Don McLean’s “Vincent”, Paul Simon’s “The Boxer”, Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again, Naturally”, Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” and even Rom Dongeto’s “Tatsulok” offer valuable examples of how powerful lyrics can be, the type that will provide a song with a strong enough foundation that will make it last generations.
Songwriter Gary Granada, who composed “Saranggola sa Ulan”, “Mabuti Pa Sila”, “Kahit Konti”, “Salamat Musika”, among other Filipino classics, expounded on the lessons that these songs and others provide and techniques on how to master the skill of writing lyrics during his session on “Lyric Writing” during the recent PhilPop Songwriting Boot Camp in Antipolo.
During his session, he showed the following videos to the close to 40 fellows who took part in the PhilPop Songwriting Boot Camp 2017.
On its sixth year, the Philippine Popular Music Festival Foundation (PhilPop) organized the boot camp, supervised by boot camp masters Ryan Cayabyab and Noel Cabangon, to help aspiring composers craft better songs.
The first camp was held in Antipolo on May 11 to 14 to be followed by sessions in Baguio, from July 13 to 16; Cebu, Sept. 14 to 17, and Davao, Nov. 23 to 26.