How did you write that song?

Areta is a songwriter who, through her songwriting, invites us right in to share the things that are important and powerful in her life. She has been writing poems and songs for many years but only started performing them fairly recently. Areta plays live her song "Inconsolable Thoughts" and we discuss how writing the song enabled her to come to terms with and communicate about a key epi...

Award-winning folk singer/songwriter Fred Smith has seen many things, written many songs and the world is a better place for it. In this episode Fred talks about how he started off in music playing covers in a restaurant for 20 bucks and a bowl of spaghetti and spent years writing comedy songs. Then his songwriting and work as a diplomat came together as his songs documented the trials, humorous m...

In this episode my guest is Larissa Swan who writes beautiful songs for and about people who mean a lot to her. Larissa writes songs to help process big issues in her life and has made great connections with people through songwriting. Sometimes the people she writes songs for reciprocate and send her back one of their own compositions which can be pretty special. Larissa recognises that she's...

Part 2 of a discussion about a crazy, wonderful week of songwriting. In this episode, Ryland Newstead, Jasmine Fellows, Scott Lennard and I discuss the second part of the seven songs in seven days songwriting challenge that we participated in recently. We discuss how, as the week progressed, it got easier for some and harder for others to write new songs and how we, inspired by what we were hearin...

Write seven songs in seven days - no way! A songwriter friend of mine organised an online songwriting challenge to write and share in real time an original song every day for a week. 12 songwriters participated and this is the first of a two part account of an amazing, raw, unfiltered and supportive songwriting experience under time pressures but in a safe space. It was an incredible experience, w...

Daniel Champagne is an incredible acoustic guitar player and songwriter. I had the great fortune to chat with him whilst he was in Australia for one show in-between North American and European tours. In this interview Daniel takes us back to when he wrote his first songs as a kid on the New South Wales South Coast and then takes us on his songwriting journey which he has continued to hone and deve...

In this episode I have the great pleasure of chatting with Canberra duo, The Cashews. Pete Lyon and Alison Procter write songs about people and places that are close to them and often "pop up" in the places that they have written about to perform those songs. In the interview we learn about how they both started writing songs individually as kids and how, many years later, they combined...

Nigel McRae is well known around Canberra as the owner of Smith's Alternative, a music venue that strongly supports local songwriters and original bands. But he also has been a prolific songwriter. In this episode Nigel tells us how he came to write 100 songs in 10 years and then virtually no songs for the last 10 years! He explains how it took him a long time to get into his songwriting strid...

Meredith has her own music podcast and a band. She considers herself an occasional songwriter and has written two songs. In this episode Meredith explains how she was scared of writing songs for many years until one day she needed to write an original theme tune for her podcast and... bingo! We also discuss her other song "One Heart is enough" which she wrote about something she feels ve...

Ryland Newstead has been writing songs for most of his life. Inspired initially by his musical heroes The Beatles and Oasis, Ryland tried to play their songs but wasn't happy with the result. So he decided he needed to write his own songs in his own style whilst applying what he'd learned from the greats. In this episode Ryland takes us through his songwriting journey which includes a lot...

In this episode, singer, songwriter and ukulele player Joanne Craigie tells us about how she didn't write songs for a big part of her life until one day..... she started and hasn't looked back. She tells us how she keeps a collection of song ideas that randomly emerge and how she once wrote a song on the train to Sydney, but left it on the seat (aargh)! We focus on the first song she wrote...

Did you know there is a box of cards to help you write songs and that you can get different emotional vibes just playing the white keys on a piano without needing to understand music theory? In this first episode of "How did you write that song?" Jasmine Fellows explains how these things and the experiences in her life have helped her to write songs. She has music training and likes to f...