Saturday Sessions: Carrie Newcomer on teaching & learning

Indiana based singer and songwriter and workshop leader Carrie Newcomer reflects on what makes a good teacher.

"A good teacher is a partner who understands and echoes the voice of your internal Editor/Champion," Newcomer says, "and not your internal Critic."

"What I mean by this is your internal Editor/ Champion is always on your side, and it’s excited that you want to make art. It wants you to grow and keep creating. It says, 'Let's study what is working, consider carefully what isn’t working, and then find a way together to make it better.' The internal Critic wants to shut you down and keep you from creating. The internal Critic shames you and slams you, but offers no useful information on how to get better.

"At a certain point I gave myself permission to not complete a workshop experience if the teacher only echoed the internal critic. But I’m very grateful for my experiences with teachers who work with my internal Editor/Champion, for with those teachers I not only learn more, but gain new energy for making art." Carrie Newcomer knows about creativity from several perspectives. At university, Newcomer studied visual art, and still makes that sort of art alongsdie her work as a musician, poet, and essayist.

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Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching music, part 2

Del Suggs makes saltwater music, a folk infused style of work that’s taken him across the college circuit in the US, gained him airplay in Europe and Australia, and drawn comparisons wit. Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor. He’s also a respected teacher of both music related skills and leadership topics. Here’s what he had to say about what he learns from teaching.


“It's amazing how teaching a topic really opens your eyes to the content-- ideas that you skimmed before now jump out you! While it may be a truism, it's still accurate: the best way to learn something is to teach it.

Teaching is full of "a-ha" moments, when you see the light come on in a student's eyes and you know you've just connected them with the subject. It's really magical when it happens.”

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Saturday Sessions: Karen Mal on writing songs

"I was a late bloomer, as a songwriter.

I never thought I had it in me, to be a songwriter. Sometimes I think part of that is because I had a classical music training. You’re examining these unbelievably wonderful pieces of music, and what can I possibly say that can compare, that hasn’t already been said? What I’ve learned about that is, it’s a little bit like the way DNA works. How is it possible that there are all these billions of people in the world, and nobody really looks exactly alike? The DNA code is not very big. There are thirteen tones in our musical scale,” Mal continued, “but when I started to realize that nobody else has seen the stories, the adventures, the experiences, the love, the losses, the friends, the tragedies, the visions -- just the stories that make up my life as I’m walking on this earth -- nobody has seen and experienced those things in the order that I have, at the time that I have, with the people around them that I have -- when you start to think about how many variables there are in just that, it starts to make sense that I might have a perspective that’s unique.

“I’ll never forget when I started coming around to that It’s about finding poetic, compelling, exciting ways to show people things that they are already thinking about. It’s really just about showing people’s humanity back to themselves, the love stories, the navigating through obstacles, the stories where people have difficulties and things to reconcile. We never get tired of that, of hearing those stories.” And, Karen Mal said, “songwriting is the hardest thing in the world I’ve ever done. But the best feeling in the world when it’s right and you know it. And then you’re sure you’ll never again write another song,” she added, laughing


Kaen Mal's website

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Saturday Sessions: Tim O'Brien on songwriting

Grammy winner Tim O'Brien has always been interested in history. His music has include bluegrass, blues, folk, country, and swing, and he has investigated his family's Irish background in song too.

About songwriting, he says, "I have various ways I go at it. The main way for me though is to work on, to study on, topics. I read a lot, or I watch movies, or whatever it is, or observe a lot of times over a lot of years. Then all of a sudden I get a way into something, a way to put something I've been interested in all those years into a song. It's usually some sort of phrase that sings right, what my English teacher called prosody."

This is part of an ongoing series here at Music Road. Join us on Saturdays for ideas from your favorite musicians about teaching, learning, and creating music.

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Saturday Sessions: Brian Finnegan on writing tunes

Brian Finnegan, from County Armagh, has played flutes and whistles with the group Flook, toured with William Coulter, and fronted his own ensemble. He talks about writing tunes:

“It comes and goes in waves as I guess it does for a lot of people,” he said. “I’ll write a huge amount for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, completely haunted by it and waking up at three in the morning, writing jigs and reels and waltzes and strange time signatures that come out of my ears, but after a while the creative well runs a bit dry, and then I can’t think of anything.

“A lot of my tunes are written when I’m out walking,” he says. “If I sit down in a room I find it very hard to write to order, but a lot of stuff will come out when I don’t have a flute, I’ll just start hearing things in my head. I have to be relaxed and just let it flow that way.”

This part of an ongoing series here at Music Road called Saturday Sessions, about teaching, learning, and creating music. Join us again for ideas from Eddi Reader, Gretchen Peters, Matt Heaton, and others.

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Brian's music on Bandcamp

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Saturday Sessions: Eddi Reader on writing melodies

Scottish singer and songwriter Eddi Reader is known for her own songwriting, and for her contemporary interpretations of Robert Burns. Though the power of words is very present in her work, when she’s working on a song, melody where it starts for her.

“There’ll be a melody sense. I’ll mess around with it, I’ve got this acoustic guitar, and you have to have an instrument. For me. I could just walk about making up melodies with my voice, but when I have a guitar, I know hoe it has to work. It’s a bit like knitting or crocheting, and I have to really remember where I’m putting my fingers. So what happens is I tend to come upon a note or a chord set that leads me to something that’s really melodically juicy. I just let this juicy little melody mess around in my head, but it doesn’t belong to any words yet. I’m pretty lazy and a bit shy about all that. Pinning it down feels like finishing, and I find it hard to commit to anything that includes a deadline or a time -- unless of course I really like the words!” she says.

Stay tuned for more Saturday sessions, thought provoking ideas about teaching, learning, and creating music from musicians including Matt Heaton, Del Suggs, Emily Smith, Gretchen Peters, and others.


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Saturday Sessions: Adrienne Young on focus

With her second disc, The Art of Virtue,
singer and songwriter Adrienne Young included a copy of Ben Franklin’s small booklet with short explanations of the thirteen virtues he thought to practice daily. She wrote a song about them as well, a lively piece that celebrates the positive gifts of doing good. That is typical of Young.: Though she believes deeply in the power of community and the necessity of co operation and the causes of social justice, she celebrates these things rather than preaching about them. She writes original songs and chooses traditional ones that point out and reinforce this path. Sometimes the songs she writes and chooses to cover are funny, some times thought provoking, sometimes just fun. “Just remember when you get too overwhelmed, just take it bit by bit and say what did I do today, or what could I do, to make things better, and what have I learned? That was the whole point of the booklet, and the theme of the record,” Young explains. Counting a whole range of musicians from Duke Ellington to Barbra Streisand to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson as influences, as well as writers from Emerson to Norman Vincent Peale to Wendell Berry, Young draws on a cornucopia of ideas to shape her work. “For me, it’s always been a very spiritual endeavor,” Adrienne Young said. “Hopefully a communication of feeling and a connection with people.”

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Saturday Sessions: Del Suggs on teaching

Del Suggs is a singer and songwriter whose work in music has led him back almost full circle these days to the interests he had while studying for a master’s degree in education at Florida State University. Through his music, he’s had opportunities to work with college students and staff not only on developing music programs but in such areas as career planning, leadership, and goal setting. Here, he talks about what he does to get better at his teaching practice.

“The best things I've found to improve my teaching are reading and teaching,” Suggs says “Reading keeps me plugged into the views of others and helps me learn new concepts and ideas. And when I say reading, I don't just mean ink and paper. I spend a great deal of time reading on line, and it reminds me of my childhood in the library. I've always loved libraries, and loved the serendipity of just wandering the aisles and picking up any book that caught my eye. It's even easier on line. I'll 'Google' something of interest, and an hour later I'm a world away from where I started, just following tangents.

“Teaching also makes me a better teacher. I've always felt like doing something is the best way to improve at it. Not practicing doing it, but actually doing it. It goes back to my early days as a performer. I might practice a melody or fingering for hours and not be able to play it. But once I starting attempting it in a real performance, I was suddenly able to do it. I know that the practice helped, but not as much as actually doing it.”

Suggs is a Florida native who calls what he does saltwater music. You may keep up with his music and speaking gigs at his website, and look for
him at the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities Conference in New York City (Aug. 24-26), Univ. of Connecticut (Aug. 14), Univ. of Akron (Aug. 15), and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania (Aug. 26).
.
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“When I first started out, I would write songs using kind of the template of a traditional song, a story that you might find recurring in traditional songs,” Smith says. “I’d write my own version, or I’d take the traditional lyrics and write new melodies, which I still do quite a lot. But as the years are passing by I guess the subjects are becoming a bit more contemporary.”

“Some times I can write a song in a night and it’ll be a complete song and I’m quite happy with it. Others are spread over months and months. I have a little book,” she said, “and If I have an idea I write it down in the book if I don’t have time to sit down and finish it, or sometimes I’ll just get an opening verse, and I’ll write that down. Usually I can remember the tune. Quite often I’ll get words and melody at the same time. I know everybody seems really different on that but with me it usually comes simultaneously.”




This is part of the series Saturday sessions, which focuses on ideas about learning, teaching and creating music. Please add your own tips about all that below, and stay tuned for ideas from saltwater music specialist Del Suggs, guitarist Matt Heaton, folk Grammy winner Tim O’Brien, and others.

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Saturday Sessions: Matt Heaton on playing for others

Guitarist Matt Heaton, who plays, sings and teaches in the Irish tradition, talks about his ideas on helping students gain confidence in playing in front of others.

“I feel that in public and in class are pretty different. In a lesson, if someone is nervous about singing or playing, I just try to let him know that there is really very little riding on it, and that there's nothing to worry about. There's a certain amount of psychology involved, but it's usually possible to put someone at ease by leading by example. I try to keep the atmosphere relaxed.

Performing in public is a very different beast. The only thing to do is practice doing it, through low stakes things. The master classes I hold are designed to make students a bit nervous, to try and simulate the performance experience. Playing for friends and family, then at open mics and sessions are all ways to get more ‘stage experience.’ Ultimately, there's no substitute for actually performing on stage to get better at it!”

One place to gain such experience is at a music camp. “I love the residential camp experience, because it allows for a a real in depth, intense exploration of a topic. Being surrounded by music, and by people who are into it, is very inspirational.” There are plenty of camps across the country and around the world, for kids and adults, beginners and advanced students, and in genres ranging from rock to folk to classical. Heaton is running one himself this summer from is Massachusetts home,and it’s a twist on the usual residential camp experience. “The ‘camp’ I'm running this summer is an attempt go get some of that feeling on a local level, ideally making it easier for folks who can't get away for a whole week or two,” says Heaton of his two night a week series of classes. There are classes on theory for guitarists, technique ideas, and master classes on subjects including playing the bodhran and how to get a gig -- once you’ve mastered that playing in public thing -- or while you’re on your way to doing that.

Matt Heaton plays in a duo with his wife Shannon, who plays flute and accordion and sings. They both write music, and they both teach. You may find out more about about Matt’s guitar camp, the Heatons' touring schedule, and their other recordings at their website

This is the first of Saturday Sessions, a new series here on Music Road focused on ideas about teaching and learning music. Stay tuned through the summer (and perhaps beyond) for thoughts on this from saltwater music specialist Del Suggs, A list Nashville songwriter Gretchen Peters, and others, as well as more from Matt Heaton. Your ideas and comments are always welcome too.

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