Songwriter’s Workshop

Hone your songwriting skills with a little help from Grammy-winning songwriter Don Henry. Join him in a fun, interactive two-hour Songwriting Workshop in which he’ll cover:

We’ll use your anchor idea for a chorus then look at it from as many angles as possible to discover if it has legs to move forward. Then we’ll consider some effective options to get the best out of your idea and avoid any stumbling blocks along the way.

Don will demonstrate how assignment writing can be so much more liberating than looking at a blank piece of paper. He’ll present ideas to help you see how narrowing your focus can simultaneously make your writing more ambiguous and universal.

So often songwriting classes focus primarily on lyrics. Don will demonstrate how musical cadences, phrasing, and chord progressions are as important as a great lyric. Bring an original verse or chorus and we’ll have some fun with it!

We’ll cite some well-rhymed songs and show how hunting down a great rhyme can accidentally reveal some brilliance in your writing that you didn’t know was there.

Why wait for inspiration? Everything’s a song! Movie scenes. News of the weird. Photographs. Books. Art. Conversation. Don will help you reframe the act of writing as inspiration itself.

Pen, paper, and a creative mindset.

A song to play live or from a file on your phone.

Extra lyric sheets so we can all follow along.