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How it Works: Song Colony offers collaboration

Ivan Rohrer (left) holds his phone out to record as Todd Burge (right), John Walsh and Don Baker work out music for the lyrics he wrote. The Song Colony, open to anyone, meets once a month at The Stage Door on Putnam Street to collaborate on songwriting techniques and share music. (Photo by Michael Kelly)

A song can come from anyplace or nowhere at all, and The Song Colony members can pull music from the slightest phrase, even a single word.

The informal group, usually between a dozen and 20 musicians, meets one evening a month at The Stage Door, next to the Peoples Bank Theatre on Putnam Street. It’s a democratic assembly, with anyone welcome to join in, but West Virginia songwriter Todd Burge acts as convenor.

Burge, a recording artist who has performed on Mountain Stage and taught at West Virginia University, said he remembers resisting the idea of being involved in workshops for songwriting.

“I thought it might ruin some natural part of what was going on,” he said. “Then Mountain Stage asked me about 15 years ago to coordinate a songwriting workshop. I did that and sat through some of them, and that really changed my mind. I ended up conducting one.”

Last year, he was invited to teach a songwriting course at West Virginia University.

“It was like I came full circle, that was the course I would have loved to have taken when I was a student there,” he said.

On Wednesday night, about a dozen people gathered in the lounge area of The Stage Door, seated in a circle, most with guitars, one with a banjo.

The group has worked with anything from one word, like burlap, or pickle, to short phrases. “I remember one of our people brought his eight- or nine-year-old daughter, and when we went around looking for ideas at the end of the session, she said, ‘I got nothing.’ That was what we used,” Burge said.

The August session was a bit darker than most, coming in the wake of two mass shootings, one in Dayton and the other in El Paso. Burge said his 13-year-old daughter was upset and wanted to talk about it.

“That was a new conversation for me,” he told the group. “I wrote a poem the next morning and posted it on Facebook.”

The theme involved love, tolerance, and the word groundswell.

He offered it as a song to the group, with a refrain, “What if you and I sing a peaceful song.”

Songwriter Michael Stocky followed. “Mine started out light, like yours, but it went the other way pretty quick,” he said.

Stocky played an untitled song in a minor key with a driving rhythm reminiscent of protest songs from 50 years ago.

Pamela Brown played a song written from the perspective of a woman saved from an angry mob by the intervention of Jesus.

“One act of love

Changed my life ..

One act of love

Can bring us peace.”

“That’s a really nice melody,” Burge said. “I’ve come to expect that from you, and you really make the verse soar. It’s a story familiar to anyone, but for this you climbed into that character.”

Don Baker picked up a piece of yellow foolscap covered with handwriting, and rotated it around a few times as he plucked his Martin guitar. “I’ve got words all over this,” he said.

“Take my hand and lead me

To a place where there’s no worry…

A place where there’s no hate…

… there’s no need for fighting

If there’s no one to blame.”

John Walsh took the next turn.

“I had this chord progression I was saving for a rainy day,” he said, and launched into Sunrise Mountain.

“The Fountainhead flows love on down

The mountainsides to the world around

And slakes the thirst of these withered towns

‘Til the orchards there, with fruit, abound.”

Burge asked him what the chords were for the refrain, and Walsh showed him.

“The E, that gives it a lift,” he said.

“That’s worth the price of admission right there,” Burge said.

The group showed its creative teamwork as Ivan Rohrer offered his lyrics and a skeleton of chords.

“I just called this ‘groundswell’, I thought it might start with fingerpick and then move to strumming,” Rohrer said.

Burge picked up the chords, adding emphasis and making the music start to move. Walsh added some fingerpicking, and Pamela Brown offered an upward shift in the chord progession going into the refrain. Rohrer recorded it all on his cellphone. He had a song.

“I like it, I love the simplicity of it,” Burge said. “The math of the words fits the chord progression. You’ve got the beginnings of something really nice.”

The session ended with the theme for the next meeting: nautical scenes, taken from a book on drawing.

Walsh offered a song he’d written for the last meeting but hadn’t had a chance to play. Titled ‘Prime Meridian,’ it could have served as The Song Colony’s anthem.

“You can’t worry

About it now

You just can’t

You just can’t

There’s no turning back no how

Let it stand

Where it stands

And sing your song.”

More information on The Song Colony is available by contacting Burge at tb@toddburge.com

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