Beth DeSombre: Blog

I was undecided about what class to take during the middle period at music camp this year. I ended up in Bob Franke’s songwriting class. When I decided to start writing songs again, after more than a decade without doing it, I first enrolled in one of his songwriting workshops, because I knew it would get me writing. And it did. The first two songs I wrote (Sarah’s Song and Moved Out) in this new stage of my music career I wrote as assignments in his classes. I didn’t need the prod this time around – I’ve written many songs on my own – and I’ve also drunk (and enjoyed!) the meter Kool-aid that is his stock in trade. So I didn’t need this class.

I’m working right now on the graphic design for the CD, and it’s exciting, challenging, and scary. I’m not a visual person. But although I don’t think in visual images, I do actually care what things look like. There are some things I like and some I don’t like about images and design (I fall for modernist designs in architecture and housewares, for instance), and I definitely have strong feelings about colors (and I love colors in the purple family and hate those in the neighborhood of orange). And an album cover is forever, so to me it matters what it looks like.

Tomorrow I head off for a week of music camp – Summer Acoustic Music Week (or SAMW, to those in the know) – in New Hampshire. I’ll take three classes, participate in jam sessions and workshops, hear concerts and perform, and not sleep very much. This will be my fifth time there.

Yesterday for the first time I saw the October calendar for Club Passim, which lists me as opening for Sarah McQuaid on October 27th. It’s beyond exciting. Passim is, for me, the icon of the folk music world. Although I’ve been on its stage before, this is my first time as a named performer.

Back in February I took a workshop called KYST – Keeping Your Shit Together – with Shannon Heaton and Laura Cortese at the Passim School of Music. It’s kind of a boot camp for people who want to be touring musicians, and was fantastically helpful both in inspiring me and in giving me practical advice about a number of things.