If there is one crucial aspect of the Play It Strange songwriting competitions, it's that they reach out, and there is revelation in those contrasting entries between 11 – 14 yr olds and the 15 – 18 yr old cohort.
Songs turn up. Yes, they do. They arrive!!
Songs by the younger sector stand beside the elders... and often, the younger ones share an equal prowess and excellence. Let's look at this.
The pivot in the simple observation of the songs from these younger entrants is the reality of the music they have written. And so we ask:
What has nurtured these songs?
After all, quality songs are fostered from some specific, creative pool. They draw from the imagination of the young writer...and as there aren't many magic wands or books of songwriting instructions to light the way, it's the imagination which firstly is sewn, and then grows as it emerges into a complete, unified song.
How often does that happen? More often than you think.
Having said that, when I was a teenager songwriting didn’t happen to me. But I was listening all the time – minute by minute. It was an exciting pastime. I wasn't lonely – I was alone. Often an ideal playground for absorbing songs.
Those who lived in my childhood vicinity weren't cut from the wide-eyed rock and roll fusion that was igniting the close-at-hand world in the early 1960s. But I saw it happen and heard some extraordinary melodies, lyrics, and arrangements of quirk, power and delicacy. Time and again, here in my neighbourhood, it was at hand! It proved to be addictive and an ideal driving force in expanding the absorption of new songs.
What was? It was hearing songs from anywhere! Songs stripped bare and then they fell upon us. Especially close at hand. Songs from NZ citizens!
The first time I focused on a young songwriter was when I was in a band where a young 19 yr old, Phil Judd, up from Napier, and his flat-mate Tim Finn, forged a band and named it Split Enz. I ended up as their bass player. And it was during our rehearsals that a collective spirit brought a repertoire to an exciting reality.
But what became clear to me was the young lad in our vicinity. Neil.
He was Tim’s younger brother aged 15 or thereabouts; young and impressionable and as such, had the potential to absorb what was happening in and around the echoes of Split Enz songs staking their presence in his life.
Neil held a concerted presence in ‘knowing’ the emergence of Phil and Tim’s songs. And his creative sense started to grow. And with that, the flourish of opportunity to take the stage as our support act. Neil took on large crowds in NZ town halls with confidence and a resilience bringing his original songs to life.
This is the flow-on effect where young songwriters burning with ambition can draw on the songs they are impressed with in both listening and by going to live shows. They take the time to know the great songs in their lives written by fellow citizens. And that ricochet education, let's call it, becomes the breeding ground of a young songwriter's output.
There we have it – in the observation and analysis of what the ingredients of songwriting are: they are the almost invisible but real elements of a creative pursuit. It's songwriting in the end... a unique construction… words and music – in reality.
The emerging chances that can be found and/or discovered by young songwriters balanced on their sense of adventure – well – they are there to be collected and should be regaled and held fast. They field the impetus for writing songs, especially if songs are completed and entered into the Play It Strange songwriting competitions.
The lyrical arcs will tell the writer's stories while being carried by their metaphorical and evocative language. It's all an array of colour and sound.
Magic?
That too...