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In November I went on a songwriting course at Moniack Mhor, near Inverness, in Scotland.

The Hobbit House, where we played

Inside the Hobbit House

Outside the Hobbit House

The tutors were Kris Drever – the reason I’d booked the course as I’m a big fan of his – and Michele Stodart.

I got on very well with the midweek guest, Dan “Withered Hand” Willson.

Dan

Kris and me watching Dan

Haggis and pipes on the last evening: Lorraine, Susie, Danielle, Michele, Emma, Lindsay, Phil, Heather, Kris, Neil, Mick, Emily, me, Ken

On the first morning Kris walked around handing out a book to each of us. We were encouraged to plunder its treasures. We had a brief discussion about plagiarism, where Michele said that we shouldn’t worry about that, not least because we’d find we’d want to tweak the original. Kris gave me Border by Kapka Kassabova (2017). I opened it at random and read the phrase, “the history of komshulak”. I quickly found the beginning of the chapter, where the concept was explained as the Bulgarian word for peaceful coexistence.

Leafing back through the book, I then found a sentence that appealed to me: “And somewhere waits a ferryman whose face can’t be seen.”

Jumping ahead again, I came across a sub-heading, “The Monk of Happiness”. I then used these three elements, plus the title of the book, to write a song.

I started out with “Somewhere there waits a ferryman / whose face cannot be seen.” And I started the second verse with “He is the monk of happiness”. I thought this was a good description of Kris, which inspired the subsequent line, “and plays a mean guitar”. When I found the word “mean”, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh. No doubt because of the contrast between “happy” and “mean”. Kris asked me later what I’d laughed about, and I told him. Also that I’d thought of him as “the monk of happiness”. He liked the concept.

My first title was “Secret Star”, which then became “Shooting Star”.

I sang it for Kris in the afternoon, and he thought it sounded finished. His one suggestion, which I eagerly took on board, was to repeat “He’ll bring us back”.

When I recorded the song three days later, I’d changed “ferryman” to “foreigner”, “He is the monk of happiness” to “He wears a mask of happiness”, and the title to “Komshulak”. I later changed the gender of the foreigner from male to female as a tribute to Kapka.

When I got back to Denmark, I put myself on the waiting list for another songwriting course at Moniack in January, with Dan and Kath (from Devon) as the tutors. I was number four on the list, so I felt it was rather unlikely I’d be offered a place. But I was called up at the last moment. I extended the song with two verses originally written in the first person in an a cappella exercise on the last day. I changed “foreigner” to “traveller” in the first piece as a nod to this new piece, but after I’d integrated it, I changed “traveller” to “wanderer”.

This song was the source of inspiration for other songs. Now called “Kapka with Kris”, it is the first of a group of four songs entitled “Komshulak at Moniack”:

komshulak-at-moniack-1Download


I wrote “Part of a Group” on the last day of the course with Kris and Michele. “No More Poisoned Promises” was another combination of two different compositions, the verses written in Denmark in December and the chorus in another a cappella exercise on the first day of an online course this month with Emma and Kath. I wrote “My E-type Jag” there too, using the old chorus of what had become “No More Poisoned Promises”. Emma and Kath gave me some good tips and nudges in my tutorials with them.

Here are recordings of the four songs:

Kapka with Kris
Part of a Group
No More Poisoned Promises
My E-type Jag

Kath & Dan

I wrote a song with Kath in my tutorial with her on the course in January. It’s called “Written in the Stars” and took us under half an hour. The mid-week guest, Louis Abbot, heard us perform it that evening, and the next morning he told me it was a classic. Kath and Dan are going to perform it on their forthcoming tour.

Dan and Kath did a video for a single from their forthcoming album on the last day:

I appear for a split second at 0:11:

and again at 0:54:


Back row: Anna, Phil, Chris, Scott, Tom – middle row: Pam, Martin, Jamie, Jack, Jess –  front row: staff member, Kit’s dog, Ken, Kath, Dan, me

Kath and me performing “Written in the Stars” on the final evening