Local music producer and audio engineer Nathan Sowter held part one of a community songwriting and production clinic with musicians Joseph Thompson (Joseph & Maia), Francis Kora, and Evan from Studio 11B for ten participants this week.
Supported by the TECT/Creative BOP Mini Arts Grants, the clinic was a great success, with participants learning how to formulate and construct songs through proven techniques.
Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive:
“Thank you for inviting us to Monday! It was so good and really insightful, I definitely learned a lot about songwriting, and especially how it’s important to not get too attached to your ideas and that you don’t have to do everything on your own. Seriously, it was such a good session and thank you so much!” – Rachel Stevens
“I enjoyed the relaxed structure of the meeting as well as the hosts’ engagement with us and among themselves. I would happily attend more sessions like this as I received a lot of insight and clarity around my process and journey as a producer/songwriter. Thank you Creative BOP and TECT for helping to make it happen” – Bentley
“Thanks again for hosting last night, it was a really worthwhile event, and I learned a lot. To have such a wealth of knowledge and experience on the panel was invaluable to us newer artists and producers, and the way you guys tailored the session to suit all abilities was great. Good to meet so many other people in a similar situation to myself also and make some connections going forward.” – Paulie
“This was really useful, so often you get left to make it all up as you go along. There is so much information online, but it can be really hard to see what’s what. So, to be able to basically have an in-depth conversation with people that are where you want to be is in valuable’ – Micah
Nathan was also pleased with the success of the evening, saying: “You always have reservations when you organise any event and this was no different. I really wanted to push for open conversation but I realise this can be a tall order in a room full of strangers. Fortunately, the event went off better than I expected. Roughly 20 of us got a chance to dive deep on song writing, studio craft, production, and life as a creative. We even addressed what is often the elephant in the room for creatives: money. All in all, it was an awesome night of meeting new people, networking working and asking the questions that needed to be asked.”
