Songstorm: write a song in day

There are an estimated 500 performing artists or bands in Brighton & Hove not to mention a host of musicians from the city who have made in to the big time. Kath Burke, one of the organisers of the day, came up with the idea to get people together and create. She said: "I’d heard about songwriting workshops before. There’s a whole songwriting festival in Bath that goes on for a week but also [workshops are] how record companies develop songs as well."

And so, Songstorm was born. The challenge they set was to write a song in one afternoon, then perform it to an audience in the evening.

Adam Bennett, the chair of Brighton Songwriters and co-organiser, also wanted to create an environment where writers were free to express and share their ideas. He said: "I’m interested in getting beginner songwriters out of their personal environments into playing live music and writing songs with other people."

He added: "People who want to play live, always dreamed of being in a band, this sort of thing could give them the inspiration and opportunity to make that happen."

He writes and records his own music and is currently recording an E.P. which is out in April.

What can a network such as Brighton Songwriters bring to the city? Brighton Live organiser and music promoter, Mark Ede, one of the facilitators of the day, said: "The idea is to be creative, it’s great to encourage beginners to get into music and to get the confidence to write songs with other people.

He added: "the objective will be to have a Brighton Songwriters stage at Brighton Live in October."

Upstairs in The Brunswick’s function rooms, the participants were split into smaller teams of musicians and lyricists, all jamming and discussing their ideas. The work ethic was so strong, I was reluctant to pull anyone away from their huddles to talk to me for my report.

Finally when they broke for lunch, I swooped in and grabbed a couple of people to give me their views. "It’s been really great, it’s going well," Ollie Baron tells me.

"I thought we’d be in groups with just a bunch of people with guitars but I feel really happy and lucky to be in the group I’m in, there’s two ukuleles and a violin."

Penny Howe, who I saw performing on the Spring Forward stage the weekend before, didn’t know what to expect from Songstorm.

She said: "I came down to see what would happen, I’ve got a fragment of lyrics, Ollie’s got some music and the two seem to gel together really nicely. Then we’ve put the violin over the top of that, which sounds really amazing."

Both of them have considered trying to make some sort of living out of songwriting and performing. "I love singing and you can put stuff into songs that you wouldn’t be able to express in your normal life," Penny said.

The polarity between a community group scratching out songs together in pub function rooms and Saturday night X-factor karaoke pop-stars couldn‘t be more stark. I cornered Mark Ede into giving a message for the hairbrush-microphone generation: "Don’t watch it, just go and do it, do it for real. The tunes they cover are great tunes but why just re-hash the 60s?

"There’s a lot of self-empowerment just through creating stuff. It’s more legitimate in some ways than some of the stuff you hear on the radio in my view."

Of course that opinion delighted me but Steve Patterson, producer and songwriter, also tutoring the workshop, had a more balanced comparison. "There’s nothing wrong with the X-factor because it does give people an outlet and you do occasionally get some great singers. It is nice to see an artist that can write as well as perform."

For those who didn’t make it to Songstorm, there’s plenty of opportunities to get involved in Brighton Songwriters. Check out their blog for more information on song clinics, open mics and sing rounds in Brighton and Hove. With this much going on, you’ve got no excuse not to share your songs with the city. www.brightonsongwriters.wordpress.com.