Dan Roark

[Re-post from DSA blog] Larry Beaird presented his “Arranging the Hit” songwriting workshop on Saturday, October 24 at the Kitchen Café. The workshop was held from noon – 4 p.m. The start was delayed for several minutes – through no fault of Larry’s. The restaurant offered a limited lunch menu for the workshop attendees. Quite a few people took advantage of the lunch offerings. The waitress, Maria, took care of business well, while taking care not to disturb the workshop.

When he began his presentation, he introduced himself while passing out entry forms for a drawing to win a $625 demo session at his Beaird Music Group recording studio in Nashville. He charted the number one country songs for the past two years. He used standards such as the Nashville number system, and the length of time between certain components of each song, as well as the structure of those components.

It was apparent at times, from the questions, that some of the songwriters in the room were concerned about their songs. Beaird was careful to point out several times that he was just talking about songs that had reached number one on the charts.

“Write your songs for you. I’m not telling you how to write your songs. I’m just talking about number one hits. There are a lot of good songs out there. They just don’t make number one for whatever reason.”

I hesitate to give too much away out of respect to Larry and those in attendance. But I will let you in on a couple of key points. Every line of a song should point to the title. And the title should be in the last line of the chorus and the last line of the song.

Beaird spent the last hour of the workshop critiquing the songs that he had received beforehand. After locating the songwriter, he played the song, after which everyone applauded. Larry then critiqued the song, while also telling the songwriter what he liked. He made suggestions as to what they could do to improve the song. His suggestions were very good and well received.

The workshop went past 4 p.m. with people excited about the subject of songwriting. Question after question was asked. And answered fully by Larry. An enjoyable, successful day was had by everyone in attendance, with good food, good conversation, and an informative songwriting workshop. The workshop participants and DSA want to thank Larry for coming to Dallas to present his workshop for us. We will announce the winner of the drawing for the demo session when Larry lets us know.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.