We talk about: Listener letters: Holiday Gift Guide: Keeping notes in a “hook book” Handheld recorders: TASCAM DR-40 Bill Blacks’ Musician Office System The Song Talk Radio Song Challenge Poetry vs. Songs COBOCONK CHORDS http://www.harpinnorm.com

BBC Radio has called Melanie, “Mary Poppins with a broken heart” and that is just part of her appeal. Besides her beautiful voice, Melanie is a terrific songwriter with lots of great songs to prove it. Her tune “Christmas Breaks My Heart” was a finalist in the Great American Songwriting Contest. And now Melanie has …

Singer-songwriter and Jitters frontman Blair Packham joined us for our latest annual Holiday Gift Guide. We talked about gift suggestions in every price range. Happy shopping for the musician in your life, for yourself, or for your favourite songwriting podcast host (hint: that’s Neel). Thanks to our listeners Don Thomspon, Lorenzo D. Policelli, and Matt …

We talk about the songwriting do’s and don’ts as well as: The 2nd Annual Songwriting Challenge The Annual Holiday Gift Guide Songwriting Dos and Don’ts on Discmakers DO: Write a cool opening line DON’T: Make your chorus melody too much like your verse melody DO: Write interesting titles DON’T: Be afraid to rewrite DO: Polish …

This week SongTalk welcomed Doktor Nomi to our studio. Admittedly Nomi is not a real doctor but he does have a unique and interesting way of creating music. As a topliner and lyricist, Nomi frequently works with other collaborators to create his music. Most recently, he and SongTalk’s own Neel Modi have been working together …

This week we welcomed The Sun Harmonic (aka Kaleb Hikele) back to the show to share his latest single A Dream I’ve Had with us. Kaleb was challenged to write, record, and release a song in 48 hours, and he totally did it! We talked about: Our latest songwriting challenge and how our listeners are …

Having just released both a French and English version of her latest single, “Self-Talk Session”, Montreal based pop/funk singer Izabelle reached #1 on Quebec’s Niky radio charts and has spent weeks within their top ten, secured four consecutive victories in the Canadian Beats Weekly Beatdown, and has had the English version of her hit single …

This week SongTalk featured a few songs from our listeners. And it was loads of fun. We chose three of our listeners’ songs to take a closer listen to. Stuart Cook – near Manchester, England penned a delightful song inspired by the view from a hill near his home. Earthbound, his song has a traditional …

This week we were saddened by the passing away of guitar icon Eddie Van Halen. We talked about his amazing talent and some more stuff. We talked about: Mandolin Orange cover version of Bob Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather, and songs with two different points of view (thanks to Jeff from Michigan for the email) …

Neel plays a track off his latest EP with special guest Lexie Jay from local TO Duo, Featurette.

Ace Symmetry is Neel Modi’s experimental EP of progressive electro-pop. Odd time signatures and nonsensical lyrics are combined with inventive beats, cool synth sounds, and catchy keyboard solos to create a unique and fun sonic experience. The EP is designed to be listened to in order and with gapless playback.

We talked about:

* Non-standard time signatures

* Nonsense lyrics

* Featurette

* A great YouTube channel: Rick Beato

* Do lyrics need to make narrative sense?

* Neel’s last appearance on the show to talk about this project

Ace Symmetry

https://www.facebook.com/nsmodi/