If like me you love music, love to sing, have lots of ideas, but can’t play an instrument and therefore always thought you would remain a frustrated songwriter think again !
I wrote a poem/song lyrics for my husband as a bit of a laugh for his 40th birthday. He found Jane and Phil at The Beehouse online and as a surprise for my birthday bought me a day with them in order to turn my lyrics into a song.
If I am honest, I had pretty modest expectations of what we would be able to achieve in just a day when it takes real artists a year to record an album. I thought the result would be OK but probably a bit formulaic. It might be me (listen for yourself) but given that I turned up with just some words on a page and a “feel” for the sort of sound I wanted, I was blown away by the result. So much so this is now my permanent birthday treat and I have just been again and recorded my third song.
It is so fabulous to feel like I am creating something. I was amazed at the result I was able to get working with Jane (who is a fantastic musician on the melody - she can turn a couple of vague “la la la’s” into chords and a tune in literally 20 minutes) and then Phil on the arrangement so that it sounds like a genuine pop record - you have to sit with him and see what he does to believe it is actually possible! They are so experienced that it is literally a pleasure and amazing to see it all coming together so quickly.
My advice if you are wondering whether it is for you is to give it a go. It's amazing fun. We are going to buy our kids (5 of them aged 8 to 13) the opportunity to come and record a favourite songof theirs as a cover version and camp on the site next door. A camping mini-break which ends up with an album – what’s not to like?
Dulcie Swanston (Shepherd)
Jane : Thanks Dulcie, we've really valued your ideas and working with your material over the last few years, particularly gifted lyricist with some great ideas about how to get the points over. We'll be putting a link to Dulcie's latest song shortly.
