August 2000
Guild Tidings
The official Publication of
The International Songwriters Guild
Volume 5, No. 8
NEXT MEETING: 5:00 P.M. Sunday August 6th, 2000
Meetings are held the first Sunday of each month at 5:00 P.M. The location is 3020 E Robinson St., Orlando, Florida. (The American Federation of Musicians Union Building)
Officers:
President/Treasurer
Russ Robinson (407) 851-5328
Co-Vice President/ newsletter
Susan Foster-Trewick (407) 679-4017
Co-Vice President/ Member Reception
Matthew Griffin (407) 903-1212
Secretary
Annabelle Wosgien (407) 654-9294
President’s Letter
Dear Members,
So much is going on, I'm trying to pretend I'm twins in order to try doing it all. I'm thankful I can stay in with the air-conditioning turned up HIGH with the hot weather we've been experiencing. God bless the postmen!
I may be off to N.Y.C. and back by the time I see you at meeting Sunday. If so, maybe I can give a report on the Sony record deal after my meeing there. This is the Canadian group I've told you a little about at our July meeting.
Several of our members attended the seminar presented by Rusty Gordon July 22, in our meeting room at the Musician's Union building. Ms Gordon is, without a doubt, the most learned and experienced consultant I've heard speak. All of us that attended the Seminar were elated. She would like to do another seminar just for the Guild she said. If you want to get some feedback from the attendees, some of them were Jordan Michiels, Susan Foster-Trewick, Sharon Conway, Bill Chernault, Jack Gayle (who plays a mean clarinet!!), Jeff Mason and Emil Ernyey.
The reminder of dues payment helped last month. Several payed their dues. We have, in print, the dates of your last payment, if you need a reminder too. I guess I'll have to no longer send the newsletter to some of you that haven't paid for a while (or joined). Please accept this as a reminder.
I want to acknowledge the great help I'm getting from Susan Foster-Trewick. She and Matt Griffin are really great supporters and I salute them. Member Erin Rettig, and Soon Hee, his wife, both talented and highly motivated individuals, are moving to Los Angeles to broaden their horizons. Best of luck to them.
Paula Douglas, our former V. President, reports from California that she's very happy in her new home. I have assigned her the duty of organizing a new chapter of our Guild there. She is near Berkley College, and I'm sure there should be lots of aspiring song writers there.
Through my Musicians Union, Local 47, Hollywood, CA, I have been contacted by a California group offering (AT NO CHARGE) to share your original music on the "Best sounding site on the World Wide Web". They are enrolling artists for the Artist Colony, that offers more than just a chance to be heard. In addition to providing grass roots support, a musician rating system, contests, webcasts, chat rooms and message boards, they hope to create innovative ways of marketing bands. For more information their website address is : http://www.srswowcast.com We will discuss this at the next meeting. Hope to see all of you Sunday. Take care, and keep cool.
Best ever
Russ
A Rhymer Primer--Part 2
by Matt Griffin
Last month we talked about rhyme in general terms. This time let's try creating some rhymes. For help, we'll use a rhyming dictionary and a few basic concepts from Sheila Davis' "The Craft of Lyric Writing"; in fact, you may want to refer to the book as we go along. We'll use the common lyric-writing technique of working from a title or hook, and producing a list of words that rhyme with it. Obviously, we want the longest list possible.
Suppose we're writing a song titled "A Matter of Choice." Probably we'll need a few, uh, choice words that rhyme with "choice." My rhyming dictionary lists voice, devoice, invoice, pro-choice, rejoice, unvoice, and sailor's-choice-not an outstanding selection. A little imagination might turn up a few names-Boyce, Joyce, and Royce. But we're certainly going to need more.
"Voice" and "rejoice" are called perfect rhymes because the ending sounds rhyme perfectly with "choice." Perfect rhymes are usually considered the best ones and will always have a place in lyric writing. Incidentally, "pro-choice" is not considered as good a rhyme because it's ending sounds match exactly, including the consonant sound "ch" before the matching vowel sound. Davis calls this pair and others like it (release/lease; berate/rate) identical rhymes. If you must use an identical rhyme, try separating the pair with a third rhyming word to provide some distance between the identically-rhyming pair (for example, release/piece/lease).
Any rhyme that is not perfect is considered a near rhyme. Davis talks about many varieties of near rhyme, including augmented rhyme, diminished rhyme, consonance, and assonance. Augmented rhyme is an especially strong type; it's basically perfect rhyme with an additional consonant sound tacked on at the end. For choice, I've come up with foist, hoist, joist, moist, voiced, devoiced, invoiced, rejoiced, and unvoiced. The augmented word must come second, rhyming with the earlier shorter-sound word.
Diminished rhyme is the reverse of augmented; a consonant sound is cut off. Because something is lost, the effect is not as strong or satisfying as that of augmented rhyme. Our rhyming word might yield boy, joy, toy, and numerous like rhymes. These don't sound great to my ear because the soft 's' sound at the end of choice is so pronounced that losing it really stands out. But if you were rhyming with "east", "grease" sounds pretty good because the dropped "t" sound is briefer and grease still pings nicely with the trailing 's' sound.
Consonance is using the same end consonant sound(s) with a different preceding vowel sound. This works especially well if the vowel sounds are naturally close. For choice, we can try sauce, moose, dose, and the dozens of words that rhyme (perfectly) with them. Face, mice, and piece are a bit more drastic but might work in a pinch.
In assonance, we mate vowel sounds but not the trailing consonants. Again, the closer the consonant sound, the nearer the rhyme. We earlier rejected boy and toy as acceptable rhymes of choice, but boys and toys work very well. Other assonant rhymes include join, boil, void, point, and even Deutsch (and, of course, all of the many words that rhyme with them). Given the trailing 's' sound in choice, probably joins, boils, voids, and points are even better.
If you look in a rhyming dictionary for rhymes of the words we came up with, you'll see that we've increased the size of our list from ten to hundreds of potential rhymes. Now we can write our lyric more naturally instead of trying to force lines that produce one of only a few possibilities.
Next month, we'll continue with a discussion of multi-syllablic rhyme and other variations.
Web Chatter
cybertoad2000@yahoo.com
Hi again, folks from cyberland. We are expecting a visit this month from Rick Renstrom. He has played on a few showcases put on by the guild, and he has recently had a lot of success with his web site at mp3.com. (I gave out the link in an easlier edition of the newsletter.) If you want to find his web site, all you have to do is type
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/60/rick_renstrom.html
and you will be able to listen to songs from his album, such as: Opus Lix, Symphony #40 and Falling Rain (based on Faure’s “Pavanne”.
He gave this reporter a lot of very important information about the mp3 website, and I have just been told that SusieCool has been accepted to that website too, with “Computer Love”. Again all you have to type in is:
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/138/susiecool.html
We hope that Rick will be able to share some of his experiences of mp3 and also his work with commercials at his visit to our Guild meeting.
On the left of this article is an excerpt from Rick’s website at mp3. His songs have been doing well in the charts, and one was #1 for many weeks!!
Rick Renstrom - Artist description Instrumental Guitar for the new millenium. Combining beautiful classical melodies with 32nd note fleet fingered fury. Coupled with hard driving rock style rhythms. Music style: Classical meets Rock Musical influences: Yngwie Malmsteen, Ritchie Blackmore, Uli Roth, Joe Stump, Al Dimeola, J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vinnie Moore, Andy LaRocque, Joey Tafolla, Ronni Le Tekro
Artist history: Prior to going solo, Rick has appeared with Wicked Ways,China Blue and Metal Wolf.
Group members: Current Studio musicians-Drums: Richard Christy Bass: Steve Elder Keyboard: Liza Shekhter Instruments: Guitar
More Points to Ponder (You’ve probably heard these before, so please don’t groan too loudly!!)
Why isn't 11 pronounced onety one?
"I am " is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do " is the longest sentence?
If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed?
Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?
If you mixed vodka with orange juice and milk of magnesia, would you get a Phillip's Screwdriver?
If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts," and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
New open Mic Night - Tuesdays at Ruby Tuesdays !!!
Ruby Tuesdays are hosting an open mic every Tuesday. They welcome Bands (electric and acoustic), Singers, Poets, Soloists. They offer two for one drink specials, and a $15 bar/food tab for all performers. A small sound system is provided. The mic is open from 10:00p.m. till 2:00 a.m. The contact person is Erin, and her # is (407) 896-1595 or (407) 681-3159. This would be an ideal place for performing songwriters to showcase their material!!!!
Paul Vernon’s Gig schedule
I.S.G. member Paul Vernon will be playing on the patio at Shell Landing from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. on Fridays. This is located on 436 near 434 (Altamonte Springs).
Also on Sunday evenings he will be at Kitty O’Sheas Irish pub, 8470 Palm Parkway, Lake Buena Vista Florida - Tel # (407) 238-9769. He plays 6 and 12 string acoustic guitar, and the Harmonica. Light rock tunes of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
We are asking folk to please pay their dues on time, so we can keep the newsletter in circulation. Also like to mention that e-letters are the wave of the future, so keep those e-mail addresses coming.
Classified advertising may be placed free of charge to members in good standing in the ISG. For more information on display advertising and/or classified advertising for non-members, please call Russ Robinson (407) 851-5328, or e-mail: i_s_g_2000@yahoo.com
July
TOP FIVE WINNERS
Of last month’s Evaluation Session
(Members only)
1st Place: I’m spending Christmas with you Sharon Conway/ Roberts/Lewis
2nd Place: Recklessly Bill Frank
3rd Place: Actions speak louder than words Paul Vernon
4th Place: The airplane song Paul Vernon
5th Place: Home in the Sky Susan Foster-Trewick
© 2000 ISG