Some of you may recall reading about the couple of Halloweens I spent teaching Ear Training and Music Theory to a wonderful music-loving community of folksingers and songwriters gathered by my pal Cosy Sheridan in the Utah desert. I learned so much about Music, something I thought I understood in every which way, by attempting to teach certain principles of how its put together to students who did not know how to read music notation. There really is something eye-opening about diving into a language without the usual visual markers we're used to referring to.
Anyway, anyone who has attended one of the Hear Me Out Monologues Labor Day Festival and Awards Ceremony will recognize the name Cosy Sheridan because it is she and her husband Charlie Koch who have provided our incredibly moving musical interludes in between the presentation of Finalist monologues. I consider Cosy to be one of the finest lyricists of our time. There is an economy to her songwriting that surpasses any other I can think of. When you enter into a Cosy Sheridan lyric the words will creep up on you as she chooses carefully to collect the seemingly simplest possibly prosaic words and phrases to spin her tale. And then just when you're lulled into thinking that everything there is to see has already been seen she somehow shifts our focus and the whole world is alight with something unexpected.
In a nod to CoVid and the disappointing need to put Moab Folk Camp on hiatus these last two years, Cosy is offering a songwriting retreat called Desert Song. It'll run from Tuesday May 31st through Friday June 3rd in the gorgeous setting of Moab.
Desert Song. A Songwriting Retreat
If you're a songwriter at any level, Cosy is a teacher who is kind, gentle and sharply insightful. Many times I've sat in awe as she zeroed in on the one element of a student's song that was causing the writer a lot of headaches. She has a gift for knowing what a new song needs and communicating her diagnosis in loving and supportive terms so that no one ever feels stifled. It's a special skill being able to teach writing of any kind. I always say, it's not so much possible to teach writing but it is helpful to present to a writer a completely transparent assessment of what he or she has and has not put down on the page. So often when we set out to write something new we don't get our entire vision onto the page in the first or even third, fifth or sixth draft. The most helpful thing for any of us then is to have someone let us know exactly what it is they see and hear and how it makes them feel.
Then if that feels way off from our intention, the fascinating work of figuring out a better way begins.
