more of Nick's music with his current band The Filthy Darlings:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1aGULTk3Flhcljeah1qAVP?si=zq6N_xA9RIWqkYQSu-aYRw

about_details