It has been a little over 1 year since Chad lost his fight with colon cancer.  He died on March 11th, 2014.  We miss him every day.

His music is part of his legacy.  And although he had only uploaded one of his songs to this website, I am uploading the rest of his completed and recorded songs.  He may not have wanted to share these with the world - he probably would consider them works in progress - but I am very proud of them all.  It is difficult to hear his voice, but also wonderful, I'm so glad that we have these recordings.  Some day, Sarah and Katie will be very glad that he recorded these songs and that we can hear his voice whenever we want to.

I hope you enjoy listening to them.

Well, I need to get serious about what this year's workshop will be. We'll be launching the promotion of the Song Gallery, and I'll do a follow-up on the state of the record industry vs. the Internet. But what this year is really going to be about is "Writing Young"!

A great big thank you to Vaughn Welches, he recorded this for me today. 6-23-12.  Thanks Willie                  P.S. I hope everyone likes this one, Willie

I already have started a blog on another website. Here is the link to learn more about what I'm doing with my music-

http://oliviafrances.tumblr.com/

Well, so much for my thoughts in February.  I will eventually get back to poignancy and "Focus and Lens", but in the meantime I've decided to do a lesson called "Making Songs Pop" in which we examine how to use phrasing and phrase length to "pep up" a song.

I've noticed during critiques that most of us tend to use long lines for our verses, while some of our better writers use varied phrase lengths - although this most often happens in our choruses. On the other hand, pop writers like Bruno Mars and his writing gang will often use short bursts of phrases throughout the song to hold and pique the listener's interest. It is a technique that probably is the basis for "ear candy" - pure pop - but it does work!

So I'm going to review phrasing itself and then introduce this new concept. I'm really excited about it.

I'm also excited about how Thumbplay is giving me the opportunity to find examples from the very latest releases in country, pop, rock, and so on. When I was dependent on radio, I usually had the most recent songs in my lessons as examples, but with the Internet and my foray into alternative rock, that happened less and less. Now I can keep up with all the markets!

I've spent a lot of time listening to Nuno Bettencourt, born September 20, 1966 he's about the same age as I am. What he is also would be inspiring. I followed him through the years with Extreme and saw them twice in concert. Pretty amazing playing and arranging. From More Than Words and Whole Hearted to the heavier rock of this goup it was done with a plethora of harmony. One of my inspirations in the band Nuno went on to solo work that became more organic, but always loaded with melody and harmony. Kudos to Nuno!

Well, the February 2011 Advanced Critique is two days away, and it's about time for me to start thinking about the lesson I'll be giving at the Baum in March.  I promised at the Irony workshop in November that I would follow up with Poignancy, and I'm going to stick to that promise - but I may also add "Song Integrity" since we're still talking about the effect of a song.  I find the concept of song integrity to be fascinating, and it gives me a sense of excitement to think about revisiting it.