Silvia Ponce

Last week I attended a songwriting workshop hosted by the Austrian Union of Composers. The teacher of the workshop was Jörgen Elofsson, a swedish songwriter who has an astonishing career behind him. Jörgen has written songs for many very famous singers like Celine Dion, Il Divo, Westlife, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears.... truly an awe-inspiring career as I said, you should check out his bio !

The first day of the workshop he told us about his life, some funny stories ( he really had a LOT of them) and how he reached the "stardom of songwriters". One of the most remarkable anecdotes is that his first manager ended up being a random guy from his village who spontaneously decided he wanted to be his manager after hearing his songs!!!!!! I also found it interesting that it took him 20 years to reach any success in the music industry ( which shows that being constant is KEY) and that he was approached by the swedish princess and her now husband to compose a song for her wedding.

The second day was dedicated to receiving feedback from him on our songs. I showed the new song i am working on, which i hope to release early February with a music video and he told me some tips I will definetely make use of. One of the only things i am unsure about is how i should call the song...but I will let you know if I decide the title. Only thing i will tell you for now is that it is related to avocados, milk....confusing ha?? what could it be?

Right now Jörgen is working with a swedish-american singer called Rhys, you can listen to their new project here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keupPxEnjzo

And here one of the most famous songs he has written:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I

His biography in case you are interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rgen_Elofsson

I really think Ella Henderson followed the saying “don´t judge a book by its cover” when she first listened to the song “Believe” by Cher.

I am sure many of you know or have already listened to the song “Believe” by Cher, and though i respect her as an artist and like many of her songs ( specially the mega-famous “I got you babe” composed by her former husband Sonny) I have to say though having beautiful lyrics, I really dont like the version of "Believe" she ended up releasing in 1998.

Though reviewed by the american music magazine Billboard as “the best darn thing that Cher has recorded in years” and being number one in over 23 chart lists worldwide when released, the excessive use of autotune and excessive rhythm go, in my opinion, completely against the idea and the way those lyrics should make you feel.

But Ella´s version, which she first sung in her audition for the british competition Xfactor two years ago, touches my soul in its deepest corner.
I sincerely would never have believed how much this song could change….
And it also shows me, again, how much a good musician can transform a song and how important it is when composing a song or when choosing which version to go for to listen carefully to what the melody and the lyrics are saying and to not make it faster or more autotuned just to reach a wider public.

Listen to the two versions and compare……trust me,you won´t believe how much of a blessed sensitivity Ms.Henderson posseses!!!

Cher:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uu3kCEEc98

Ella:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMY6FUkCfaw

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the songwriting workshop held by Projekt pop! ( http://www.projektpop.com/) in Vienna. It was the ninth time they organize the workshop and it takes place every two years. In this edition the songwriting teachers were Lukas Hillebrand, Clemes Wenger, Mira Lu Kovacs and Peter Vieweger.

After hearing that the songwriting workshop was happening i decided to immediately enroll and chose Lukas Hillebrand, the producer of very reknown austrian artists such as Julian LePlay, Lemo, Thorstein Einarsson or Avec; as my teacher.
Not because i thought the other teachers wouldnt suit me, but because he has a very "poppy" style and i want to try and get more in contact with styles out of my comfort zone - which until now has been classical, soul and jazz music.

The first two days were filled by talks : "theory of the song", "theory of songwriting" and "lyricwriting". I have to say that though i really enjoyed and learned from the talks, i walked out of every single one of them being reassured in my opinion about how much songwriting really is a personal thing that shouldnt follow any rules.

After meeting my classmates on tuesday we decided to work in groups of two people to write the three songs that will apear in the cd of the songwriting workshop, which will be released probably in autumn. (i say "probably" because recordings can take forever, probably when the world ends there will be more recordings unfinished than homework unfinished, and i bet there is a lot of unfinished homework ha ha)

I decided to write with Marco Prinner as i had heard his voice the day before and really liked it. Together we wrote "Kingdom of Amourania" , a song in which we expressed what love means to us by inventing a parallel world called Amourania, which creatures and landscapes represent the different stages of love. We recorded the song on friday with our teacher Lukas ( thank you Lukas, you are awesome) and played it on a concert on friday. It was awesome to play alongside a new singer, as i usually only do it with my band The Golden Fields.

It was a really fun week !!!!! I hope you had a great one too!

Hello! And welcome back!
In this blog post I will sum up the ideas presented in a TED-talk about solutions for the music industry, to give you an insight into some of the problems we face and the necessity of a change in our industry - because we really need a change!!!

The talk called "A modest proposal for fixing the music industry" was a talk held by Brian McTear, a record producer and musician from Philadelphia who founded a nonprofit culture organization called Weathervane Music.
In his opinion recorded music was only valuable before the late 90s, not only because the process of recording it was extremely expensive and restricted to labels but also because the only possibility to access recorded music was by paying for it. Two events changed that: Firstly the creation of Napster in 1999, a service that made it possible to download songs without paying, and secondly the development of home recording technology, that made it possible for everybody to record music with good quality.

Consequently to believing that recorded music has no value on its own he created a series called "Shaking Through", which he hoped would raise attention and money, as he was exhibiting the music in an innovative way. After failing at presenting the videos and music of the series on different internet platforms, but progressing at the next try, when he asked the public to interact with the content, he realized that the key to success is not to present content but to engage the audience with it.
"Shaking through" shows the recording process of the indie musicians he invites to Philadelphia, but the series as said before, only found their success after Brian posted the songs into an audio recording forum and asked its members to remix the songs.
Therefore he came to the conclusion that not the creation and distribution of new content, but the creation and cherishing of a community by presenting them with new, exciting and educative ways of interacting with the artist and his content will be the factor that decides about if an artist can maintain a fruitful career.

THE TALK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNszX77y8mk

I would love to know your opinions on his ideas!! So if you are brave enough leave me a comment ;)

Hello everybody! And welcome to my onepoint.fm page!

In this blog post, i wanted to share three tips i follow that help me achieve variety when i am writing songs.
First of all, I recommend changing the instrument with which you write from time to time. When i sit down on the piano i tend to compose slower ballads, when i am with my cello the songs turn out to be very soulful and with the guitar or starting with drums they usually end up being the faster ones. Its incredible to believe how much the tone of an instrument can affect the way a song turns out, so try changing up the instrument you usually write with and I am sure you will be very greatly surprised!:)

Secondly, i would recommend changing the order of the elements of the composition.
If you always start with the melody and then look for lyrics/harmony- try starting with lyrics or harmony instead. This "stepping out of your comfort zone" will activate your brain and allow you to find new ways and new styles you hadn't before. Maybe starting with lyrics will inspire you to look for a specific harmony that matches the emotions you describe- or the tone of the harmony will overflow you with ideas for a story!!

And finally..try bringing in elements to your music from music styles you haven't touched before. I know this tip might sound confusing because maybe some of you think that it is very important for artists to keep their personality/style. But i believe that change is always good and will always bring something new! And if you don't like it you can always go back to what you new and appreciate it even more:) So even if its just for one day…...pick one style you would have never written anything in, pick elements from it you like…..and try writing a song filled by some of this new elements.

Change is always good- even if it brings you back to where you were!!