Belmont Songwriters Guild

ATTENTION - NO BSG MEETING THIS THURSDAY (JULY 16) due to the event in the Belmont worship center. We will meet next Thursday, July 23 at 6:00 pm for a discussion followed by songs. More details to follow. Sorry for the late notice. Please tell anyone you know from BSG. - Casey

Update:
Our next BSG meeting is Thursday, July 23, 6:00pm at Asaph's on the Belmont Church campus. I want to continue our discussion from last meeting and get some more song-share time in. Feel free to bring your brown-bag dinner to eat. Our topic this week "What do I do with my music." We'll start song share at 7:30 and go to 9:00.

This is a song I just wrote for a ministry called KEZA. My good friend Jared Miller started this organization in RWANDA. Originally called SISTERS OF RWANDA, KEZA began as a way to help the women in Rwanda(there are many more than men after the genocide) make a living without prostitution. They make jewelry. It is incredible what God has done there. Please look up the website.

Hi All,
As a songwriter you will benefit from watching the link below and learn! Each video is only 4-8 minutes long. Enjoy!Click the link, sit back and turn up your sound....smiles!

Melodic Rhythm and Lyric Rhythm: Four Lessons:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid23873432001?bclid=238423...

Let others know what you think by adding to this blog.

To quote Jay-Z, these are just my thoughts.

Songwriters,
Wow, what an amazing meeting we had Thursday night (6/18). We are so diverse…it’s wonderful. I have this new favorite word that I use a lot these days…vibrant. I’m craving vibrancy; things that energize or refresh my life, my mind, my soul. Well, our first BSG discussion meeting was vibrant. We spent over 2 hours answering the question, “Why do I write songs?” I think we heard from just about everyone - over 30 folks. So, we got over 30 different answers. I loved it! And I related to every one. Here’s just a few of the themes:

• I feel good when I complete a song
• It’s my personal expression
• I can’t help it, I have to create
• When love flows, I write
• To say what needs to be said
• It’s like an infants cry…for attention
• I hear from God through my songs
• I tried to stop, but my soul needs it to stay healthy

And we touched on some of the pain we experience in our writing journey; the unfulfilled longing or the gap between where we are and our hopes or dreams for our music. A question that came up in the discussion is “How do you define success for your songwriting”. I think this is an important question and I encourage everyone to continue to consider what this is for you personally.

As I told the group last night, I desire that each of us would find a place of peace and joy in the exercise of our creative gift. I believe that working through these kinds of questions can help us find this peace and joy.

I look forward to our ongoing discussions.
Our next meeting is Thursday, July 16.
Happy writing.
Casey

Songwriters,
I missed being with you at the last Belmont Songwriters Guild meeting but heard that you had a great time with Scott and Caryl Parker.
Our next Belmont Songwriters Guild meeting will be Thursday night, June 18, at 6:00pm at Asaph's on the Belmont Church campus.
Note the 6:00pm start time. Bring your own brown-bag dinner if you want to eat. We'll start our time together talking about, "Why Am I Writing Songs and What Do I Do With Them?". Even though the answers will be different for each person I know that it's important for us to dig into these kinds of questions.
Come prayerful and open hearted to hear from God. Hopefully, we'll also get some song sharing in.
I look forward to seeing you.
Casey

Circles - LeAnna Mosley © 2006

Wasted so much of my time on pointless questions when the answers were always somewhere in my mind
A stripped down mattress on the floor bearing clothes that I had thrown off the night before
Its crazy how you can get so caught up, wrapped up in the way things used to be
Does it ever make you wonder where's me?

Chorus:

Casey has submitted some information for the group including:
Mission: To encourage personal creative expression through songwriting and music composition
Membership: The Belmont Songwriters Guild is open to anyone connected to Belmont Church who has a desire to write songs or music and at any skill level or interest level

plus these important documents:
Guiding Principles, Song Feedback Guidelines and Songwriting Tips

Hello friends.
I started writing in the 1980's after age thirty. I wrote for love and sang as a servant at writers' nights and Christian coffee houses. After getting a couple cuts on record and a couple of ASCAP checks I got bitter because that was all I got. I turned off the love and tried to live that way. It wasn't very satisfying.
But after a drought God sends the rain. He granted me repentance and I slowly but surely started letting the love flow again.
This song represents one of my threads of art. A kind of holy modal Dylanesque statement.

A couple of weeks ago, The Lovespies finished the vocals and final mix for our song Waiting For You. (This is Rob's song posted in an entry below that he played for you at the first guild meeting.)

Rob wrote the song after he read the book "The Time Traveler's Wife". The movie based on the book is being released in August, and we are trying any possible way to get the song to the proper people. It would SO be a great ending credits song because it was written specifically about the story.

Well, today we found out that our friend Leslie's screenwriter cousin KNOWS THE DIRECTOR of the movie. He knows him so well, in fact, that he convinced him to cast a little girl in the movie.

AND he is willing to pass on our song to the director! Please say prayers for favor and approval. I'm sure you all know how wonderful it would be to have this happen.

Here's a link if you want to listen to it:

http://www.reverbnation.com/thelovespies