Songwriting Workshop, Berlin Music Week

Yesterday, I had the great privilege to attend two Berlin Music Week workshops run by A Headful of Bees (a collective of local singer-songwriters, one of whom is Sam, organizer of the Sofa Salon).

The first workshop was on collaborative songwriting and the second on recording; the idea was that the entire group would work together to write, record and then release (in a third workshop I wasn't able to attend) a song over the course of a single day.

So many people came to the workshops that we actually split into two groups, and wrote and recorded two songs. They're rough, obviously, basically demos that we recorded in just a couple takes, after maybe 30 minutes of frantic rehearsal that ran along the lines of, "Wait, who's singing the lead? How many times does the chorus repeat? Do we have an actual melody for the verses?"

But I'm bowled over by what we produced in the space of just a few hours, and I'm very proud to present the songs: "Hot Sun" and "Five More Hours." You can hear them (and download them, it's all under a Creative Commons license) at:

A Headful of Bees' "Berlin Music Week Werkstatt" page on Soundcloud.

I was in the "Five More Hours" group, where I co-wrote the lyrics and sang background vocals.


More on the process, for those who would like to know

After a bit of initial discussion, we decided to experiment with music first, then add words. (Interestingly, the other group worked precisely the other way around, brainstorming lyrics and then putting them to music.)

Eric, one of the workshop leaders, pulled out a guitar (this was all held at Noisy Musicworld, a fantastic place I'd never heard of that has many different music-related services, including practice rooms that come equipped with all sorts of instruments, so all you have to do is reach out and grab a guitar or keyboard or whatever else) and started playing some chords.

Because this was a room full of very musically talented people, within moments the instrument-inclined in the group were jamming along, expanding the thing into an interesting and driving melody. Then some of the vocals-inclined in the group started improvising along. The lyrics-inclined started scribbling ideas.

Somewhere near the beginning we'd landed on the idea "waking up with a hangover"; over the course of the hour it migrated and expanded into a juxtaposition of an upbeat chorus of celebration, to counterbalance the groggy verses of hangover, I think in part because the instrumentalists had created such an upbeat melody.

Meanwhile, one of the singers did a lot of the initial improvising that got us started lyrically; another came up with a strong line for the chorus ("She was the queen of the night/And she will be again") and then also for the idea of using a series of numbers for the hungover verses: two hours to be able to do this again, three hours to feel ready to do that.

Even despite running half an hour into the lunch break, at the end of the songwriting workshop all we had down was a fabulous melody and a strong chorus, but no verses. So Mira (who'd had the idea of using numbers) and I dashed out to grab and unthinkingly inhale some food from a nearby bakery, while wrestling the vague ideas we'd collected so far into phrases, and hopefully rhyme.

We dashed back in for the next workshop – recording – and when Jovanka, one of other organizers, suggested maybe we should just record the other group's song, since our group had only gotten as far as a chorus, we said, No, no, we've got verses! We've got the complete text right here!

So while the other group recorded first, we ducked into a neighboring practice room, snagged a random fantastic vocalist who'd showed up for the afternoon workshop and got her to sing lead on the verses, tried to remember what the melody for the verses actually was, cut part of the chorus that didn't work, struggled over the timing and what the background vocals should be and when they should come in –

And then went back to the main room and recorded: a practice take, a first take that was also the "final" take, and then because we actually had eight minutes left before the end of the session, one more take.

Go give it a listen; I'd be immensely pleased!