PREVIEW: Kendra McKinley Offers a Songwriting Workshop
05/02 @ Hilltown Commons, Rensselaerville
On Saturday, May 2, Kendra McKinley, a songwriter, producer, artist based in the Hudson Valley, will be leading a songwriting workshop at Hilltown Commons in Rensselaerville. This is a single day workshop, wherein McKinley will be sharing personal tips, tricks and prompts to encourage people in their songwriting development.
The workshop is open to any and all people interested in songwriting and not limited to those with songwriting or instrument backgrounds. While attendees are encouraged to bring an instrument that they can use to accompany themselves, it is not mandatory as there will be instrumental tracks provided for people to write melodies and lyrics on top of.
Having built her life and career around writing and sharing original music, McKinley believes that songwriting is an extremely powerful tool for personal growth and transformation, as well as a way to be honest with yourself, and to harness nearly any emotion and experience into something that can be shared with others.
In the workshop, McKinley will be giving attendees the basic structure of a song. The verse, chorus, and bridge, as well as lyrical structure, etc. While the basics are definitely covered in the workshop, McKinley envisions it as far more than just a basic songwriting course.
“For me, the main crux of the class is to encourage people to use tools to manage their own creative blocks. In my experience, and in a lot of my peers' experience, people can have really high standards about what they want to write and therefore will get stuck before they're willing to try new things,” she says.
“I have ideas of tools that they can use, prompts that they can reference, as well as the technical framework of what a song is to give people the resources to get curious about their own creativity and make something.”
The workshop will be approximately three hours total, with the first two being dedicated to songwriting analysis and concepts, along with some corresponding exercises. In the last hour of the day, students will get the opportunity to work their ideas into a finished song, before presenting them in an “open-mic” format with the class. While it may be a classroom, of sorts, McKinley notes that there will be a full bar available for this portion of the workshop.
“We have a full bar so that people can have a little liquid courage,” McKinley adds with a laugh.
The class will be capped at 30 participants, to ensure that McKinley can give the proper attention to each individual.
For more information, please visit: https://www.hilltowncommons.org/workshops