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October: Lyric Exchange. Participants submit a set of lyrics to Eric by Monday, February 18. The lyrics do not have to be finished. Please take this opportunity to consider writing some lyrics quickly — you don’t have to deal with them — let someone else worry about all those aspects that make lyric writing painful (like finishing them perfectly). You can also submit existing lyrics that you have lying around. You can submit as finished or as unfinished a set of lyrics as you choose but please send more than a couple of lines — minimum verse and chorus… but feel free to submit a finished song.
Each set of lyrics will be sent to another participating songwriter anonymously.
The recipient of the lyrics (who doesn’t know the source of the lyrics) then writes a song using those lyrics. They can be changed (but attempt to retain the essence of the original) or not changed — it’s up to the recipient. The finished songs will be presented at the Friday, March 8 meeting.
For non-members who would like to participate and who commit to attend the October 11 meeting, contact us via the contact page.
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September: Emulate an artist you like. Write a song with the conscious intent to emulate — as closely as you can, stopping short of plagiarism — an artist you like a lot, and haven’t emulated recently. If you want an extra frisson of challenge, pick an artist outside your “comfort zone”, but only if it’s realistic. Don’t bog yourself down. The important thing is to produce a new song for the next meeting.
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August: Write a lyric in 10 minutes. Sit down and set a timer. Write for 10 minutes, all filters turned off, all editors and critics kicked out. You can refine the lyric later, but force yourself to complete the original lyric in 10 minutes.Please bring the original 10-minute version and the refined version for comparison purposes. Time flies when you’re having fun!
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July: The title of the song is an article of clothing. This assignment should be as comfortable as an old shoe for you. Almost all of us wear clothes most of the time, and we’ll talk about what we like and don’t like at the drop of a hat. You can bet your boots that a song about clothing is likely to beat the pants off a song about almost anything else — or I’ll eat my hat. So roll up your sleeves and fly by the seat of your pants!
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June: Explain Yourself! Write a song explaining why you didn’t show up. This is not what you might think — it doesn’t have to be about why you didn’t show up at the May TSA meeting (although some of us may have quite interesting stories in that vein!). For the rest of us, it’s wide open to write about any time we missed a day of work, a date, a party, etc. It can be real or fictional, but the point is to write about why, and craft a story out of it, potentially, to the person you stood up or disappointed. Don’t miss this chance to write a great song!
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May: the month of personal inspiration. What song has your heart been singing to you in your secret moments — the one that you haven’t had time to listen to? That’s your assignment for this month. Write that song and bring it to the next TSA meeting. We can hardly wait to hear it!
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April: Newspaper Headline. You will submit a newspaper headline to Eric by Sunday, March 10. The headline should be something you would want to write a song about. The intention is to generate songs, not to trip up your fellow songwriters. Eric will do a blind distribution of headlines to the participating songwriters. Participants will write songs and present them at the next meeting. Should be good for a laugh, or a cry, depending on the headlines and what we do with them.
For non-members who would like to participate and who commit to attend the April 12 meeting, contact us via the contact page.
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March: Lyric Exchange. Participants submit a set of lyrics to Eric by Monday, February 18. The lyrics do not have to be finished. Please take this opportunity to consider writing some lyrics quickly — you don’t have to deal with them — let someone else worry about all those aspects that make lyric writing painful (like finishing them perfectly). You can also submit existing lyricss that you have lying around. You can submit as finished or as unfinished a set of lyrics as you choose but please send more than a couple of lines — minimum verse and chorus… but feel free to submit a finished song.
Each set of lyrics will be sent to another participating songwriter anonymously.
The recipient of the lyrics (who doesn’t know the source of the lyrics) then writes a song using those lyrics. They can be changed (but attempt to retain the essence of the original) or not changed — it’s up to the recipient. The finished songs will be presented at the Friday, March 8 meeting.
For non-members who would like to participate and who commit to attend the March 8 meeting, contact us via the contact page.
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February: 5 Things. Participants at the January meeting divided up into 5 groups; each group picked an object; resulting in 5 objects that songwriters are to consider employing in a song. The songwriter may opt to re-interpret the object symbolically/metaphorically or not; i.e. a mirror could become a window into the soul. Brownie points for using more than one of the 5 objects. Here they are:
• fire screen
• drum
• scrap of paper
• sofa
• key
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January: tie up loose ends; finish a song started in 2012.
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