Depot Artspace

Auckland Guitar School with Dylan Kay Write your first song (part 1)

Dylan Kay

The idea of writing your own song may seem daunting, especially at the beginning of your guitar journey, but it’s within anyone’s grasp. What follows is a simple process to get you started; it can also help to analyse some of your favourite songs with your guitar teacher, to see how it works in practice.

Let’s start with a chord progression.

Understanding which chords fit together in a key will help you here but for now, I’m just going to give you a list of chords that will work well together to choose from – C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am. We’re going to use these to write a song that uses four chords for the verse and four chords for the chorus.

Step 1 - choose three chords at random from our list (e.g. Em Dm G). Start with a bar on a C chord, and then a bar each for your chosen chords (e.g. C Em Dm G). This is your verse!

Feel free to tweak this till you’re happy with the sound of the progression.

Step 2 - follow a similar process for the chorus, but this time choose any four chords. Again, one bar per chord. (e.g. Am F C G).

Step 3 - now decide how you are going to play the chords. Will you strum them? What rhythm will you use? Maybe you want to fingerpick individual notes from the chords? Perhaps the verse could be one approach and the chorus a different one? The choice is yours.

Check out the blog for more detail on the process and an example progression: https://www.aucklandguitarschool.co.nz/ blog/write-your-first-song-part-1/

I hope you can take this idea and start writing some music. Next month we’ll look at adding lyrics to your song. As ever, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you’d like help with your song writing!f you’d like help with your song writing! See you next month!

Dylan Kay, Auckland Guitar School, Howick and Takapuna, Auckland "Transform your playing." 09 533 5246 www.aucklandguitarschool.co.nz

Depot Artspace, Devonport

Amy Saunders

We celebrate another month of inspiring creative enterprise at the Depot. Despite operating under various lockdown conditions we are enjoying the energy, kindness and joy in sharing the journeys of the wonderful creatives we work with.

We are especially thrilled this month to welcome to our Creative Careers and Employment team, Andrew Tui, a highly respected careers practitioner who for over 12 years has provided career guidance to clients and groups in the education and community sectors. We feel very lucky to have Andrew on board and are excited by what the future holds.

Depot Sound. Our resident legend studio engineer and manager, Neil Baldock, is moving on to pursue some of his own projects. We are sad to see him go but wish him all the best for his next adventures. We want to thank Neil for all his hard work and fantastic care of clients while he has been with us. Watch this space as we look at how we run our studio spaces going forward. In the meantime if you want to rehearse, cut a mix or discuss a project please get in touch with our in-house engineer Noah Page at noah@depotsound.co.nz or call 021685070. www.depotsound.co.nz

Wayfind Creative is going from strength to strength as a creative careers programme. We are continuing to add new modules and bespoke elements to the programme to look after each independent creative that joins the programme. We are thrilled to announce that we are now working in partnership with Copyright Licensing NZ, helping our creatives understand the ins and outs of copyright.

If you would like to take your creative career to the next level, check us out: www.wayfindcreative.co.nz

ArtsLab continues to work with job seekers who are looking for a creative career. We focus on increasing confidence, CV writing, health and well-being, job interview techniques, and one to one career coaching. This programme can be life changing. Check out more here www.depotartspace.co.nz/artslab.

Depot Galleries We have three unique exhibitions lined up for March! Check out our events page for full details and also the online gallery to view our online stockroom and past exhibitions. www.depotartspace.co.nz/events www.depotartspacegallery.com

Neil Baldock.