Songwriting Improv Event

4700 Rhode Island Ave, Bladensburg MD

Description

I was going to restart my monthly singer/songwriter night at the end of this month at the Maryland Meadworks (Hyattsville, MD) on Thursday January 26 (7pm-9pm), BUT I wanted to do something different this month. Instead of having singer/songwriters prepare sets and showcase their material, I wanted to have something a bit more experimental to have new songs created on the fly that evening. Not quite a jam set per se. Ideally, we would have a bunch of poets, singers, and spoken word people there as well providing lyrical ideas to inspire melodies (perhaps inspired by the mead). A bit of this depends on who is interested in coming out. Electronic folks with pre-made beats could be one session. Another session could be some reciting poetry while instrumental music is playing. Another session could be total improv. Give a singer/songwriter several poems to choose from and create something on the fly. Creating a brand new song (or the makings of one) in front of an audience is a ton of fun. My band and I used to do this quite a bit. One time at IOTA, a friend of mine was creating beats on his Ableton and he wanted me to improvise vocals during his set. I grabbed the latest copy of the Washington City Paper and this formed the makings of a song using a combination of article headlines and advertisement slogans (all while I was at the microphone). Somehow it all came together and was perfect, and quite funny.