Songwriting Workshop

This Saturday, as an instructor for Autism Empowerment's Neurodivergent Creators Collective, I'll be presenting a workshop on writing your own songs!

I'll be covering subjects like where to find inspiration, whether to start with music or lyrics, why anime theme songs are so good, and however much more I can cram into an hour-long session.

As for my qualifications as a songwriting instructor, regular readers of this blog know that I've been writing songs and playing in bands most of my life. I'm certainly no Rivers Cuomo*, but I've written songs that have been licensed for use by TV shows like The Golf Channel, MLB Network, and Access Hollywood as well as a Muzak-like service waaaay back in the day (it's been so long, I've forgotten their name). So yeah, I collect my $2.10 royalty check every quarter.

The workshop is free and will take place over Zoom from 2pm-3pm Pacific Time. If you're interested in attending, it's not too late to register! Just go to this link. Hope to see you there!

* Although I think I could probably take him in a best two-out-of-three guitar shredding contest

Stage Play Status Update: First Production Meeting

This past Sunday we had our first production meeting for Joel Suzuki and the Wavemakers, the musical stage play!

It was just me and my friend Rachel Dubuc, a fellow musician formerly of the band Ghost Feet. Rachel has a lot of live venue production experience which will be invaluable in helping us bring the play to life. We talked about general aspects of the project as well as specifics like how we're going to create wavebow effects on stage, which will include Star Wars-like blaster shots, Ghostbusters-like light streams, and Doctor Strange-like magic shields (sometimes all at once).

I'm really grateful to have Rachel on the team and am looking forward to our collaboration!

Stage Play Informal Table Read

This past Sunday we held an informal table read for Joel Suzuki and the Wavemakers, the musical stage play!

As I mentioned in last week's post, it was just friends and family members filling in for the actual cast (who I haven't started looking for yet). Also, there was no live singing; I just played a recorded mix of the songs that I pulled off my band's albums and edited (poorly) into the sections that will be in the play.

Still, it was a lot of fun! And I got a sense of the runtime, which I think will come out to be around 1.5 to 2 hours (we finished the read in one hour and ten minutes, but that's not counting the intermission and a lot of stage movement). Everyone did a great job, despite the fact that I failed to provide some of them with the latest version of the script.

Also, I was able to talk my son into reading for the character of Joel, which was a real treat, especially since Joel was kind of based on him in the first place (if you're reading this, thanks again for doing it! Much appreciated). 

Next, I will be working on finding more crew members as well as polishing up the script (my son gave it a 7 or 8 out of 10, which I think is a great starting point). Stay tuned for more updates!