Murray Webster

…was a busy year! I started it by submitting the History Of Song module presentation video for my MMus course and then continued straight into a series of enjoyable and successful collaborations with some  highly talented writers for the next module. After that came the biggie double module, a 12-song portfolio of studio recordings, which formed the final submission. For me this was the whole raison d’être of doing the course.

The portfolio formed the basis of two demo CDs I was able to take on a promo visit to the US, a trip for which I have to thank Graham Turner for taking the time to organise, and Daisy Manners for being such a lovely companion.

The Taxi Rally in LA was a smörgåsbord of enlightening seminars and networking. After that came some great collaborations in LA, which will hopefully be finished in the New Year, and closing the show at The Mint with renditions of Evening Sun and Juniper Juice. Apart from that the line ‘LA is a great big freeway’ proved to be entirely true!

After LA and a hair-raising night-time drive from Nashville airport we met up with Lorna of Lorna Flowers Productions in The Gulf Shores for two days of enjoyable shows at The Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival and Lorna then generously introduced us to the ways of Nashville. There were some interesting experiences at an Alabama gas station, being caught speeding by a cop and running out of gas (literally and metaphorically) the afternoon before Thanksgiving. Playing two songwriter rounds in Nashville was also a highlight for me.

It was great to get some good reactions from publishers and supervisors on the trip and from the UK as well, so I’m hoping that next year will be a period of consolidation.

On top of all that we at London Songwriters held 13 highly enjoyable and successful meetups and we are looking forward to 2013’s events.

Oh…and I got to go to Munich for Chelsea’s Champion’s League triumph

All the best for the coming year!

Here I am in LA waiting in a queue for the Taxi Road Rally registration. It should be an interesting and hopefully fruitful three days of seminars and networking. After a couple of further days in LA we will be flying to Nashville and driving to Gulf Shores, Alabama for the Frank Brown Songwriting Festival and then back to Nashville

It’s my first time in The States and I’m amazed it seems quite real rather than like in the movies But then I’m amazed when I go north of Watford that they have normal things like petrol stations and supermarkets.

It’s been a mad busy time since I last wrote. I finished my Masters Degree with a 12-song portfolio, which received some great feedback. London Songwriters continued with regular meetups culminating in a highly successful appearance at The Bloomsbury festival, where we had a stall and provided individual open mic performances in the street.

The busyness continues!

What a busy month!

I attended a number of industry events, one of which led to an offer to publish one of my songs. Four days later I also received another offer for a different song, which resulted from a SongLink pitch.

I attended two more city Showcase events and am continuing to co-write with a number of partners, mostly on a modern pop tip.

There were two London Songwriters events, both of which were well attended and highly enjoyable. The second was at the Garnish School Of Sound in Hackney, featuring the ‘Hit Formula’ devised by the knowledgeable and entertaining songwriting teacher Alex Von Soos.

Yesterday was the second in BASCA’s very informative Professional Development series of seminars chaired by Stuart Worthington and featuring a panel of Sarah Rodges, Julian Nott, Jake Gosling, Malcom Buckland and Kevin O’Byrne of Kobalt Music. The subject was…publishing!

On top of all that the sun is shining and for the moment Chelsea’s fortunes have seemingly revived! Write on