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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: Buld it and they will come.

I'm getting ready to teach a series of songwriting workshops over the next two months. The workshops are just three hours long and I have a lot of information I need to cover so I have to make sure everything's well organized. I've been going over my notes, adding some new ideas, cutting anything I can. The first time I gave this workshop, I thought three hours would be a lot of time to fill but it flew by and I ended up not getting nearly everything in that I wanted to. I'm also working on a new song to illustrate the "ghost song" technique. I specifically chose a genre I don't usually write in - country music - to show how the ghost song technique can be used to learn a new style and increase overall songwriting skills and knowledge. It's coming along pretty well but I'm worried that I won't have the demo done in time.

I've also got two four-week courses scheduled to start in late March and April. Fortunately, because I had so much extra material, I shouldn't have a problem filling it. In addition to the creative side of songwriting, I'll also be covering the business end and doing critiques of student songs.

PBS has been showing a series on the Medici family and 15th century Florence. It's not only fascinating but gorgeous to look at. The Medici seem to have produced a disproportionate number of savvy, intelligent leaders whose brillliance was offset by a couple of total jerks; the Medici popes couldn't have been more destructive and self-serving! Yet all the Medici seem to have understood the power and persuasiveness of art. I picked up a book at the library called Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture which covers the early years of the Medici and the building of the great dome of Florence's Santa Maria Del Fiore cathedral. A dome of this size built of bricks just seems impossible to me.

Gilbert Isbin will be playing here in Los Angeles on Thursday, Feb. 26th at Club Tropical in Culver City. I'm looking forward to it!

Copyright 2004 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.