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Connecting Songwriters Throughout Northeast Ohio |
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The Reprise: Between Rock & Roll and a Hard Place |
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Over 15+ years, most of our meetings have been hosted in places where we didn’t need a PA because it was easy for everyone to hear the songs “unplugged.” These unplugged settings have always fostered some truly great discussions. Talking to folks who have been coming to our meetings for many years, the general consensus is that when we are in that unplugged setting there isn’t that feeling of it being a “performance” like you get when we use a PA. It seems to me that when we have a PA, the discussions aren’t as numerous or lively.
I have found in our current home at 2 Girls Café & Bakery, the high ceiling and reflective walls can make it difficult for everyone to hear the song presentations unless we use amplification. At the same time, the core value of our group is to support each other as songwriters and this happens best in a discussion-rich environment and I know that discussions happen best when it is in a non-performance environment.
Here are some ideas that might help us keep our discussion-centric values in the forefront at our meetings.
1. We can have the PA on “standby” and only use it if we really aren’t able to hear the song. |
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2. We can have the PA only for the song presentation and then have the presenter come back into the room for discussion.
3. We can pioneer the PA-assisted discussion-centric model for songwriter groups.
4. Do we continue utilizing a sound system so FB Live can hear the songs? Should we even use FB Live since meetings are typically recorded on video?
I’d love to come up with a different solution. If you have an idea for how we can continue to be discussion rich in our current setting, please let us know! Your ideas are always welcome. |
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Join Us For Our Next General Meeting December 3rd At 7PM
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Getting The Most Out Of Your Mixer: Gain Staging
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Like so many other things involving music, I’m self-taught when it comes to running live sound. It began 10 years ago when I was thrown in off the deep end, getting hired to do music and recording with kids in a summer camp. Working with school-age children is a big challenge — they have even less patience than musicians! The most useful thing I learned from those sink-or-swim programs was how to gain stage.
I don’t play out very much, but knowing the basics of gain staging has been a HUGE headache reducer when I’m using my own rig. I used to struggle with too much hiss in my sound or the nasty growls of distortion. Basic gain staging has tamed these beasts and made my time performing less stressful and more enjoyable.
The breakthrough for me was an article from Sweetwater Sound a couple of years ago on how to gain stage. See below for how to get hold of the article.
First let me define gain staging. For the sake of simplicity I’ll use a vocal microphone as an example. Gain staging is where you dial in the right amount of signal at the point where your microphone first hits the mixer (first stage), use your faders to get the right blend of vocals and instruments (second stage) and send it out at the right level to your speakers (master fader, third stage).
The key point to take away here is that your gain knob (sometimes called “trim”) is what you use to set levels. Your track
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faders are what you use to dial in the right mix of vocals and instruments. A common mistake is to use the track faders to set levels (I learned that one the hard way).
As mentioned above, your best one stop shopping guide to gain staging is the article from Sweetwater Sound called Gain Staging Like A Pro published on March 1, 2016.
Learning how to dial in the optimal signal with your gain knob will save you a lot of time and headaches when you’re playing out using your own rig. This article will show you how.
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This Might Also Be Helpfull
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Is Up And Running Check Us Out!
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Member Profile: Jerry Slea
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We are always excited to welcome new members to Songwriter Summit. One of our recent additions, Jerry Slea, has become involved in presenting new songs and taking an active role in the discussions that follow the presentations of other members of the group. This seemed like a good time to check in with him to see what attracted him to our organization and discover what he thinks is important about his craft and how he sees himself as part of Songwriter Summit.
What keeps you coming back to Songwriter Summit on a regular basis?
There is an amazing amount of talent sitting in the chairs and singing at the mic at the meetings. I'm almost on "the far side of sixty" and one thing I know: when I want to learn something, I go to the people that are doing it well, stay humble, watch and take good notes. Sure, I read the books, go to the workshops, get the ASCAP and BMI email newsletters (along with the excellent Summit Songwriter Bridge of course - thanks Bob and Don), but nothing beats good old human interaction.
What drives your writing?
I'm new to songwriting. Although I carried Fred (my 1964 Gibson J-45) for many years, I was never a performer and I only sang covers for friends and family. At the tender age of 64, I wrote my first song and I blame (!) it all on my minister. I promised I would give meditation a try. So I did, and all these songs started pouring out. So, through Divine Grace, I was given a choice: stay on the couch and swear at the Browns, or learn songwriting and start to become an artist. We know what happened to the Browns.
After my two cats and my wife got thoroughly bored with all the strange new sounds coming out of the basement of our tiny home in Euclid, I was invited to sing solo in front of our church congregation, backed by the church band. I've since been back three times, both there and to other churches in the area. Eventually, I ended up in Nashville, recording on music row.
How would you describe the music you create?
Spiritual, usually uplifting, but not Gospel in the traditional sense. My fellow Summit Songwriters members know I'm not shy at tackling a story song with a unusual, not often heard topic. In the last two years I've written and performed on: bootleggers, suicide, Vietnam, house hunting, loss of a parent, a bullet through my window and a death of a friend. I usually provide something uplifting in the final verse or in the bridge to smooth out the sting of a heavy message.
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I was born in Nashville, but raised in Gallatin, TN which I describe as Tenns-a-tucky. It's up on the border between the two states. I put a country flavor in my writing, meaning emotion is important to me, more important than the flowery language. I love traditional country.
What advice would you share with other songwriters?
Don't be afraid to make changes to your work. I never got to meet him, but my songwriting hero was Guy Clark. I record at Jay's Place on music row in Nashville and I was told a lot about Guy when I mentioned that he was one of the people that I studied. In the Nashville area, if you covered one of his songs live, you better not change any of the words, or he would call you out right from the seats and correct you! At the same time, if he felt one of his songs, even though recorded years before, could be improved, he would revise it. I quote my friend Jerry Allen at lot; "We don't write a song, we re-write them."
Write from your strengths. My strengths are nostalgic, simple songs. I write a lot about my family, my mom and dad, my siblings. Whenever my writing slows down, and so far I have never had "writer's block" (knock on top of guitar), all I've ever had to do is say or think two magic words: "I remember..." and the words just fly out.
Keep a "hook book" handy. I have settled on a short, fat, ring bound notebook. It allows a pen to clip into the rings and can still fit into the pants pocket or jacket pocket. When they fill up, hang on to them. Mine them like your secret treasure. Now if I could just get a whiteboard that worked in the shower? I can't remember the number of times I've had song ideas that I've lost from the shower to the hook book! My wife is used to my running downstairs at a moments notice.
What are your thoughts about working with a co-writer?
I think I would like it, but I would want to be in the same room, face-to-face. I attended a six day songwriter's camp called "Summersongs" in upstate New York last July and one of the courses was speed writing where we were paired up with others (whom we didn't really know) and given 25 minutes to write a song. Each class we were shown a different technique and, although it sounded like a lot of pressure, because my livelihood or my house payment didn't depend on the product, it actually was fun. What was even more fascinating was, on most days, the songs were actually completed!
I had an offer of a co-write (re-write) on my first two songs after I had recorded them by a friend, all by email. He did a great job, and when I perform them live, I give him credit, but I am not going to re-record them. The money's already spent.
What is the difference between the best song you've ever written and the worst?
My songs are like my children, really a tough, almost unfair question. I'm going to change the question to "Favorite" and "Least Favorite”. My favorite song is: "Far Side of the Rain" which is about a friend's suicide, not because it will ever make me a dime, but because I feel I am using this songwriting talent I have been given to possibly help others save lives. My least favorite song (and I have revised this song three times) is a song celebrating my wife and I. Twenty years married, deeply in love with a songwriter and the best line I can come up with is "Honey, they are ALL about you."
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Seeking Fame And Fortune? Need A Creative Outlet For Your Talent? Have A Great Idea You Want To Share? Write For The Bridge!
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Jan and I had wisely decided to spend our honeymoon in the south of France, and we were there for the first day of Summer and, therefore, Midsummer’s Night, the latest sunset of the year. In France it also coincides with St. Jean’s Day and we were staying at a Gite, a working farm with guest apartments, in the shadow of Mont Ventoux, where the feast was celebrated with an annual bonfire on its peak that is visible for miles around.
Jan, a librarian and excellent researcher, read from a guidebook about another aspect of this time of feasting, where Christianity and paganism intersect (as always, it seems.) It turns out that an important aspect is the “Fete de la Musique,” where music becomes a central focus of this special night. Even though it was 10:00 p.m. and nearly bedtime, the sky was still bright with the colorful summer sunset, and she suggested that we head down into town to see what was shakin’. We’d both had naps, and my inner voice was shouting “Party time!”
“This had better be good,” I thought, as I wrangled our tiny rented Renault down the mountain’s winding switchbacks to the valley below. They don’t believe in guard rails there, and I knew that the return trip would want for street lights.
As we approached the outskirts of Ile sur la Sorgue, a sort of county seat splayed across both banks of a mountain river, we encountered a temporary stage set in front of an inn where folk dancers twirled and hopped in the light of Chinese lanterns. Not my cup of absinthe, but promising.
Then as we entered the town proper, we realized that the lanterns and Christmas lights were strung everywhere along the river and in the town, and I steered for the first parking spot I could find. There before us was a well-lit stage with a decent sound system, out of which blared...American blues! |
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They were singing about being born in Chicago, though I doubt any of them had been closer to that blues Mecca than Marseilles. I was drawn to the stage like a frat boy to a kegger, and Jan hustled to keep up. At the end of the song they spoke to the crowd in French, and the only words I understood were “Jean Lee Oookehr.” I realized that although most French people under the age of sixty speak English, these guys had probably learned the lyrics to “Boogie Chillun” phonetically. Hell, I had learned the lyrics to that song phonetically! (Sorry, John Lee, but that ain’t exactly the king’s English.) Besides, “Haowh, haowh, haowh!” means the same thing in any language. It’s all in the delivery.
Eventually, Jan persuaded me to move on, and we explored the streets of the town, greeted on every corner by folk singers and accordion players, jazz violinists and vocal groups. It was magnifique!
We’ve been back to France several times since, and twice our vacation intersected with Midsummer’s Night, both times in Paris. It turns out that this “First Night on Steroids” is celebrated in every corner of the country, but especially in Paris. It seems as if every street corner is occupied by an Edith Piaf wannabe or Gypsy jazz trio or Bob Dylan folk strummer. Walk into a random church and you’re liable to be greeted by a Latvian curch choir. The normally quiet bistro down the street is hosting an electronic drums-driven trio doing their best to cover Madonna and the Beatles. Major plazas feature thumping deejays or percussive Afro-pop bands. Motown, swing, waltzes and reggae resound until late into the night, and you can stand on a bridge across the Seine and hear the cacophony of three or four musical sources at once.
It’s an experience that no music lover should miss. I’ve since discovered that French Canada celebrates in similar fashion. Montreal in June, anyone? |
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What Have You Done For Us Lately?
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For close to a year now we’ve been holding our meetings at 2 Girls Cafe & Bakery in Stow. The meetings have been well attended and there have been some great songs presented followed by some decent discussions. If you showcased a song you printed out the lyrics, polished up the presentation and tossed it out between 7 and 9 PM on the first Monday of the month. If you weren’t playing then you showed up, ordered something from the great menu, chatted with friends and offered a comment or two on one or more of the songs other members shared with the group.
That’s great. And it’s all well and good. But, seriously, what have you done for us lately? Us. Songwriter Summit. The group that makes this all possible, gives you a forum to test new concepts, provides a safe place for presenting new work and keeps you in touch with the creative juices that flow within you and your fellow songwriters?
✔︎ Have you forwarded this newsletter to other folks you know who might have an interest in what we do?
✔︎ Have you invited other songwriters to attend one of our meetings to check out the friendly and supportive atmosphere?
✔︎ Have you dropped our name at an open mic you might be attending?
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✔︎ Have you offered to help with any of the committees that try to keep what we’re doing fresh and exciting for our members?
✔︎ Have you thought about using that creative skill of yours to write a short article for The Bridge to share a skill or an idea or or insight into the process of creating songs?
✔︎ Have you snapped a picture or two on your phone during a meeting that you can send to us for use in promoting the meetings?
✔︎ Have you liked our Facebook page and followed what we post there and shared it with your Facebook friends?
✔︎ Have you checked out our website and offered comments and suggestions on what we’ve done right and what we could do better?
✔︎ Have you maintained or renewed your membership by paying dues that help us keep Songwriter Summit functioning?
✔︎ Have you thought of something you could do to make this organization better and stronger while you’ve been looking over this list?
Those of us who serve on the Board of Directors try to make this the best place to develop as songwriters. To make that happen we need your help, your input, your support and your participation beyond just showing up for the monthly meetings. Give it some thought as we wrap up our fifteenth year of operation and see if there isn’t something you can do yo help make our next year even better.
Thanks in advance for your consideration.
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Michael Grady: Old Habits Die Hard
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Who Knew His Fifth Would Be Such A Ride?
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Shop Now - Promotion Ends Soon
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And Save The Receipts We...
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It’s Easier Than You Think!
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Then Turn The Receipts In At Our Meetings.
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We meet next on December 3rd at 2 Girls Cafe & Bakery, 3707 Darrow Road in Stow at 7:00 PM. If you are presenting a song please bring 20 copies for distribution to the other attendees. Copies will be returned to you at the end of the meeting. You do not need to be a member to attend a meeting or bring us a song. |
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While you’re browsing the web drop in on our site for member lists, open mic suggestions, and so much more. You can find it right here. |
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Know someone who might enjoy our newsletter? Feel free to forward it to them. Thanks.
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Let Us Know What You Think
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What would you like to see us cover in The Bridge? Would you be interested in writing for us once in a while? Do you have an event you’d like to have published to share with our membership and the others who read our publication each month? If so just drop us a note. Like what you see? Catch a mistake? Let us know. We’ve set up a special email address that goes directly to those responsible for compiling this newsletter each month. It’s the best way to get in touch with us. We look forward to your input, comments and suggestions. |
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Officers And Board Members
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(Left to Right) Don Henson - President Ken Moody-Arndt - Vice President Dave Waldeck - Recording Secretary David Palomo - Board Member At-Large
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Bob Sammon - Board Member At-Large
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Opt Out - drop us a note and we’ll remove your email address from future mailings. |
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© 2018 Summit County Songwriters Circle dba Songwriter Summit, All Rights Reserved
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