It takes two to be friendly

Inspiring night of music presented by eight participants in the Canadian Songwriter Challenge

“It’s so much friendlier with two,” Winnie the Pooh once said.

This observation from the wise roly-poly bear does hold true, I would say, for most things in life.

Music for example, can be easily and effectively done in a solo format. And yet, all one needs to do is look at the prolific creativity of a duo like Lennon and McCartney to see the extent of creative genius that can be inspired and channelled through the incomparable connection of teamed-up musical minds.

Zeroing in on this creative potential in musical pairings is what was done this month when Music P.E.I. teamed up four Island songwriters with four off-Island songwriters in what was called the Canadian Songwriter Challenge.

Now in its third year, and as a partnership with SaskMusic, Music Ontario and Music Nova Scotia, the 2017 Songwriter Challenge saw Island musicians Dennis Ellsworth, Meaghan Blanchard, Rachel Beck (of The Beck Sisters) and Andrew Waite (of Andrew Waite and the Firm) paired up with artists from Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

The duo teams were: Jordan Alexander (Ontario) with Beck, Tyler Gilbert (Saskatchewan) with Ellsworth, Gabrielle Papillon (Nova Scotia) with Blanchard and Ross Neilsen (Saskatchewan) with Waite.

The fours pairs of artists wrote together for two days, recorded demos of their creations and then presented those demos in a listening session to delegates (that included music publishers, labels, broadcasters from Canada, the U.S. and U.K.) who attended last week’s Canadian Song Conference in Charlottetown.

Following that session, the eight artists then performed on stage together at St. Paul’s Church last Friday evening, as part of the May Run Music Festival, for a concert called Canadian Songsmith Sessions.

It was a unique feeling in that church because of the energy pouring off the stage from these pairs of musicians who, in some cases, had only met days before and who were connected solely on the grounds of immediate musical co-creativity.

Beck described it as she introduced herself and her musical partner that night.

“We met Tuesday morning at 9, and five minutes later we were writing music together,” Beck said, as she and Alexander prepared for their duet performance of their songs on stage.

One of the newly-written tunes they performed was a prime example of brilliance that can burst forth when creative minds meet on a musical playing field: a song called “Hearts on Fire”.

Glowing in its catchy pop hooks, the song seems filled with potential for commercial success, given the right studio treatment and publicity behind it. And even in that raw and unpolished state (with the only instrumentation being Beck on the piano as Alexander sang), the tune struck a chord with many in attendance, as the pews rang out in big applause following its performance.

The first half of the show featured other highlight moments – such as the brand new darkly ethereal song called “But a Ghost” written and performed by Blanchard with Papillon, along with the musical baton passing camaraderie between Ellsworth (who painted a ruminative scene with his song called “Snowed in Amsterdam”) and Gilbert, who belted out an original called “Lady of the Mountaintop”, as his chugging acoustic guitar reverberated throughout St. Paul’s.

In the second half it was certainly a treat to hear some emotional musical tributes to family members by Neilsen and Waite, as they collaborated in their songs with guitar lead work, too, here and there.

All in all, it was an inspiring night presented by Music P.E.I., that displayed a fine musical collage for us to marvel at, enjoy and contemplate how truly different that collage would have sounded if it had been created by eight solo songwriters instead of four songwriting duos.

Two things to sum up: 1) The power of musical collaboration truly never ceases to amaze; and 2) That Winnie the Pooh. I guess he knew a thing or two about the ones and twos.

Next week: Travis Tritt tomorrow night at Credit Union Place.