BSC

Oy! Songs are up from this past Sunday! Check 'em out, tell your friends! (If yours isn't up yet, it's because I don't have your lyrics--email them to me at [email protected] and I'll fix everything.)

Stay awesome,

Songs from last week's meeting are up just in time for this week's meeting! Yowza! Enjoy!

Because we can only upload a few little tidbits of video at a time via tumblr's own web tools, we've started a YouTube channel. It was probably inevitable that this would happen.

Anyhow, the videos (all of them!) from last week's meeting are up there now, with lyrics and everything. Check 'em out, show your friends!

Had to compress this one differently because it was a bit longer than Jack's and tumblr won't upload anything over 100 mb, so... I'm still learning. Webb's voice and guitar work are still quite audible, though.

Try to Be Kind/Aveline

I'll be your gatherer

I'll store your words away

I'll keep them warm and safe

Hope you don't mind

I'll be your wonderer

I'll spend my nights awake

Explore the moonscape 

Breathe thoughts like sighs

Aveline, please make me clean

And happy as your wide eyes are keen

I'm stormier than I am brave, but I try to be kind

Instrumental break

You have a layman's eyes

They are as dark as mine

Look before you leap

And don't presume to write my lines

I'll pen myself in time

Aveline, sew up my seams

Love me while I'm young and green

I'm arbitrary and half-blind, but I try to be kind

Instrumental break

You can be my widower

I'll send you all the songs I sing

I'll write you up a paper ring

To dangle off your finger

Aveline, my soul is screened

And misty as your hair's soft sheen

I'm sick as a half-assed lie, but I try to be kind

I'm lonely as a midnight cry, but I try to be kind 

I try to be kind

This is from our meeting on Sunday, November 9th. The prompt was to write a song from the title "Look Before You Leap," but Jack had no flashes of inspiration, so he brought us this lovely tidbit instead.

The mountains have turned from green to orange to grey

And every sun down is another wasted day

It’s time I shed my boots and soapstone skin

This Vermont winters gonna do me in

The man on the radio never seen nothing like this

The frost hit our land like an ice cold kiss

I’d pack my bags but I don’t know where to begin

Turns out you can only post five minutes of video per day on this here tumblr machine dealie. Who woulda thunk it? (Not me.) So I won't be able to post recordings of our meetings, since they've been running about 50 minutes each.

Also, I had the flip cam in what turned out to be a videographically inoptimal location this past meeting: you can't see a lot, though you can hear pretty well what's going on. I suppose that's the important thing, anyway. So there'll be some videos coming along in five-minute increments, maybe two a day if they'll fit into a five-minute total. Each post will have the lyrics in it as well as the recording. I'm using Windows (Live[!]) Movie Maker, and I have very little idea what I'm doing, so it's slow going. But it's on its way. First set is going up tonight.

Rock on,

It's Will again, here to tell you a little bit about the ol' BSC.

Let's say you happen to wander into Downcafe on a Sunday night around 8:30. On that occasion, you will encounter a group of 8 or so students with instruments looking ready. Very ready. Each student has written a song in the week since the last meeting, and is just itching to share it.

Each week, there's a different "challenge" to help us get started writing a song. Most of them are pretty open-ended; the idea is that despite having the same prompt, very different songs will emerge from different people. I may have a spooky song in 3/4 about ghosts, while another member has a tune to a swing-dance beat about fighting crime. Largely just a way to get us writing something. You know.

Zounds! And when a person has pulled up the lyrics on the projector and performed their song, they can get feedback on it that's as specific as they want. Really, the group is about forming a creative, collaborative community. Supporting each other week to week and song to song is one of our main goals.

Hi, folks!

This is the blog for the Bennington Songwriters Circle, a group of students at Bennington College which meets on Sunday nights to perform and workshop each other's songs.

We've just started up, in this fall term of 2014, and after three meetings, we've decided to have a blog. Probably a vlog, too, actually--I have procured a friend's flip cam in preparation for this weekend. We'll see how the quality comes out.

More about us--who we are, what we do--in a post to come. 'Til then, hang tight, and we'll see you on Sunday!