Songwriting
This class will dive into the endlessly diverse ways to craft a song, whether it's painting a picture, telling a story, or creating an atmosphere with words and music. We'll look at various ways to organize a song, using hooks, verses, chorus, bridges, and other devices to create structure and form. We'll also explore how chords and melodies fit together to create moods and enhance the lyrics, and we'll take a look at the different styles of songwriting associated with different genres of music. Throughout the week, we will learn from each other as we share our songs, ideas, and our experiences with the process of songwriting
Steve Roy
Steve Roy is a multi-instrumentalist from Eliot, Maine who plays and teaches upright bass, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and ukulele. He is fluent in a vast array of musical styles, including bluegrass, jazz, folk, rock, jam, country, old time, heavy metal, etc.
As a sideman, he has toured nationally and internationally with many of the acoustic world’s top acts, including Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, John Reischman and Eli West, Molly Tuttle, Joe K. Walsh, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Joy Kills Sorrow, Hit and Run Bluegrass, and many others. Locally, he is well known for his work with groups such as OldHat Stringband, Jazzputin and the Jug Skunks, Steve and Dave Play Dead, The Stowaways, High Range, The Mill City Ramblers, Spinal Tarp, and countless others. He has been leading a weekly open bluegrass jam on the NH seacoast for over a decade.
Bluegrass Now Magazine calls Steve a “devastating weapon.” He is currently a faculty member at 317 Main St. Community Music Center in Yarmouth, ME, and at Portsmouth Music and Arts Center in Portsmouth, NH. Steve is the Program Director at NimbleFingers Old Time & Bluegrass Workshops in British Columbia, and he has taught many other music camps and workshops throughout the USA and Canada, including Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp (TN), Ossipee Valley String Camp (ME), Walker Creek Music Camp (CA), Aloha Bluegrass Academy (HI), and many others.
Steve is also a violin maker, and works in the violin shop of Jonathan Cooper, in Portland, ME. Just to add a wee bit of icing on the proverbial cake, Steve is also a professional archaeologist with field experience in the Northeast US and Central America. Dude!
