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In this throwback, we chatted with musical book writer Stephen Witkin about songs with a pride theme, with song examples.
Check out the original show notes.…
Throwback Thursday Themeshow: Pride Special
theatre
How to write a Musical – it takes longer than you’d think! with Frank Horvat and Catherine Frid
Long-time friend of the show, songwriter and composer Frank Horvat brought in his musical writing partner Catherine Frid to explain all the steps it took to write and produce their Toronto Fringe hit Spend Your Kids Inheritance.
Listen to the show:
What we talked about:
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Randy Newman’s “Cowboy” & “Somewhere” from West Side Story dissected with Patrick Ballantyne
Patrick Ballantyne stopped by to pull apart two of his fave songs. The open and emotive “Cowboy” by Randy Newman, and “Somewhere” from West Side Story by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein.
Stuff we talked about:
- Patrick Ballantyne’s website
- Randy Newman “Cowboy” Lyrics
- Somewhere Lyrics
- Northwood Records
- West Side Story
- Randy Newman
- Leonard Bernstein
- Somewhere TAB
- 11 o’clock number
Listen to the show
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Book Writing for Musicals with Stephen Witkin
Stephen Witkin joined us again to talk about his career writing the book for various musicals, and shared three songs resulting from his writing.
We talked about:
- The difference between “On Broadway” and “Off Broadway”
- Prom Queens Unchained available from Samuel French
- different sub-genres in musicals
- the nature of collaboration between book writer, lyricist, and composer
- what’s an “I Want” song?
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Special Pride Theme Show
To celebrate Pride in Toronto this week, we brought in five LGBTQ-themed songs to play and talk about. The songs spanned from 1983 to 2017, and included a diverse range of songwriters and topics. Musical book writer Stephen Witkin joined us for the show.…
Piper Hayes, from Broadway to Hamilton
Piper Hayes is a New York born singer/songwriter currently living on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario – home to a burgeoning arts scene. Piper started writing her own songs because she couldn’t play other people’s songs on her guitar. On this fast-paced and informative show, she sang “You’re Gone” and “Honey” and we talked about:
- musical theatre training and the singer/songwriter
- the influence of Stephen Sondheim
- specific versus ambiguous lyrics
- using the rhythm guitar to drive a song
- the right mood for writing
Connect with Piper
The 3rd Anniversary Show
To celebrate our 3rd Anniversary, some of our very dedicated listeners stopped by and we talked about their favorite bits from the last year. Even Nicole stopped by – and then we had cake!
Some stuff we talked about:
- Tony Burns
- Mike Macinnes
- Nicole Di Donato
- Tony Burns Episode
- Blair Packham packs emotional power
- Writing to perfection with Jules
- Song Studio
- How to master multiple career streams+songwriting with Alyssa Baker
- Bob Guido serves up some ambient vibes
- Writing for musicals with Stephen Witkin
- Jacob Moon a song writing star
Listen to the whole episode:
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Writing for musicals with Stephen Witkin
Tips on Creating Songs for Musical Theatre with Andrew Seok
Pianist, producer, and songwriter Andrew Seok stopped by and talked about the process of creating music for his new Musical “Echos”. Andrew Seok (also known as just SEOK) has written music for Television, Recording Artists, Movies, and pretty much everything including the music you hear when call a company and you’re put on hold. …
New standards by Steven Taetz
Multi-talented singer songwriter Steven Taetz turned the Song Talk studio into a smoky nightclub with his perfect renditions of his own songs. Waiting for Wishes (co-written with Emma-Lee) had so many “hooks” we lost count (listen for pre-chorus one and two, and the first chorus!). …
Stephen Witkin
Hollywood book and lyric writer Stephen Witkin talks about musical theatre and the use of cliches.…
Vincent de Tourdonnet
Vincent returns to Song Talk to talk about the difference and collision between Broadway styles and pop styles.…
Song Talk with Alon & Vincent de Tourdonnet