Social criticism
Ojai songwriters gather for camaraderie and constructive feedback
By Lisa Snider 12/24/2008
In a makeshift garage studio in Ojai, Doc Murdoch plucks away at his guitar and croons about a street musician. Around him, a small group listens intently and takes notes. When the song is over, Laurie Hope takes hold of a Popsicle stick and offers her critique, “Melodically, you need a little variety.”
Murdoch nods and sheepishly offers, “I think that’s true.”
The rest of the group chimes in, asking Murdoch to consider pitch and lyric changes. I want to jump in and defend him. But that would ruin the whole point of this exercise.
This is the monthly meeting of Ojai Songwriters Anonymous, a not-so-anonymous group that gathers to consider each other’s songs and provide honest (sometimes brutally honest) feedback in a genuine effort to improve what’s presented. The Popsicle stick is a prop used to allow the person holding it the ability to offer feedback without interruption.
“Everything is said to help the writer,” explains Scott Smith, who founded the group three years ago. Taking ideas he saw used in a creative writing group along with those used in a typical 12-step program, he came up with a format for the meetings, as well as the inspiration behind the group’s unusual name.
Smith’s meetings are very structured. A page of critique session guidelines is handed to each participant, explaining how best to give and receive feedback, including mandates not to interrupt and, for those on the receiving end, to be strong. Once a song is presented to the group, critique sheets are completed, breaking the feedback down into the smallest components so that each element of a song can receive independent analysis, (i.e., does the rhythm match the lyrics, style and tempo.)
Having played piano since childhood, music has always been in Smith’s life. As keyboardist and manager to the local rock band Myridian (currently on hiatus), Smith was able to tap into his creative and business skills to get the group’s CD Prime Myridian recognized. Now on his own, and with the help of the songwriters group he founded, he has launched his own CD, Your World, under his stage name Smitty West.
Smith came to Ojai 12 years ago from New Orleans following careers in geology and technology. He slowly found ways to focus on his passions: music, native plant farming and the eradication of landmines in his ancestral homeland of Lebanon. He was even commissioned recently to write a song for the Marshall Legacy Institute, a landmine action organization, and was invited to perform it at their annual benefit in Washington, D.C.
Smith sees songwriting as a creative gift. “It was not given to us to hold. It’s meant to share,” he says, adding, “You can’t write songs just for yourself.” The songwriters group, he says, allows writers an opportunity to share their work in a safe, confidential environment, while giving them ways to become better and more successful.
When writers come to the group with excuses to keep their work under wraps, Smith will certainly find a way to encourage them, even if it means accusing them of being selfish. He reminds his shy students of the great works of Michelangelo and DaVinci, telling them, “We’re better as a world because that stuff was shared.”
Smith is also very aware of the power of a good song. “We can be moved by a three-minute Beatles song more than War and Peace.”
Recalling Laurie Hope’s first time at a meeting more than two years ago, he says, “She showed up with a folder of music she’d had for 20 years.” The first song she presented was one she had written for a friend who had just died.
The group encouraged her to keep working. She says that had she not found the group, she likely wouldn’t be where she is today, preparing to release 34 songs on two CDs. “I never would’ve written another song. I certainly wouldn’t have recorded.”
As Doc Murdoch’s critique session wraps up, Hope throws him a bone, which serves to remind everyone why they are there, and says, “It’s like a real message about why we need more songs in the world.”
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