Georgian Shores Songwriters’ Circle Provides Opportunities to Hone Their Craft

Meet a group devoted to celebrating local original music

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COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION

If you know Grey-Bruce, you know that it is a musical hotbed. For some unknown reason, the twin-county area (and I’ll include the western edge of Simcoe as well) is utterly blessed with musicians in all genres. They’re practically coming out of the woodwork, if not the woods themselves. 

Of those, there is one special category – the songwriter – whose efforts are of special note. Most people who play guitar can bang out some serviceable Neil Young or Tom Petty, but not everyone who picks up an instrument (even if they play with grace and proficiency) decides to make the leap into writing their own material.

Fortunately, there is a group devoted to celebrating local original music. It is a place where new material can be inspired, shared, critiqued, workshopped, and perfected in a warm, friendly and non-intimidating way. It is the Georgian Shores Songwriters’ Circle. (Full disclosure: I am one of the directors of the group.)

The group was formed by Beth Hamilton and Connie Rossiter over a decade ago and has been meeting once a month. At its peak (pre-pandemic) it had chapters in Owen Sound and Clarksburg which met bimonthly. Dave Hawkins and I became directors in 2017.

Membership floats somewhere between 10 and 20 individuals, not all of whom attend consistently. They come from right across the region, from Wiarton to Shelburne, from Collingwood to Sauble Beach. They play in many styles, and are of varying abilities as musicians, but they all love to write their own music.

Dave Hawkins is the former owner of Fromager Music and has been writing songs since he was fifteen, but only seriously since he was sixty. Though he has hung out with songwriters all his life, the Circle is the first formal group to which he has belonged.

He values the new approaches to songwriting he has learned from the group, and the honest critique. These are important, as songwriting is objectively quite difficult. “Sometimes I write a song and think that I compromised and was lazy,” says Hawkins, “that I borrowed the chord structure and the melody and I think it’s pedestrian…”

But the upside is special. “There are so many rewards when you write a song that not only speaks to you but other people find that it evokes emotions for them. It’s cathartic.”

One technique practised by Hawkins and several others is to learn cover songs they may never perform in order to understand the ways they are put together. Hawkins gets a lot of inspiration from old time country music, jazz, pop, and particularly sparse, stripped-down indie pop styles that force you to concentrate on the melody and the vocals.

“I like to explore different ways of doing melodies and doing chords and it makes me more interested in listening to a variety of different music in order to incorporate it in my next song. I’m listening to string quartets right now!”

Dave Hartt, who along with fellow Circle stalwart Kailey Jane Hawkins hails from distant Timmins, finds that accountability is one of the best things about the group. “[The Circle] made me up my game as a writer and with the monthly meetings it drives me to write songs to have something to present.” 

Kailey agrees. “It does not come naturally to me to write my own music and I find I really have to focus to make it happen, but I do find it easier if I am kind to myself as I write and don't assume everything that is coming out is trash.” 

While Kailey has only been writing songs since 2015, Meafordite Bill Monahan has been writing songs since even before he began playing guitar in 1965, accompanying himself on bongos. The Circle has allowed him to get over slumps and writer’s block. Bill’s approach is unique. He has been known to write songs in their entirety in his head before bringing in an instrument. For him the process is perhaps even more important than the finished product.

One remarkable aspect of the Circle is how every participant has such different and distinct styles. Sandy Harron from Shelburne brings powerhouse vocals to songs in an Americana/roots idiom that could find her on stage in Nashville with her banjo. Hartt’s piano work is big and bold and some of his songs sound like contemporary show tunes. Andrew Crighton from Collingwood creates sonic landscapes with ambitious chords, some of his own invention.

The Circle is democratic, welcoming, and dynamic. Everyone with an interest in creating original music is invited to come down and be exposed to new ideas and to engage in spirited discussion of musical topics – such as how many clichés in a song are too much, or what are the pitfalls of starting the writing process with lyrics as opposed to music. These aren’t dry, disinterested debates, but attempts to get to the core of composition.

Maybe the next great local songwriter will come from our ranks? Maybe it’s you? 

For more information and to be put on our mailing list, please contact Dave Hawkins at davehawkins100@gmail.com or myself at r_sitoski@yahoo.ca.  

Thank you to sponsors of The Owen Sound Current Writers’ Fund, who make these community contributions possible. Contributions from the community do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.