creativity

5-Year Anniversary Spectacular!

For our 5-year anniversary, we visited moments past and our favourite bits. Song Talk Radio Superfan Mike MacInnes joined us (for the 5th time!)

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Some of our favourite theme shows:

Some of our favourite guest shows:

Loyrn Taggert
Blair Packham’s first appearance on the show
Brighid Fry
Alyssa Baker
Jacob Moon
Michelle Thibodeau
Daniel Caceres

We talked about:

How to write lyrics that are specific but open enough to allow the listener in
The distance between being inspired to write a song and developing it with craft
What the heck is polytonality?
We’ve done 47 theme shows in that last five years! Thanks to Mike MacInnes for the research
The growing Song Talk Radio Team

Canadian songwriters rock the nineties

by Bruce Harrott

Maybe you didn’t ask for it but we did it anyway – the 90’s song draft – this time with Canadian songwriters. Blair Packham sat in for a sick Bruce, Vanessa joined the gang for her song picks, and much fun was had. Of the many writers of the Great White North, here are a few highlights:

Alanis Morrisette
The Tragically Hip
Bruce Cockburn
Tal Bachman
The Odds

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Julian Taylor – dual roots and great songs

by Bruce Harrott

Julian Taylor is a Canadian singer-songwriter formerly with the band Staggered Crossing. His songs have appeared in television series including Degrassi: The Next Generation. He now fronts the Julian Taylor Band. Julian dropped by the studio with his daughter Ella. We talked about:

Skookum Music Festival, Vancouver
Basic core band members together for 24 years!
Music first or lyrics first?
Finding a “treasure chest” of memorabilia in the attic
New album called Avalanche
Checking the quality of the melody – whistle
Sweeter – unusual song structure, lots of Canadian references
Love Connection – cool structure
started writing songs at age of 4
Mohawk/West Indian musical background

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Michael Thorner turns a webcast into an album

by Bruce Harrott

Toronto singer/songwriter Michael Thorner dropped by the studio for a chat about his music. He brought two catchy tunes from his recent webcast/album release The ehMTee Show; Don’t Let it Go and Point Edward Fair. We talked about:

chamber/orchestral pop
Point Edward, Ontario
church organist at 10!
Mouth Congress (Scott Thompson & Paul Bellini)
Marker Starling
Harry Nilsson
radio in the seventies
chord charts, full charts

The Lyrics

Don’t Let It Go

Point Edward Fair

The Links

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Robert Priest – how to write songs for children

by Bruce Harrott

We had the pleasure of having the prolific Toronto poet, novelist, and singer/songwriter Robert Priest (with David Hynes on guitar) back in the studio to share a couple of his children’s songs. We talked about…

testing a song on a 6-year old
moving from writing for adults to writing for children on the same day
chord choices for children
writing for younger and older children (the differences)
kids deserve quality songwriting
“Inchworm” (an old favourite)
repetition in kids’ songs
using words that kids will have to look up (why not?)
the work habits of a prolific writer
Gilbert and Sullivan style (The Ships of Bath)
do you have to have kids to write for children?

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Robert-Priest-Lyrics

Watch the live performances

The 2017 Year End Wrap-Up Show!

by Phil Emery

Join the gang as we go over our favourite bits of the last year and lots more stuff!

We talked about:

songwriting things that Bruce, Neel, and Phil have learned over the past year
Sean Bertram’s episode and contrast and dynamics in your performances
Jenny Perez’s episode and her controversial song Mr. Tinder
Blair Packham and Patrick Ballantyne pulling apart their favourite songs
Vincent Degiorgio and CYMBA Music Publishing episode
doing cover songs to get noticed
our theme shows and how educational they are
where to put your hooks to register as a play on streaming services
the future of Soundcloud (our speculations, anyway)
Michelle Thibodeau’s episode and the eternal question of Do You Write from the Heart or the Head?
Neel’s songs The Countless Few (#meToo) and All I Want for Christmas
Phil’s song Have a Parkdale Hookers Christmas

Listen to the show:

Robert Priest, songwriting poet

by Bruce Harrott

Multi-talented Toronto poet, novelist, and singer/songwriter Robert Priest brought two great songs to the show. He also brought two talented musicians to back him up – guitarist and vocalist David Hines and guitarist Bob Cohen. We talked about a wide range of things including:

the difference between poetry and song lyrics
collaboration in song writing
song structure
work habits
breaking down the inner critic
“highway” songs
writing for children
a poem about John Lennon
Robert’s website

Watch the live performances

Listen to the show

It’s The 4th Anniversary Show!

by Phil Emery

The gang celebrates 4 years of Song Talk nerd-ery! Station tech genius Michael Newton stops by too.

What we talked about:

Our fav guests the past year
Bad jokes
Angela Saini
Rachel Raditz
Nolan Hubbard
Theme shows
The Oh Chays

Listen to the Full episode

Ed Roman a Canadian original

by Bruce Harrott

Ed Roman is an award-winning singer/songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist from Shelburne, Ontario, Canada. Blurring the lines between pop, rock, folk, and country music genres, Ed’s uniquely crafted songs have received regular rotation on more than 100 terrestrial radio stations across North America and more than 400 stations, worldwide. On this program we had some lively discussions about: