I live in an apartment right across the street from Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. In the summer time Churchill is a cultural center for our city that revolves, although not solely, around music. At noon on weekdays there’s Brian Gregg, who rocks out on the corner, busking for the lunch crowd, and at night and on weekends I get to listen to the sounds of the many talented singers, songwriters and musicians from Edmonton and abroad. It’s like a music festival that starts in spring and goes until the leaves start falling off the trees and runs the gamut of every possible music style from Folk to Country to Rock to World Beat and I have a front row seat to it all. The level of talent is simply breathtaking and it’s absolutely free to anyone who wants to listen. Right now there’s a Celtic band rocking out and people are dancing all over the square. Think I’ll go check ‘em out.

I’ve been a little dry lately. I've got a melody that I just composed that I really like but I’ve taken two stabs at lyrics and neither did it justice. It’s written in a time signature (5/4) that I haven’t written in before, inspired by a Glen Hansard song I heard from the movie Once. I toyed with the idea of a love gone bad song but I’m just not there right now in my life. I also fooled around with rewriting one of my favorite Alfred Noyes poems from when I was a child “The Highwayman” which I’ve always wanted to put to music, but I’m not sold on it for this tune.

There’s lots of ways of breaking the logjam when you’re blocked. Usually we write about what ever is affecting our lives at the moment but sometimes those things are just not that interesting to write about. We can find great ideas listening to talk radio or daytime talk shows on TV. Books, CDs, and movies can be gold mines. Newspaper headlines are a good source for title ideas. Joni Mitchell says she sits in restaurants and eavesdrops on conversations, however none of these are bearing any fruit for me. John Hiatt says it’s not the two hour performance fans pay for. It’s the 22 other hours of living. If that’s the case I think it’s time to get out and do some of that.

My daughter is back from a three month tour of the interior of BC where she was traveling with a theatre company. I missed her terribly. The thought of her and her brothers growing up is satisfying and at the same time terrifying. For the past quarter of a century my primary job was being a parent.

Fatherhood was my finest hour. I loved being a dad. That they are now grown up is only mitigated by the hope that some day there will be grandchildren but I’m not sure I would have been the dad I was if it weren’t for a song.

When I was in my late teens I first heard the Harry Chapin tune “Cat’s In The Cradle”, a story about a man who provides for his family by working hard, but forgets to spend time with his son and finds in his old age his son has no time to spend with him. The implication is he’s learned this from his father. The terror of that fate has always reminded me to spend as much time as I could with my children (and my parents) and my relationship with my family as a result is the richest and most satisfying part of my life. But it might not have been if it were not for those words.

Some years ago I read a book by Alvin Tofler called Power Shift. In that book the author argues (only much more eloquently) that power has many sources. It can come from bullets, from dollars and last of all from ideas or words. You can make a person do something at the point of a gun but once the gun goes away that person will revert back to doing what ever they want. You can pay somebody to do something but as soon as the money runs out they will find something else to do. The ultimate power comes from words. If you convince a person to do something because its right they will continue to do that thing for the rest of their lives. I’m a better father because of the words of a song. I love the richness of the English language and the power of its words. You mix that with the power of music and who knows? You could change the world.

I first heard about Doctors Without Borders from my good friend Doreen Wicks who with her husband Ben ran an organization called GEMS. They took medical supplies into the third world and later did micro enterprise in the third world. We met when I became a supporter of GEMS. When Doreen retired I began looking for another home for my support and when I asked her whom she liked she instantly answered Doctors Without Borders. She’d witnessed first hand their courage in the field as a relief worker and highly recommended them. I’ve been an avid fan and supporter since.

Founded by a rebel group of French doctors in 1971 Medicins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders annually sends thousands of volunteers into refugee camps and conflict zones where medical care is  desperately needed. They work in dangerous places and many are hurt, kidnapped and even murdered. This Nobel Prize winning group with its   3000 volunteers in 80 countries is the largest independent medical  humanitarian organization in the world. When a country’s on fire and  everyone’s running for cover MSF is usually charging in where no one  else will go. Their heroism is well-documented in books like Touched by Fire and Hope in Hell and the television series Crisis Zone. The   idea of well-paid professionals leaving the security of their comfortable lives to go live and perform surgery in war zones   captivates the imagination. These are truly the last heroes in a world that desperately needs heroes.

I host a songwriter’s circle, the first Monday of each month, at my home, in downtown Edmonton. Twenty odd songwriters sit in a circle and each play new songs we’ve written and the rest voice their opinions about what they liked about that song and how they’d change it if it were theirs. It’s a great place to get an honest opinion of how an audience is reacting to a new song you’ve written. It’s not for everyone. There are those who feel the first version of a song is a gift from their muse and shouldn’t be changed. On the other hand if you are like me and once you’ve written a song you tend to be so close to it that you have a hard time seeing it objectively, this is a good wake up call if the song is not working.

The idea is that you take the comments that you hear and if you agree with them you rewrite the song to make it better. Not everyone at our circle is an expert writer but I believe everyone is an expert listener. The comments are often very helpful and almost always well intentioned. For the better part the feedback will come in the form of “what I liked about your song was …… and if it were mine what I would like to see is ……”

It’s a very supportive group. We started over a decade ago at the B Scene Studios, hosted by Todd, the owner. We moved downtown a few years ago and we still have a hand full of the original members. Some show up every month, some every other month, some a couple times a year and some come once and its not for them. Many of the members who’ve hung in have gotten much better over time and the level of craftsmanship has improved tremendously. If you are interested and you think you'd like to join just email me and I'll put you on my mailing list. I send out a general invitation a week before each event which will explain everything you need to know to participate. 

I'm at:   rmcinc@telusplanet.net