Want to hone your songwriting skills? These free sessions in Houma aim to help.
Two local musicians have teamed up to give out free music lessons at monthly workshops starting next year.
Barry Chauvin and Tommy Ike Hailey teamed up three years ago for three-day workshops that taught musicians songwriting skills and allowed them to perform together. It was so successful they've gathered some grants, roughly $12,000, and intend to offer Songwriter Sessions every month next year, free to the public.
"We did this as a pilot project three years ago, and we did a series of three workshops, and we had a total of 10 to 15 students," Chauvin said. "And we did it just to see if people would come and if it was needed, and people liked it."
The duo, both of whom play guitar and sing, stopped the workshops the past two years because of the COVID pandemic and Hurricane Ida. But anyone interested in songwriting can sign up starting Jan. 1 at the Main Library in Houma for workshops that will be held the last Saturday of each month, with the first scheduled Jan. 28.
Houma rapper releases new album:Gives fans first listen, shares musical journey
Singer from Gray:Touring the US with a New York-based musical about Aretha Franklin
Each session will include a two-hour workshop, followed by a two-hour song circle that allows each each participant to play before the others in an informal setting. Participants will then perform the following Sunday afternoon at Lumiere's Bistro in downtown Houma.
Hailey, an anthropology professor at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, is creator and host of the Troubadours Songwriter Night as well as the CenLA Songwriters Circle in and around Alexandria. He co-produces the Songwriter Sessions and the YouTube songwriter interview series. He regularly serves as stage host and performs at the Mississippi Songwriters Festival, the Songs On The Bayou Songwriters Festival, the Third Street Songwriters Festival and the Overbrook Songwriters Festival.
Chauvin is the head of Options for Independence, a nonprofit in Houma focused on mental health. He's been a regular host and featured artist at the Songs on the Bayou Songwriter's Festival in Morgan City and the Third Street Songwriter's Festival in Baton Rouge. He regularly performs each year at the Mississippi Songwriter's Festival, the Ozone Songwriter's Festival and the Overbrook Songwriter's Festival in Brookhaven, Mississippi.
Chauvin said the upcoming songwriting sessions are open to anyone.
"They don't even have to play an instrument," Chauvin said. "If they want to learn how to write lyrics, we'll do that. It could be poets, it could be storyteller, just anyone with a story they want to tell. we'll show them how to convert that into a song," Chauvin said. "Songwriting is a free-flowing form, but there's certain skills that you develop that help make it a lot easier. There's a framework to it, and we are going to teach them that framework."
The musical workshops in the past have had about 10-12 people per session, said Chauvin. He said each of the workshops will be recorded and stored so anyone could go back and review the lessons. Chauvin said he hopes to archive the trove of lessons at the library.
"So at the end of a year, we'll have this whole library of information for people," he said.
This article originally appeared on The Courier: Want to write songs? Sign up for these free sessions in Houma.
