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Jon Brooks’ Top 20 2010 Canadian Folk Festival Workshop Ideas‘Unsung Canadian Heroes and Martyrs’ Every relevant Canadian songwriter has 3 tunes related to this.
‘Redemption Songs’ I stole this from the Edmonton Folk Festival; thank you, Terry. The redemptive character in song and/or the regenerative power of memory and song.
‘Gen X Sings’ Or, “Why All My Bosses Have Been Only 10 Years Older Than Me”. Baby boomers beware.
‘Songs We Wrote With 5 minutes/Songs We Wrote With 5 years’
‘Indigenous Canada In Song’ In language and/or story.
‘The Song As A Means To Greater Social Justice’ I do this performance/talk in high schools. It works because it’s true.
‘Hard Hitting Songs For Hard Hit People’ Inspired by the Seeger quote,
these could include union songs, workers' songs, or, songs related to our current economic crisis.
‘The Songwriters' 3 Laws Of The Universe’ 3 songs based on 3 rules or lessons learned.
‘Appropriate Misappropriation’ Pleeeeze, let's end the argument about
'misappropriation of voice' - if I wrote only about myself, I'd have 6 mediocre
songs finished.
‘1 Hit And 2 Misses’ All songwriters have that obvious ‘hit’; however, all songwriters also have their favourite songs that, for whatever reason, never quite got the acclaim they’d hoped for. I think this would be especially great with bigger names that are too often obliged to parade out the classics.
'Do You Sing Any Happy Songs?' (We songwriters yearn for the day we are
afforded the right to reply candidly to the audience on this one.)
‘We Hate It When Our Friends Write Great Songs’ (This would require some
planning: 2 songwriters familiar with each others' work swap interpretations
of the others' songs - can't imagine it not working if the songwriters' agree
to it with advance notice.
‘Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better’ Beckett's quote related to the creative
process and, perhaps, more comically, how a songwriter must know many things about many things. How do we do that? We fail at as many things we can.
‘Why Folk Is A 4 Letter Word’ We all have our own ideas as to what 'folk
music' means and for whom and by whom it is sung. This should successfully offend and inspire any thinking festival audience.
‘A Stranger Came To Town’ Why there is only 1 true narrative song to write and rewrite.
‘Eco-Songs’ The ecologically conscientious songwriter.
‘Home Sickness And The Canadian Immigrant Song’ If we're Canadian, we sing them.
‘English-Speaking, Heterosexual, White Males Sing’ ADs, I triple-dog dare you. Yeah, as if this would fly. But seriously, I would love to see this as an alternative - if not a slam at - the tired, PC, and cliché folk festival staple: 'women and song...etc'
‘If I Had A Rocket Launcher’ The pros and cons of songs of protest, polemic, and prayer in song.
‘Sing Me A Canadian Song (Or, It’s Only 7 Hours To The Next Gig)’ For Canadian songwriters unafraid to write with local detail and without the feigned Nashville accent.
May 11, 2010
