Many great songs (yet again!) at last Friday’s Toronto Songwriters Association meeting. The optional exercise was to write a song about a home you used to live in or one you’d like to live in. The meetings are virtual (Zoom) so any songwriters anywhere are invited to join in on the 2nd Friday of every month at 7:30 pm Eastern.
The blakeley walker band performs at The Central in Toronto on Saturday, January 26, starting at 6:30. The Central is in the Annex, at 603 Markham Street, Toronto (see map below). Stacey Shopsowitz joins them on bass and Xavier Enriquez on drums. Dante Matas opens at 6:30, and the band starts at 7:30.
Sandy and Eric are members of the Toronto Songwriters Association. Accomplished songwriters and musicians on their own, they have also played together and co-written many songs over the years. There is a melding of songwriting and stylistic individuality, and tight musical and vocal cohesion whenever they perform together at TSA meetings. That’s what you are in for at The Central on January 26.
The blakeley walker band in performance.
L-to-R: Stacey Shopsowitz, Eric Walker, Sandy Blakeley
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Each month, we unleash chaos theory and cook up a songwriting assignment for the next month’s meeting. The assignment could be anything from a general theme or a definite song title to a challenge to write, for example, ten new songs in ten days. Members are free to work on the assignment or follow the path of personal inspiration instead. Some of our best songs have come from assignments. Assignments are always optional (you can present any new song that you worked on).
2024
MAY 10 FRIDAY 7:30PM EST: In-person meeting in the Greater Toronto Area. Message us for the exact address. Optional assignment: Write and present a new children’s song.
APRIL 12 FRIDAY 7:30PM EST: In-person meeting in the Greater Toronto Area. Message us for the exact address. Optional assignment: Take any melody from a song that you like written by someone else, and change it or be influenced by it to write your own song. Even use the influence of the melody in your instrument instead of your vocal.
MARCH 8 FRIDAY 7:30PM EST: Zoom Meeting. Optional assignment: Write and present a new song that is about the disappearance of something from your culture (like rotary phones), or from your life.
FEBRUARY 9 FRIDAY 7:30PM EST: In-person meeting in the Toronto Roncesvalles area. Message us for the exact address. Optional Assignment (musically-based rather than conceptually-based): Write and present a new song that has two very contrasting musical styles within it. For example, bluegrass and metal; rock and ska. Or just have two very contrasting sections within your song.
JANUARY 12 FRIDAY 2024 7:30PM EST: Optional Assignment: Write and present a song that is based on the lyrics that you submitted in the November 2023 meeting. If you didn’t write lyrics for that assignment, then message us for access to the many lyrics that members submitted that month.
2023
OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR THE NOVEMBER 10 2023 MEETING: Write and present a new song based on the winning lyrics from group submissions in October. Contact us for a copy of the (currently) anonymous lyrics.
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OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR THE OCTOBER 13 2023 MEETING: Write and present a new song that is in an alternate tuning (e.g. Drop D on guitar).
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OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SEPTEMBER 8 2023 MEETING: Write and present a new song that mentions any sense (smell, sound, taste, etc.).
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OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR THE AUGUST 11 2023 MEETING: Write and present a new song that has reverse-order chords from any existing song that you like, even one of your own! PS This meeting will be the first in-person meeting in over 3 years near the intersection of Eglinton and Dufferin in Toronto. Message us for the exact address if you wish to attend.
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OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT FOR THE JULY 14 2023 MEETING: Write and present a new song with a minimalist sound: Minimal lyrics, minimal chords.
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June 2023: Write a song that contains a riff.
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March 2023: Write a song entitled “I Didn’t Know That”.
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February 10: Write a song that takes a turn musically on the middle for example starts slow and gets fast, starts happy and gets sad, etc..
Optional: Bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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January 13: Write a song that begins with the chorus.
Optional: Bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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2022
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December 9: Write a love song that could have been heard on the radio in the 60s.
Optional: Bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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November 11: Go for a walk with your phone – then at some point during your walk, sing or hum something or say some words into your phone to subsequently use for a new song.
Optional: Bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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October 14: Choose a book title and write a song around it.
Optional: Bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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September 9: Write a song with happy chords and a happy vocal melody, but with dark lyrics. (eg Hanson – Mmmbop; Foster the People – Pumped Up Kicks; Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays)
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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August 12: Pick a phrase from any Leonard Cohen song and use it verbatim in your brand new song.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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July 8: Write a 2 chord song.
Good luck to everyone. Here’s to choosing the right 2 chords!
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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June 10: Write a song entitled “There’s No Quitting You”.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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May 13: Lyric Exchange! More details to come.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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March 11: Use a sign as a song title or opening line of a song.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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February 11: Write a complete song in under an hour
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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January 14: Write a song to your enemy about forgiving them
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
2021
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November 12: Pick up the nearest book, turn to a random page, read the first paragraph and write a song about what you find there.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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May 13: Write a sequel to one of your old songs.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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August 13: Write a song about a puzzle, or that has something to do with a puzzle.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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July 9: Write a song with an alliterative title. (eg. Bob’s Burgers, Bamboo Blade, etc)
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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June 11: Write a song about or based on a conversation around a dinner table.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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May 14: Write a song based on a proverb.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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April 9: Write a song from the point of view of an inanimate object
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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March 12: Write a song about or inspired by a street name.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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February 12: Write a song that incorporates a litany of things (people, places, things, whatever).
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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January 8: Write an up-tempo song. Good writing to all!
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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2020
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November 13: Write a song about a home you used to live in or one you think you’d like to inhabit. Good writing to all!
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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October 9: Write a song that is lyrically minimalist. Use as few words in the song as you can manage – keep them 6 feet apart, as it were!
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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September 11: Write a song that incorporates a phrase or idea from another language. Use that language in the lyric of the song.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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August 28: Write a song that is conversational, i.e. in which two or more characters are talking to one another.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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August 14: Write a song that has no rhymes.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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July 24: Write a song about or from the perspective of not fitting in, not belonging (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing).
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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July 10: Write a song about something you need, want, or desire, but which is forbidden.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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June 26: Write a hit song, whether it’s as a mockery or for real. Try to write the kind of thing that ends up at the top of the charts these days.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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June 12: Write a song about dreaming — daydreaming, night dreaming, any kind of wishful thinking.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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May 22: Write a song based on a photograph. If possible, show the photo as part of the presentation of the lyrics.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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May 8: Write a song that “Takes us outside”; e.g.: trees, a trail, a river, a lake, ocean, clouds, rain, storm, mountains, beach etc.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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April 24: Write a song about something positive that could come from COVID-19 and the isolation we’re dealing with.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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April 10: Write a song inspired by the name of a TTC subway station.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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February: Use a single word or phrase from the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven as the title of your song. Have fun with this one!
Here are the lyrics:
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January: Write a song from the point of view of an unreliable narrator. Jayne provided some notes about unreliable narrators:
Here are a few examples of songs with unreliable narrators.
They seem to fall into 2 broad categories:
1) Narrators who are not being direct about how they feel about another person
2) Narrators who know more than they are saying about some nefarious event
or both, as in the Tom Waits and Bobby Gentry songs.
Optional assignment: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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2019
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November: Write a song that includes the 5 senses and/or focuses on one sense.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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October: Write a song with a question as the title, or the title as a question.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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September: Write a song based on a cliche/axiom/famous phrase. Add a twist to the exercise by taking the opposite meaning of the cliche/axiom/phrase..
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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August: Write a song about an article of clothing.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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July: Two options: Write and present a song that includes a word that you made up, or that includes a non-4/4 time signature for at least part of the song.
Optional: bring us a new song from your personal songwriting inspiration for feedback.
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June: Write a song that has something to do with ‘Vision’.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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May: Write a song called ‘Green’ (or alternately has the word ‘Green’ in the title).
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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April: Write a song that has something to do with a year (e.g. 1965, 20,000 B.C., year 2070).
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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March: Write a song with the name of a city in the title.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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February: Video Exchange Revisited. Submit a short video, get one back submitted by another participant. Write a song inspired by the video you receive.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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January: write a song about “Celestial Body”, however you want to interpret that.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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2018
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November: write a song entitled “Talk”.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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October: write a song about a force of nature.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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September: write a song about an evening or an event that happened in your life.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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August: write a song with or about a limitation. For example: write a song using only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G in your lyrics; write a song with sea food or subway vocabulary in every line of the lyric. Impose a limitation on yourself in lyrics or music and see what happens.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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July: book title exchange. Send a book title. You will then receive a book title in return that will be the title of the song you write for the July assignment.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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June: Write a song entitled “Offline”. You may add the following to the exercise: write the song in a minimalist style —that could mean very few words or whatever ‘minimalist’ means to you.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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April: Anonymous Photo Exchange.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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March: Write a song about… uh, I forget. No, actually, write a song about forgetting, something forgotten, forgetfulness.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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February: Write a song about opposites/contrasts.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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January: Write a song about an appliance.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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2017
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November: receive a brief song description and write a song based on that description. The October meeting attendees created brief descriptions and have already received their (anonymous) descriptions. For anyone who wasn’t at the October meeting, you can still participate because we created extra descriptions. Please let us know if you’d like to participate and we will send you a description.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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October: Write a song from the point of view of a child.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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September: Write a song that has something to do with a letter of the alphabet. You could have a lot of words starting with that letter, write about that letter, use that letter in a key word, or any other creative way of working with a letter.
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August: Bring 2 songs. Previously written ones, that is. We’ve all got songs no one else in TSA has heard yet. Let’s each of us bring a couple of them and have a fun night of getting to know each other a bit better through our songs.
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July: Wizard of Oz. Write a song inspired by the Wizard of Oz.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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June: Video Exchange Revisited. Submit a short video, get one back submitted by another participant. Write a song inspired by the video you receive.
Optional: bring us a song from your own personal songwriter inspiration.
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May: Write a song that has something to do with Science Fiction. You get a high-five for a new song about sci-fi that you can later share over wi-fi in hi-fi.
Optional: bring us a song from your own songwriter personal inspiration.
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April: Video Exchange. Submit a short video, get one back submitted by another participant. Write a song inspired by the video you receive.
Optional #1: Write a song with a singalong component. Teach us the singalong part when you present the song.
Optional #2: Bring us a new song from your own songwriter personal inspiration.
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March: Write a song that has something to do with a PRODUCT. Maybe it’s the iPhone, maybe it’s your favourite brand of evaporated milk. Maybe it’s an imaginary product. Maybe you hate something about a particular product.
We’ll send our finished songs to the manufacturers and all make thousands of dollars, or be taken to court, as the case may be. May the muse be with you.
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February: Write a song that has something to do with “no emotion.” Maybe your song could actually be called, “No Emotion,” or maybe it could be related to that feeling — whatever tickles your fancy. It could be the opposite of traditional Valentine’s Day ideas.
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January: Write a song inspired by Leonard Cohen.
2016
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November: Write a song for Remembrance Day. Our meeting falls on November 11, Remembrance Day. So write a song called “Remembrance Day” or a song that has something to do with Remembrance Day.
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October: Write a song with lyrics based on the viewpoint of a gender other than your own. This could be fairly broadly defined and could include any creature of the animal kingdom, trans-gendered giraffes being a definite possibility.
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September: Lyric Exchange. Write lyrics to the title “The Lift” — submit these lyrics by next Friday August 19. We will then send your lyrics to another TSA member who will write a song based on those lyrics. Try to complete 2 verses and a chorus (a complete song is ideal but submit as much as you can).
This is an opportunity to whip off a set of lyrics in 10 or 20 minutes!! You won’t have to work with them!
To participate, contact us via the contact page for further information.
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August: Write a song about a cause. Any cause will do, but maybe one that you are passionate about. Below are some possible causes to get your creative juices flowing, but you would probably want to get more specific:
• Advocacy & Human Rights
• Emergency & Safety
• LGBT
• Animals
• Employment
• Media & Broadcasting
• Arts & Culture
• Environment
• People with Disabilities
• Board Development
• Faith-Based
• Politics
• Children & Youth
• Health & Medicine
• Race & Ethnicity
• Community
• Homeless & Housing
• Seniors
• Computers & Technology
• Hunger
• Sports & Recreation
• Crisis Support
I• mmigrants & Refugees
• Veterans & Military Families
• Disaster Relief
• International
• Women
• Education & Literacy
• Justice & Legal
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July: Write a song about a mythical creature or fictional character.
Optional sub-assignment:
Include a “riff” that reflects your mythical creature or fictional character.
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June: Write a song that has some talking, speaking, or rapping in it. A tiny bit or a lot — it doesn’t matter.
One example of a song that has a LOT of speaking in it is Somewhere Down the Crazy River (Robbie Robertson) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KP9PNSUME4
Optional sub-assignment:
Write a song that has a time signature that is not 4/4.
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May: Write a song with a one-word chorus. Or two words if you absolutely need two, but you get the idea. One word can paint a thousand pictures.
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April:
1. Choose a song that was written specifically about another person (E.g. Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Elton John’s “Daniel,” Jefferson Starship’s “Sara.”). The name doesn’t necessarily have to be mentioned in the title of the existing song, but that might make it easier and fun to do.
2. Write your own song from the perspective of the person who was mentioned in that song.
Have fun!
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March: Write a song based on a favourite song. Take a favourite song of yours — famous or not — but somebody else’s song that you think is great. Then rewrite the lyrics so your lyrics exactly match the meter/structure of the song you’ve chosen. In other words, you could take your lyrics and completely replace the original lyrics. Then, rewrite the music using your new lyrics.
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February: Write a song based on James Bond. Really, it’s about anything related to James Bond. Shake it and stir it any way you want.
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January: Write a song based on a phone number. Here are some options:
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2015
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November: December. Write a song about December — whatever that suggests to you.
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October: Work of art. Write a song based on a work of art — preferably a painting but not necessarily. Yes, we’ve done it before, but it was voted top choice, made topical by the Rheostatics reunion shows at the AGO last weekend. They recorded a whole album of songs inspired by the group of seven.
Close-runner-up assignment: Write a song based on or inspired by a dream — preferably one of your own. Apparently ingesting vitamin B is supposed to aid in dream recall.
Toronto Songwriters Association meetings are held on the second Friday evening of each month at 7:30 Eastern time at a member’s home. During the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, our meetings are virtual using Zoom. When we resume in-person meetings, the location alternates between east, midtown and west Toronto.
The format of the meeting is:
Mike Elmer performs The Cabin at the Only Café, Nov. 24, 2012
Robin Peacocke made a video of one of Mike’s tunes on her iPod at The Only Café. View the complete post to hear Mike singing The Cabin, which he wrote for a recent TSA monthly songwriting assignment…
The Only Café, November 24, 2012
The TSA had a great gig on November 24 at The Only Café. Thanks to John Beairsto for organizing it. Eric contributed a terrific PA system (Bose L2). You could hear and see the positive effect it had on the performances and the audience enjoyment.
Bob kicked the night off followed by Robin, Mike, John, Stephen, Anastace, Eric and Sandy.
John Ranney posted 3 songs on SoundCloud. Listen to Car Wreck, These Are The Days,
and It’s All Your Fault.
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Complete and submit this form if you would like to attend one of our monthly meetings. There is no cost. We will contact you privately by email with details.
The TSA website was created in 2006, two years after the official founding of the Toronto Songwriters Association. It has served us well. A steady stream of people visited the site and contacted us. A number of them came to meetings and became members.
But now it’s time for a redesign. We have some specific goals in mind. We want it to be a multi-author site, so that TSA members can easily contribute; we want it to be more interactive and easy to integrate with social media. We want to keep the best from the past, but open it up to the new. In order to do that, we have to bring the platform up to date so that we can add new features as they.
So we have decided to build the new site on a WordPress platform. We like the WordPress concept of separating content from design. We like the idea of mixing static pages with blogs. It’s a more flexible engine than we had before. And it’s open source.
You’ll see that we are at this point retaining something of the look of the old site. We are trying to keep some continuity with the old site so that visitors won’t think they’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up in Albuquerque by mistake (no offence meant to Albuquerque — it’s just a TSA inside joke). But we hope that you like the new look and that you appreciate the new opportunities it gives us to interact with songwriters.