Mount Eerie. Photo by Indigo Free
Starting October 30, Phil Elverum will teach an online songwriting workshop called “Music With Voice," a collaboration with School of Song. The class will be taught over four weeks through Zoom; each Sunday's lecture will be aired at 11 a.m. PST and 6 p.m. PST to accommodate various time zones.
Each week's session will also include a live Q&A on Elverum's songwriting process, and homework will be assigned based on the lessons of each lecture. Students will also share the songs for review in class along with an additional Q&A with Elverum.
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Elverum's class costs $120 total with a 20% discount for those who sign up with a friend. If you're interested, you have until Sunday, October 23rd at 11:59 p.m. PST to sign up.
Below, read Elverum's statement on his class:
Anyone who would call themselves a ‘songwriter’ is just saying that they're deliberately trying to get better at doing the thing that everyone is already doing, to pry open the access to that deep mine of ideas, to smooth the raw mess into something fine, to make a vivid glowing berry. We all have it, this mine, but it takes effort and focus to bring these things forth in their most powerful form.
In this class I'll try to help all of this happen. It starts with creating a space, an actual workspace but also a mind space. In this space we can notice what comes up on its own. If we do it right it will be messy and embarrassing. From this mess we'll work on recognizing what floats, what could grow. We'll nourish it and gently hone it into something sharp and strong, a song that works really well. Then it might seem clear what to do with it. How to play it, what's its voice?, how to clothe it in sounds. The whole time I'll be giving examples of ideas to consider from my own work and the work of others throughout history. I'm no expert so I'll be speaking from my own self-taught perspective, giving my personal experience and opinion. We'll see where it goes.
Some topics to be covered:
- starting from scratch, change your life so that songs will come
- recognizing the door, grabbing useful ideas
- what even is music? the spectrum of voices
- should you sing in a fake British accent?
- blank listening, production and maintaining an idiot's ear
This year, Phil Elverum was the subject of a short documentary called There's No End directed by Mattias Evangelista. "Microphones in 2020," his first new release as The Microphones in 17 years, was one of our favorite songs of 2020.
