Show date: Apr. 09, 2024
A captivating musical journey of empowerment, self-determination, and the pursuit of lifelong dreams, Country artist Amanda Keeles unveils her invigorating debut album, “Can’t Stop Me Now!“. Her rich, ribbon-like vocals come straight from her soul, sharing deeply personal narratives drawn from a songbook overflowing with a lifetime of compositions. Leaving behind a professional career in finance and a marriage that did not support her creative pursuits, Keeles waited her entire adulthood to pursue the music career she had always dreamed of having. Her emotive, expansive vocals deliver messages of empowerment, love, and cherished memories directly from lived experience. After decades of honing her craft in private, Amanda Keeles invites listeners into her remarkable world of perseverance, sharing her life’s work of upbeat anthems, stadium-sized messages of empowerment, and touching ballads.
Amanda shared the process behind her song Can’t Stop Me Now. Download the lyrics to follow along.
We talked about:
- songwriting from lived experiences, even if they’re not Amanda’s own
- writing a three chord song and still having clear changes in your song sections (check out our songwriting challenge from 2021 to write a song where the chord progression never changes)
- writing abstract vs. story telling lyrics
- rewriting to reduce clichés and predictability in your lyric
- painting visual pictures in your verses, and being declarative in your chorus
- SongMeanings | Song Lyrics, Meanings & Discussion
Show date: Apr. 02, 2024
Nelson Little is a celebrated storyteller from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, who brought home his third award from the Manitoba Country Music Awards this winter for “Best Roots Artist”, and has also received an Aboriginal People’s Choice Award. Little has opened for Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame inductee Charlie Major, The Sheepdogs, and Fred Eaglesmith. His music has been featured across Canada on CTV Morning Live, SiriusXM, and the CBC Radio network, reaching #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown, Canada’s largest running Indigenous music chart program since 2000. Two years after releasing his single “High Road”, a song inspired by his son that urges listeners to keep their heads up, Little released “Just Make It Happen”, a high energy, Chuck Berry-inspired 50’s Rock song that is designed to inspire any listener of any age to take control of their destiny and go for their dreams.
Nelson talked about his song Just Make It Happen. Download the lyrics to follow along.
We talked about:
- Every type of Song Structure EXPLAINED video
- Trusting your intuitions when writing a song
- Amping up your bridge when your song is already high energy
- Working with producer Dave Wasyliw
- Turning negative experiences into a positive song
- Is older music better than today’s music? (SPOILER ALERT: Yes, yes it is)
- Taking a long time to write a song but making it sound organic and natural
- Discovering lyrical gems and turning them into hooks
Show date: Mar. 25, 2024
Over the last few years, Alex Bird & Ewen Farncombe have become two of the biggest names on the Canadian Jazz scene. With praise from around the globe, this talented team has created timeless and heartfelt originals for a modern audience. They have produced something that is completely unique; three original albums in three years.
Bird and Farncombe’s latest album, a duo record, dropped as a surprise of 11 originals entitled, “Songwriter”. Kira Grunenberg at DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE wrote, “Impassioned messages sung and played from one’s heart but worn on a well-dressed sleeve. “Songwriter” is an elegant, romantic, and well-executed gem of a record.” The album was nominated for “Best Vocal Jazz” at the 2024 JUNO awards.
Alex joined us to talk about their song This Song Is Ours. Download the lyrics to follow along.
We talked about:
- Phil’s new furnace (editor’s note: you’d think this is the least songwriting topic ever, but then, there’s this to consider)
- The Song Talk Meetup
- How do you explain to someone how to write a melody?
- Call and response melodies
- Bringing together melody and lyric with a jazz pianist to create a unified song
- Learning to trust your instincts as a songwriter
- How Alex re-wrote most of the lyric the night before recording
- Exploring options as a way of finding out what not to do
- The value of having another viewpoint/person on your song
Show date: Mar. 04, 2024
Built on emotion-stirring storytelling and unmistakable vocal harmonies accompanied by a century-old instrument, Burnstick, a JUNO nominated husband and wife Folk duo, are intent on creating affecting music that inspires listeners to feel. The Manitoba-based duo features Nadia and Jason Burnstick, esteemed independent artists who united over a decade ago to create deeply moving, cinematic Folk music using their trademark vocal pairing, and Jason’s mastery of the lap slide Weissenborn guitar. The pair released their JUNO-nominated debut album, Kîyânaw, in 2019, from which their song, “Some Kind of Hell” took home the Canadian Folk Music Award for Single of the Year, while also receiving nominations from the Western Canadian Music Awards, and Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards in 2020 and 2021.
Nadia and Jason shared the process behind their song Closer. Download the lyrics to follow along.
We talked about:
- Chad Shank’s video about songwriting from a title
- Having the courage to excise an entire section of your song
- Employing a call and response structure in your melodies
- Having strong prosody in your song
- Collaborating with different strengths – groove, lyric, melodies
- Is rhyming a word with the same word a rhyme?
- Finding the right key signature for a song (even if it’s B-major) and so it works with both singers
Show date: Feb. 27, 2024
Singer-songwriter, producer, and Song Studio maverick Allister Bradley joined us to talk us through song registrations (for Canadians).
We talked about:
- Billy Joel’s new song and AI-driven video Turn the Lights Back On
- Collective Societies | Copyright Board of Canada (cb-cda.gc.ca) lists ALL the organizations responsible for collecting and distributing royalties
- What is a royalty?
- Know the different hats you’ll be wearing for collecting royalties – songwriter, lyricist, performer, publisher
- Understand the splits when you’re collaborating
- What constitutes a public performance of a song?
- If you’re an independent artist who records, produces, and releases your own music, you’re also the record label and the master record owner
- Carefully consider your digital distribution aggregator (CD Baby, TuneCore, Distrokid, RouteNote, etc)
- Make sure to obtain (for free) and retain ISRC and UPC/EAN codes
Resources
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