8 posts tagged “creative exchange”
Angelina from CASH (the Composers and Authors' Society of Hong Kong) sent me this lovely video of the Creative Exchange week at Bath Spa back in August 2008. All the songs themselves can be found in previous entries.
Produced by Chris Blanden
I remember a dream of when
we sat under a tree of hanging mangoes
Oh how I long to be there again
We wrote Kin and Sara under the mango tree
A promise by finger tips under sky pink blue
You smiled at me as your cheeks turned red
It seems like it was only yesterday
we flew away on wide wings spread
We wrote Kin and Sara under the mango tree
And the day was long and I lost myself
So happy in the hills I haven't seen for many years
Now that my hair is grey and I don't know where you are
Sometimes I wonder what could be
If we still sat together under the mango tree
I could spend forever wondering how it could be
Our strictest task - to write a song in AABA form - was, interestingly, the one that most people found easiest. It seems to bear out Stravinsky's theory that creative constraints seem to enhance personal expression.
"...my freedom will be so much the greater and more
meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround
myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength.
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains
that shackle the spirit."
[The Poetics of Music, 1939]
Today's task was designed to tackle one fairly common habit - that of writing songs between around 80 and 100 beats per minute. The brief is simple - to write a song at a tempo of 120 BPM or greater. For some of the writers this was their first time writing with drum loops, but everyone showed open-mindedness about the task. We're at the halfway stage right now, and the songs are sounding very interesting indeed - the cross-cultural influences are definitely showing. The Hong Kong writers are of course extremely familiar with US and UK popular music (certainly more than we are with theirs, of course) but what's interesting is that most of the songs are already sounding like they have elements of both cultures.
One phenomenon that seems to be emerging is that a disproportionately large number of the songs (three out of four so far) written by the duos seem to feature not only two vocals, but two characters in the song, which itself is quite unusual in popular music. It'll be interesting to see if this continues into the week.
Tomorrow - post-production, mixing, last-minute rehearsing, and playback of the tempo task.
From there we went into a short Desert Island Discs session, leading to a discussion of the audience's perspective on a song. After a short lecture entitled 'The Songwriter's Toolbox' we then repaired to the Music Lab studio.
Our producer Chris had set up the studio so we could capture each song's first ever performance, and each duo (of UK/HK songwriters) then performed their song. At the time of writing we're in post-production and mixing, so we hope to have MP3s and lyrics online tomorrow.
In the meantime, here are some pictures of the teams writing or recording together.
After a brief getting-to-know-each-other session and a quick walk round the lake, the group were divided up into duos (each consisting of one HK and one UK songwriter) and collaborated, choosing one of the titles form last night's task to develop up into a complete song. Playback is 11.45am tomorrow, with our guest songwriter Peter Sarstedt in attendance. We expect have audio recordings on this blog by tomorrow afternoon.
Dear all,
Welcome to Creative Exchange 2008, and this, our songwriters' blog. I'll be using these pages to keep you updated on the project before we begin, add detail regarding the tasks, and of course to post songs and photographs that we create during the week.
To begin with, we should get to know each other. I've collected together the various links you've sent us, so for now, visit everyone's sites and have a listen online. I couldn't find myspace or website links for Janet and Ng - so please let me know if you do have a web presence.
UK songwriters
Richard Lobb • Sara Spade • Carly Bryant • Katy Carr
HK songwriters
Rachel Kar • Ryan Hui • Janet Yung • Ng King Pan
The team
Joe Bennett (Music director)
Chris Blanden (Producer)
Peter Sarstedt (guest songwriter)
Songwriting!
We aim for you to write, individually or collaboratively, one song per day – so that’s somewhere around 30-40 songs through the week. You’ll be given a series of exercises and tasks designed to stretch you as a songwriter and hone your craft. We will be recording and blogging everything we create daily via these pages.
Please bring the following items with you;
1. Any portable instruments (e.g. guitarists should bring acoustic guitar and accessories).
2. A USB memory stick for saving/printing lyrics.
3. A CD (or MP3s on a stick – or myspace link) with your material on it so we can share our music & influences.
4. A pair of iPod-style (or any mini-jack) headphones for the music workstations.
About the campus
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Creative cultural exchange 2008
Bath – 2-7 August 2008
In association with PRS Foundation (PRSF) and the
Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH)
This is an international opportunity for 8 talented emerging songwriters from different cultural backgrounds to work creatively together.
During
an intensive 5-day period in August 2008 at Bath Spa University, 4
songwriters from the UK and 4 from Hong Kong will work creatively
together in small groups and individually to create new work.
Throughout this collaborative process the composers will be supported, inspired and challenged both by others in the group and by Joe Bennett, Director of the UK Songwriting Festival, and by internationally-renowned songwriter Peter Sarstedt.
