Songwriting explores a variety of creative skills, an idea Midtown hopes to emphasize to students with its first songwriting workshops and competition.
Songwriting workshops took place on Jan. 9 and Feb. 11, both headlining with professional recording artist David Ryan Harris and Midtown alumni Weston Taylor and Snow Aster to offer students feedback while they work through forming song structures. These two events are intended to build students’ skills prior to the songwriting competition planned on March 6.
“It’s hard to blaze your own trail; that’s really not that common, so it always helps to see a trail that someone else has blazed,” chorus and musical theater teacher Kevin Hill said. “When you have a connection with that being at the same school, same kind of program and someone else has done it, it really can give you some inspiration and direction.”
The workshops leading up to the competition are intended for students of all grades and levels of experience. As the organizer of the events, Hill said the idea came from the existing interest in songwriting he’s noticed in students through past talent shows and coffee house performances.
“We’ve done the talent show for so many years, and it seems like the interest with the talent show really has been more songwriting,” Hill said. “I thought it would make more sense to move in that direction and help kids develop that skill, talent and creative muscles.”
Students at the Jan. 9 workshop expressed interest in songwriting, with some enjoying the fun of the hobby and others expressing interest in pursuing a career in music. Playing short samples of their work, students went around the room sharing and receiving feedback from the successful artists.
“I think I got good feedback from the experts that were there,” junior Sloane Crisler said. “[Any opportunity to share music] is good experience, so even with something as little as maybe 20 people at the workshop, I gain more experience performing in front of people, even if I’m just doing a one minute snippet. It’ll be good for my confidence.”
Crisler, who has been writing songs for the past three years, was the first to share an original song at the Jan. 9 workshop. In Crisler’s time spent in chorus, she has sung in the All State Choir for three years and won last year’s talent show contest. Crisler was drawn to the opportunity presented by the songwriting workshops to further engage in musical creativity through the school.
“I’m interested in songwriting as a hobby,” Crisler said. “At least with my experience at Midtown, we’ve never had a songwriting workshop or club before, so I was intrigued. Last year we had the talent show, and I won because I sang an original song; so, this is just a continuation of that, being able to keep doing that at school.”
Having attended Midtown from 2013-2015 before graduating from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Aster has since spent every moment creating music in a variety of genres from classical to heavy metal. Aster said he thinks the diverse backgrounds reflected in the students’ original music will help build their songwriting skills.
“The amount of development that has gone into even the people who haven’t really been songwriting for very long, their idea of what they want,” Aster said. “It’s hard for me to give any type of constructive criticism or feedback because the directions everyone is going is so individualistic, especially in this day and age. Everybody’s staunchly themselves, and that’s all the more encouraging.”
A diverse amount of songwriting skills, including lyricism, instrumentation and music production were showcased at the January workshop. The students’ goals mirror this range of curiosity as they build skills in preparation for the competition.
“I think just by being here and making my knowledge and skill base an available resource is the main reason why I’m here,” Aster said. “I think as far as the context of this particular event, me, myself and I, while I’m here, I want to get people to think about what is the thing that’s buried deep down that they want to dig up and express and how do they get there.”
Hill said the workshops not only provide a niche outlet for students to explore their songwriting skills, but also an opportunity for students to collaborate with successful musicians.
“For the students, it really has just been being in the same room with good songwriters, picking up the skills,” Hill said. “For musicians, anytime you have the opportunity to be in the room with a great musician, you’re going to learn something.”
While diving into a variety of musical genres over the years, Aster said his favorite aspect of songwriting has stayed consistent. Returning to inspire students through the workshops, he hopes to encourage this passion for songwriting.
“I love the moment when I take the song from its original sort of barebone structure, so like it’ll be a voice memo with me singing and a guitar, or it’ll just be words on a page,” Aster said. “Then I’ll go, ‘I can record with these five instruments across the whole thing, do some sound choice selections here of just various different things.’ Put it all together, you get a tapestry. That transformation for me is the fun part.”
Aster said he doesn’t recall a moment of hesitation to return to his past school to teach students with similar aspirations to his when he attended Midtown, and if the opportunity of attending these workshops was open when he was the students’ ages, he would have been in a completely different place.
“This whole [music career] I never thought was possible,” Aster said. “There was somebody from Georgia State who came here when I was in [Hill’s] music theory class. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Oh, he’s come a long way. He’s doing the composition thing, and that’s really cool.’ I had no idea I would be doing this. I thought I was still going to be doing classical music, but no I’m doing what I like, so I’m glad. This is far better than anything I could have imagined.”
Although Crisler continues to view songwriting as an enjoyable hobby, she said meeting and conversing with experienced songwriters has altered her perspective of how a career in music may present itself, which has taught her that she has her whole life to explore music rather than trying to gain success quickly.
“Music is a great dream to have, but realistically I didn’t really want to do it because I thought it’s a one in a million chance that you’ll be super successful with that; it’s so competitive,” Crisler said. “[David Ryan Harris] kind of shifted my perspective a little bit. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to actively pursue that, but it does mean that it’s a possibility.”
Similar to the lessons Crisler has already begun to develop from the first workshop, Aster hopes to impact students through a ripple effect, learning to grow and gain confidence while putting their imagination into lyrics.
“I hope it creates a butterfly effect where people see what the level is like for people who have access to not only just the resources to improve, but the drive to improve, as well,” Aster said. “The butterfly effect I want to see is people seeing themselves going to the lab and getting started on something.”
Already inspired by students’ reception to the first workshop, Hill said there’s potential to form a songwriting club in the future, influenced by the club Harris joined last year where members wrote songs from new prompts every week.
“When you think of a singer, songwriter or musician, we always think of just that individual doing the thing, but the reality is it’s always collaborative,” Hill said. “There’s always inspiration that you got from somewhere else or an interaction with someone. So, having those interactions and that kind of accountability with the club may help people get more organized.”
With the projected growth in songwriting skills that will be showcased at the March competition and beyond, these events intend to provide students an opportunity to listen to one another and to learn from successful musicians of all ages.
“I think the workshops were really positive,” Crisler said. “There were a couple underclassmen in there that I noticed were kind of nervous to share or talk. The specialists were really encouraging them to share. It was really positive for them because it allows them to get more feedback. I think it would impact them positively, and me, too, because I get more information, more experience and prepare a little bit more for March.”
