Songwriting workshop
Words, I’d like you to meet music. Music, words. For the next 3 and half to four minutes, we invite you to surf on each other’s energy, embark on a union of sweet syncopation; make the world dance, laugh, think and cry. And…go!
Songs are one of the ultimate ways to tell a story, reveal your emotions, rant and rave against the cruel world, get lost in a feeling only the marriage of rhythm, melody, and lyric can deliver.
Together we’re going to search for your individual musical voice, get inspiration wherever it finds you- in the madness of the city, the awesomeness of nature, the depths of your heart, the stories of your family history, but mostly, from your wild imaginations.
Every session we will spend time getting to know an instrument. You can stick with one instrument the whole time, or switch every day. You don’t need any previous experience. Your instrument might be your voice. We’ll jam as a group, improvising rhythm and melody ideas on the spot, feeding off of eachother’s ideas. We’ll work simultaneously on a group song that evolves over the week and create a bunch of other songs, either individually or in duos.
If you want to rehearse and perform your songs, fantastic. If you want to be a solitary genius who releases demo recordings under different aliases, great.
We’ll work on the basics of songwriting and performance- keeping a beat, finding harmonies, constructing songs with melodic hooks and lyrical clarity. Part of finding your own voice as a songwriter will be exploring the music that inspires you, and trying songs in a lot of different genres: spoken word, ferocious rap, heart smashing ballads, gentle folk songs, garage rockers, Broadway musical show tunes!
Songs are everywhere- cars, malls, buses, homes, schools, movies, festivals, outer space. Our lives are scored by one long, continuous soundtrack. Add to the playlist with your own gorgeous four minute (potentially viral) musical sensation.
Kris Demeanor Bio
Calgary born songwriter Kris Demeanor delights in exposing the underbelly of western Canadian culture- gambling, drug use, murder, religion, the suburbs. His numerous CDs of original work explore the darkness and absurdity of these corners of Alberta life. He draws on dense spoken word, folk, and shamelessly hooky pop for audiences who like to be taken on unexpected journeys.
While Kris’s music has taken him around the world performing with his Crack Band, Kris has also become a fixture of Calgary’s spoken word, literary and theatre worlds, creating music and lyric for numerous projects.
Career highlights include taking the award winning short film based on his song ‘I Have Seen the Future’ to the Sundance and Toronto film festivals, collaborationg with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra on the 2011 event ‘Acres of Dreams’, and sharing a beer with David Byrne.
He has recently been named the first Poet Laureate of the City of Calgary.