Jan 25-27, 2008
I have been teaching songwriting for 18 years and I’m as excited by each new workshop as I was by the first. The creative act is an encounter between our everyday selves and a larger, wiser, and more loving self. In nearly all the workshops I’ve taught, I’ve discovered at least one world-class songwriter, quite often two or three, so I’ve become an advocate of decentralized sharing of the work of these people. Songs can heal the composer, the community, and the culture. Rhythm, rhyme, melody, harmony, and meter seem to be hard-wired in us. I teach my songwriters how to become better shamans.
“I ask each person: What kind of song do you admire but can’t imagine yourself writing? The response guides an exchange in which I devise a songwriting assignment designed to re-frame, then transcend, the difficulty. Everyone is a beginner in trying something new and challenging, so the footing is equal. The deadline isn’t comfortable, but it’s wonderfully productive. Participants can bring back, prepared to sing, a first draft of the song in less than a day. We banish the inner critic; the group becomes a more compassionate and accurate outer critic. Together, we determine what works well and what doesn’t.
“Our spiritual guides will be Rainer Maria Rilke and Brenda Ueland, who present the creative act as a profound responsibility and an imminently available joy. My workshops are difficult, but as Rilke says, the difficult is essential. I’ve been midwife and witness to the creation of many amazing songs. Like all creation, they are also fun, occasionally scary, but ultimately safe. I love doing this work and, by experience and grace, I am good at it.”
Bob Franke has consistently been given rave reviews for the many dozens of songwriting and guitar workshops he has conducted. He began his career as a singer-songwriter in 1965 and is now at the peak of his craft — spiritually generous and brimming with wisdom. Tom Paxton says, “It’s his integrity. I always think of Bob as if Emerson and Thoreau had picked up acoustic guitars and gotten into songwriting. There’s touches of Mark Twain and Buddy Holly in there, too.” Many of Bob’s songs are classics. Seasoned veterans and novices alike are drawn to the complex, warm-hearted spirituality and captivatingly clear-cut melodies of his songs.
“In the folk singer-songwriter realm, Franke is simply the best.” — Larry Kelp
“ . . . a singer-songwriter unsurpassed for his lyrical grace . . . one of our wisest and most spiritually graceful songwriters”
—The Boston Globe