This week SongTalk welcomed our old friend Blair Packham to our studio.
The Toronto-based artist, first gained attention for his work with ’80’s power pop band The Jitters. He is now an acclaimed solo artist and musician. Blair released two strongly-reviewed solo albums before shifting his focus to composing music for TV and films, teaching songwriting at the post-secondary level and in numerous special event workshops, and co-hosting a long-running major market weekly radio show about music (“In the Studio” on the BellMedia talk radio network).…
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This week SongTalk welcomes… Christmas into our studio.
For our Xmas Eve show, we all brought in our favourite Christmas songs and had a good chat about what makes them so great. Featuring some classics and some new songs that you may not have heard before.…
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This week, SongTalk welcomed jazz pianist and teacher Steve Koven. Steve is a composer, performer, producer and educator. He has one of the longest standing trios in Canada, performing, touring and recording together for over 26 year. Aside from performing and recording with his trio – Steve Koven Trio – Steve also has other recording projects such as the Koven Collective and Koven & Law as well as Lazersuzan
We talked with Steve about:
- his process for writing
- how he communicates his song ideas to his bands
- the touring opportunities available through consulates and embassies
- where he finds inspiration for his music
- what improvising can bring to songwriting
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This week SongTalk welcomed our pal Matthew Reid to our studio to talk about movie soundtracks.
We chose our favourites and talked about why they made the cut and what were the runners up.
We talked about:
- what are the criteria of soundtracks – are they a collection of songs from other sources, are they custom music made specifically for the film project or is there a grey area in between?
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This week SongTalk welcomed Jeff Alan Greenway to our studio.
Greenway is a film composer, singer/songwriter and pianist from Pickering, Ontario. He has written music for film, worked as a session player, orchestrator and arranger, released his own original album “Great Expectations” and wrote the score to the international documentary The Secret Life Of Frogs, which won a Nature award at the Cannes Media and TV festival.…
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This week SongTalk welcomed Matthew Reid to our studio. Matthew is a critically acclaimed, award winning composer for film, television, games and theatre. His funny songs have delighted almost a million people during his tenure as composer for Toronto’s world famous Second City comedy theatre.…
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This week SongTalk Radio has a special episode celebrating the 35th anniversary of the classic film, “This Is Spinal Tap”. And joining us in our trip down memory lane is one of our favourite guests on the show Blair Packham. We talk about where and when we first encountered this classic cult comedy and how true it was to our own experiences in the music business (hint: very!)…
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Award-winning and critically-acclaimed composer, songwriter, pianist, music educator and frequent Song Talk Radio guest, Frank Horvat returned to the show to talk about his latest project, The Thailand HRDs. Frank wrote 35 two-minute compositions for string quartet, where each movement was written for a Human Rights Defender in Thailand as part of photographer Luke Duggleby’s compelling photo essay.,…
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Bruce, Neel, Phil and Vanessa each shared a song that meant something to them for the holidays. Bruce featured a song from a series of The Beatles releases from 1964 to 1969 that he and his brothers bought each other for Christmas.…
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Popular guest co-host and guest on Song Talk Radio, Patrick Ballantyne dropped by the studio to share two of his favourite Canadian songs. “Help Me” by Joni Mitchell is a great example of her unique combination of melody, structure, and lyrics to evoke a casual conversational tone.…
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The next time Halloween will occur on a Tuesday will be in 2023, so we were supernaturally possessed to take advantage of the freaky intersection and dig up some Halloween themed songs for this show.
But first, the important stuff. Since this is radio, we figured Halloween costumes were in order.…
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Jordan Paul returned to the Song Talk Radio studio on Gould Street in Toronto with a surprise – a beautifully handcrafted sitar. And he played it! In this detour from his usual singer/songwriter explorations, Jordan Paul combines samples with his own sitar playing to create mesmerizing melodies and soundscapes.…
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Toronto-based virtuoso electronic music duo Audio Insurgency joined us for a second time to talk about their latest projects, including an album of inventive video game music covers.
Audio Insurgency is made up of Alon Rodovinsky and Ivan Popov. The guys previously appeared on Song Talk Radio in early 2016.…
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Neel Modi is a multi-talented songwriter, drummer and keyboardist with an eclectic collection of recordings from the quirky to the imaginative. On this show, he presented “Depend on Me” – based on a challenge to write a song about a car accident from the brake pad’s point of view – it’s a “brake-up” song ;-), and “Nature’s Lullaby”, a collaboration with singer/songwriter Sonja Seiler, a touching poetic take on the interconnection between all things in the natural world.…
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One in the Chamber (Mike Baise – vocals, rhythm guitar, Cecil Eugene – lead guitar, vocals, Christian Dotto – bass, Gerrod Harris – percussion) join us to discuss their songwriting process as a band. We talked about:
- bringing a song to the band to be fleshed out
- singing lead vocals with lyrics written by a bandmate
- to be or not to be wordy
- abstract lyrics
- rock and roll
With influences streaming in from all eras of rock, One In The Chamber is a unique, modern rock outfit.…
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The uber-talented duo of Talyor & Bryn impress the team with their fusion of styles and great sense of humour with 3 live performances, including an improvised lyric and melody by Taylor for their final song.
We discussed:
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Film composer Luciano Lombardi stops by and we find out all what you need to know when creating music for films.…
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Song Talk Radio’s social media guru and occasional co-host Eric Sorenson preforms two new songs on guitar and a beautiful instrumental tribute to his grandparents.
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Eric presents a 80’s video game themed instrumental piece, Bruce shows off a twist on the classic love song, and Neel goes all industrial with a song about trains. You can view Neel’s document on developing his song here.…
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Gary talks with the guys about using space and his influences in becoming a master finger style guitarist. And the crazy stuff he does with those capos.…
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Multi-Instrumentalist and composer Martin Van De Ven talks about counterpoint with numerous simultaneous melodies and different influences in constructing his complex instrumental pieces.
Beyond The Pale
Jumblies Theatre
Martin on Soundcloud…
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Dan’s songs are an investigation into location and memory. Listen and find out more!…
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Sound Poet Dan Trapper came in and we explored making music with found sound and talked about his really interesting approach to writing lyrics.
Dan Tapper Sound Design
MagneticSignals.com
VisualCodePoems.com
The North American Sound Diaries
Dan’s SoundCloud Page…
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Gary Woods is an instrumental songwriter, using unique tunings on his guitar and an innovative way to use capos to create beautiful pieces of music. Check out the video from this episode of Gary explaining his custom guitar techniques.…
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