Category: Nashville - JohnRowlandSongs

Tin Pan South and Spring Training

4/4/2011

What an exciting three days in Nashville! I made long trek home yesterday and had my mind swimming with song ideas and such.

I arrived in Nashville early afternoon on Thursday, March 31 and had a very beneficial 1-on-1 with Brent Baxter at NSAI. That evening, I went to the 9:00 show with the Big Loud Shirt writers: Craig Wiseman, Chris Tomkins and Rodney Clawson. Between and among the three of them are s-o-o-o many hit songs made famous by Kenny Chesney, George Strait and many, many other artists. It was great to get to hear them perform their own work at Puckett's Grocery and Restaurant downtown Nashville.

There were opportunities to make new friendships with other writers throughout the day Friday and to get some great instruction and lots of question-and-answer. Kenny Loggins, Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman -- all great writers in their own right -- now have teamed up and formed a "supergroup" called Blue Sky Riders. They performed for us in the morning. Then we got to eat lunch with a writer -- in my case, with Rand Bishop.

The highlight of the day was the publisher session. Each attendee signed up for the opportunity to play a song for their publisher of choice in a small group session at the end of the day. I was fortunate to be with Bobby Rymer from Writers' Den Music Group. He was very affirmative about "Worn Pages" I didn't get a "give me a call" -- only one writer in the group of a dozen or so got that privilege. But... there were only four of us who got a very affirmative listening. So, I am gratified by that.

Friday evening was the early show at the Commodore featuring writers Marc-Alan Barnett, Jimbeau Hinson, Bonnie Lee Panda and Allan Shervelle. Very enjoyable and I got to meet a bunch of SongRampers.

Saturday brought a panel discussion featuring song placement folks for the Film and TV market. It was very informative, too. In the afternoon, Chris Wallin played some of his tunes recorded b by Toby Keith, Trace Adkins and other. I returned to Puckett's for the early show that evening and heard Regie Hamm, Billy Kirsch, Wil Nance and Karen Staley.

In all, a very worthwhile trip.

Busy Times

3/30/2011

It has been very busy the last seven days with a lot of out of town travel. I got to do a little lyric development for a new song while I was away and missed getting to practice guitar and work on my audio workstation. I did a little catchup on the new song after getting home last night while doing a mound of laundry.

Tomorrow I will be heading out again -- this time to Nashville for Spring Training. I'm looking forward to that event -- two solid days of advice and how-to from hit songwriters hosted by NSAI (Nashville Songwriters Association International).

I've had the pleasure of making some new friends this week, suffered some heartbreak and gotten to enjoy my relationship with the Father of creativity. Maybe I'll write a song about it. Seems that's how some songs come to be.

Being Bezalel

2/1/2011

I am a fan of mentoring -- or "discipling" as a preferred learning method. I read something in Exodus 35:30 and following today about how God "staffed up" the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. It goes like this:

Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—- to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.

God endowed a master craftsman, Bezalel, with the Spirit and with know-how in all aspects of the artisanship of the tabernacle. God also enabled Bezalel and Oholiab to teach the craft to others. They could have been the stars of the show, but they were enablers of others for a purpose... to get the tabernacle constructed.

There are talented people everywhere. Nashville is loaded with talented people. More important, many of those talented people have a spiritual history and desire to honor God with their talents. Are you one of them? Do you view your gifts and talents as God-given and purposeful? It is my own prayer to be like Bezalel and Oholiab. I hope you have a similar desire for the things God has blessed you with, as well.

Kinda Fun

1/7/2011

Today I enjoyed looking up the credits of the session players that made up the band for "The Worn Pages" -- allmusic.com lists the credits of various musicians. I love pedal steel and, for instance, found that Scotty Sanders has played on some of my favorite recordings for a number of great artists.

I realize that says nothing special about me, I just hired a demo done. But -- it brings out one of the things I love about Nashville. These musicians are phenomenal. They can walk in, run through a new song a couple of times in a tracking session and knock it down like nothin'! They are that good. I admire their talent and hard work (it takes both).

I'm looking foward to the Little Rock regional NSAI meeting tomorrow starting a new year. I will get some feedback on "Forever My Man" and enjoy being with other writers.

Music City Day 3

9/26/2010

Starting at 9:00, the first three class sessions were all at Warner Records with Pat Pattison. Pat is on the faculty at Berklee College of Music and is very, very entertaining and instructive. We had a look at the power of lyrics (when properly done) as well has how to build a storyline from a title and how to marry lyrics to a melody (prosody). He is a master lyricist with tons of experience.

I skipped the 3:30 session and began the trip home. It was about midnight when I finally arrived and I didn't waste much time hitting the sack.

In all, I enjoyed my time in Nashville and learned a lot. Looking forward to the next time.

Music City Day 2

9/23/2010

I had a very busy day with late start (since I had nothing in my 9:00 am slot). After breakfast, I went on over to NSAI to print some lyrics for a 1-on-1 with Brent Baxter. While there, I met John Braheny who was preparing to teach a session on songwriting for the film industry.

Next up at 11:00 was a class with Rick Beresf0rd on Powerful Melody and Chords, after which I hustled back to NSAI for my 1:00 1-on-1 with Brent Braxter. This was a very enjoyable opportunity with a talented young writer and he had some great advice for some of my current projects.

Sandwiched between the 1-on-1 and my 3:30 class was a vocal coaching session with Shelby over at Brett Manning Studios. Again, a very productive time helping me get my head around things to work on for improving my singing.

The last class at 3:30 was with Susan Anders, which again focused on singing. Her classtime dealt largely with techniques common to country music vocals and it was great to help me start to get some help in this area.

Back at the hotel, I went down again for a Songwriter Night at the Commodore and heard some very outstanding singer/songwriters. Lance Carpenter shared one round and the most entertaining time of the evening was a round with Harley Lameraux and friends. All very enjoyable.

Music City: Evening 1

9/22/2010

Had a long drive up from Louisiana today and arrived Nashville just after 4 pm. I took the Church Street exit from I-40 to wind up at Music Row. It took a few drive-stop-mapcheck cycles to find my way (the streets in the Music Row area run at angles and have weird angular intersections -- whew!) such that I ended up at NSAI around 4:30.

Whitnei Jeffcoat showed me around the main area of NSAI and talked to me and -- thank you, Lord -- set me up a one-on-one with Brent Baxter at 1:00 tomorrow. I had tried to contact Brent on my own, but was unsuccessful. This is more than I could ask or think!

I left NSAI and got checked into the Holiday Inn which is right across the parking lot from the Vanderbilt stadium. I went downstairs for dinner in the Commodore just as their songwriter rounds were starting. I heard about 18-20 fine singer/songwriters doing their songs in the approximately 2.5 hours I spent there. I was starting to fade, so I came up instead of staying for more (there was still a couple of hours worth of writers left to go).

It's been a good learning experience so far and I look forward to more tomorrow.

Oh, by the way, one of the later performers was a young guy from Sheridan AR (I drove through there on the way today). Also, one of the writers mentioned that Lance Carpenter was the co-writer of one of his tunes. A shout out to Lance!

Stranger on Music Row

9/18/2010

I will get to the title of my post in a minute. First...

- Follow-up to my fishing adventure. After the first evening and next morning in Poudre, I didn't have a single bite (!) until the last morning when we fished our way out of the canyon. There was a man fishing at one of our holes along the way who was just leaving and had caught a number of very nice browns. This kind stranger gave Sid and I each a lure that he was having success with and we proceeded to land about a half-dozen each of very, very nice browns. That was a pleasant ending to this year's fishing excursion.

- I have to make another comment about the LefsetzLetter. I have really appreciated his observations about changes in the music industry. If you are interested, Google it and sign up. Very interesting reads.

- I will be working Monday and Tuesday this week then driving to Nashville for the annual Songposium event. I signed up for 5 classes that fall on Thursday and Friday -- three of them with songwriter Pat Pattison from Berklee College of Music. Looking forward to that. I will be staying upstairs from the Commodore, so Wednesday and Thursday evenings I will get to listen in on a number of songwriter performances. I will also get an hour at Brett Manning Studios to get some vocal coaching. An action packed three days.

- On that note, the post title, like I promised. I am standing up a new site called SongsAboutUs (thank you, Trace Adkins) that will deal with how a believer in Jesus can interface with the arts world -- with a specific focus on music. It is barely in its infancy but I hope to be providing some good content and things to think about. Oh, yes, the post title. A few years ago I wrote a ballad called "Stranger on Mars Hill" which was a retelling of the apostle Paul's visit to Athens found in Acts 17. You could say that SongsAboutUs is a re-visit to the same idea. Even though God is a staple in country music, sometimes I wonder if it is not like Athens, where the "Unknown God" is where Paul had to start with telling God's story anew.

Interesting Comments On The Country Music Industry

5/11/2010

I ran across an interview with Gator Hole owner Galen Breen which was published in two parts at the SongGarage blog by Aaron Cheney. I found Galen's methodology for demo production helpful. More than that, he commented on how the Nashville "method" of writing-publishing-producing, while truly a cash cow, has a tendency to dilute the individuality of writers, who sacrifice their own "voice" for the standard methodology of co-writes. Interesting reading.