Songwriters’ News February 2026

By Mike Rudquist

Please Note: Going forward, all online Zoom events will use the same Zoom link.  Here is a member-only link to our "Member Event Access" page which has the Zoom link:

https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/member-event-access/

Also Note:  All monthly MAS online meetings will be held within the same time frame of 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.  (This does not include the Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show.  See the event listing below for times.)

Monthly Mixer with Doug Millaway
Wednesday, February 4, 2025, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

This meeting allows for all types of topics to be explored and discussed as it relates to songwriting – the writing process, production, inspiration, the music business – all topics related to the craft, production and business of songwriting. This is a moderated open discussion, and participants are encouraged to share their personal experiences and expertise.

Evening with singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt
Thursday, February 5th, 6:30 – 8:30

We will be hosting Nashville singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt for an evening conversation about songwriting. If you’ve ever seen Danny live, you know that in addition to being an amazing songwriter, he’s a great storyteller as well. 

I’ll be sending out more information as we get closer to the date. The format will be similar to the Kent Blaze event in the sense that it’ll be focused on a Q&A session, but there may be time for Danny to listen to a few tunes as well. 

Danny might be the most eloquent singer-songwriter I know. Hopefully you’ll find him equally engaging.

Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show with Carl Unbehaun
Thursdays all month – February 5, 12, 19, 26

Every Thursday evening from 6 to 7 pm, fellow MAS member and radio DJ Carl Unbehaun offers music written and/or performed by Minnesota musicians on his Minnesota Homebrew Radio Show. Radio station KSRQ in Thief River Falls (90.1 FM) streams Carl’s show via the Internet. On the FIRST Thursday of the month, Carl dedicates his entire show to music written by members of the Minnesota Association of Songwriters!

To submit your songs to Carl’s MAS-dedicated show or to have it played on any Thursday night, contact Carl at minnesotahomebrew@gmail.com.

To listen to Minnesota Homebrew on your devices, click here:  https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/radio-airplay/.

Online Round Robin Song Share with Paul Nye
Wednesday, February 11 6:30 – 8:30 pm

This is a laid-back, come as you are type get together with fellow songwriters to share your songs in a take turns fashion either performing live via zoom or with a recorded version of your songs. Just for fun and just to get together and play. Even if you want to just join in to listen, this is the place for you!

Monthly Online Song Review Session Hosted by Doug Millaway
Wednesday, February 25 – 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

This is our general information and song review meeting. You are welcome to play an original song in any phase of its development or completion for purposes of potentially improving it based on feedback received.

Please refrain from submitting songs you do not intend to change from feedback given. You’re welcome to share those in our Round Robin Song session above. Our review sessions are one of the best opportunities to help you learn and improve your craft. Giving feedback on other writers’ songs, and listening to others doing the same, is a great teaching tool.

You may submit your song’s audio and-or lyrics only for review up to the time of the review session. Please note, we are limited in the songs we can fit in, so you’ll want to watch for the email announcement to submit them and get it in early. Please do not submit songs prior to the announcement to avoid missing out.

We will play an MP3 of your song directly in the room. While MP3s played digitally in the room are generally easier for people to hear, they are not required for feedback. We’ll also accept lyrics only.

Find more detail, go to our Song Review Meeting page on our website: https://mnsongwriters.org/activities/meetings.

You can check out all MAS events on our website calendar.

 

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Live Event – Writing Better Lyrics/Songwriting Without Boundaries Workshop with Rachel Dunlap
Saturday, February 28,  2-4 pm

Please join us on Saturday afternoon, February 28, from 2-4pm to work on some writing exercises from the Pat Pattison books, “Writing Better Lyrics” and “Songwriting Without Boundaries.” Sharpen your lyrical skills and generate song ideas by working on sensory descriptions and literary tools like metaphor with these exercises. If you want to connect with other MAS members in person and have some writing practice, then this workshop is for you. Hosted by Rachel Dunlap.

Location* This workshop will be held at the Roseville Library in the Board Room on the 2nd floor, NW corner. Address is 2180 Hamline Ave. N., Roseville MN  55113.  Members of another local songwriting group, M.A.C.S. (MN Association of Christian Songwriters) will also be invited.

Rachel will be hosting similar workshops on the last Saturday of each month through April. Summer schedule TBA.

Rachel Dunlap is a drummer and songwriter. She plays the drums locally with the band Smooth Sensations and her solo music can be found on SoundCloud under the name Dunrap. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Minnesota.

Thanks!  Rachel D.

 

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President's Message

Writing with Heart—Listening with Distance
When You’re Too Close to Your Own Songs

By Paul Nye

Songs Don’t Repeat Themselves. Songwriters Do.

There’s a popular saying: “History repeats itself.” It really doesn’t. The past never comes back exactly the same. What does repeat is human nature. The fears change. Technology changes. Culture changes. But the human heart is stubbornly consistent. We still fall in love. We still get our hearts broken. We still wrestle with doubt, faith, jealousy, pride, forgiveness, and hope.

Different decades, same emotional wiring.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize the same thing is true in songwriting. Songs don’t repeat themselves. Songwriters do. Every generation believes its writing something completely new. And in some ways, it is. The production changes. The grooves change. The playlists change. But if you strip away the sounds and the slang, we’re still circling the same set of human questions:

Who am I?
Who do I love?
Why did this fall apart?
What do I believe?
How do I survive this?

As someone once said, “Every ten years, the industry declares something new — and every ten years it quietly rediscovers something old.” We’ve seen it again and again. Country swings back to the 90s. Folk disappears and comes roaring back. Worship music cycles from hymns to praise to indie worship and back again. The surface keeps changing, but the emotional DNA of songs barely moves.

That’s not a problem — that’s the whole point.

We’re not in the business of inventing new emotions. We’re in the business of finding new ways to tell very old truths. The danger isn’t repetition of themes. The danger is repetition of habits. We fall back on familiar rhymes. We lean on phrases we’ve heard too many times. We reach for metaphors that worked once before.

Some of us don’t repeat history. We repeat rhyme schemes. And if I’m being honest, I’ve written at least twelve songs that were all secretly about the same breakup.

Growth in songwriting rarely comes from finding brand-new subjects. It usually comes from changing the angle. Changing the point of view. Changing the level of honesty.

A breakup song becomes interesting when it’s told from the other side. A love song becomes fresh when it admits fear. A faith song becomes powerful when it allows doubt in the room.

So, here’s a small practical challenge for this month — something you can try the next time you sit down to write:

• Rewrite an old theme from a completely new point of view.
• Write a love song without using the word love.
• Write a breakup song from twenty years later, when the anger is gone and only the memory remains.

The job isn’t to be original in topic. The job is to be original in voice. Maybe that’s one of the quiet callings of songwriters in every generation: to take the same old human story and tell it in a way that sounds like it’s never been told before — even though it has, thousands of times.

History may not repeat itself. But songs keep rhyming. And maybe that’s not failure. Maybe that’s how we remember who we are.

Or, as I keep reminding myself: “Some of us don’t repeat history. We repeat rhyme schemes.”

Paul Nye
President, Minnesota Association of Songwriters

 

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Editor’s Notes

By Mary Kealy-Falk

BRRR!  As I sit here putting the newsletter information together, I’m checking the weather report and thankfully the temperature has gone from minus 18 degrees to minus 8 degrees. (only in Minnesota can you be grateful for minus 8 degrees!) My furnace is in overdrive and having trouble keeping up so I’ve got space heaters going in multiple rooms around my house.  So, what do you do to keep yourself from thinking about how cold it is or how cold you are.  You write a song of course.  Or for some of us, we write a feature article or other addition for the MAS Newsletter.  With that said, Paul Nye gives us his take on the circle of the songwriting life.  What is old is new, what is past is present – but all in a new way, in a new voice and for a new audience.  Look in the February events section for info on an evening with Nashville singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt and a conversation about songwriting. If you see Danny live, you can see that in addition to being an amazing songwriter, he’s a great storyteller as well. I’m adding my two cents with the article “If You Want to Write a Song, Start by Just Writing.”  And check out all the activities and events that MAS members are sharing with us in the “Putting it Out There” column. So, stay warm and enjoy our February issue of the MAS Newsletter!

 

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Putting it Out There

Vicki Morrison Goble

Singer-songwriters work hard. Since joining MAS, I’ve discovered incredible singer-songwriters are everywhere, but they are often under-noticed. That is one of the reasons I started my Substack series, Songwriter Safari. Each week I spotlight a different independent songwriter, often someone few have heard of (yet), but one who should be noticed. I do this, in part, to support people who choose to participate rather than only observe.

If you’re reading this, you are most likely a songwriter, so chances are you already chose participation over passive consumption. That matters. It matters to you, it matters to your community, and it matters to our culture.

If you’re not already familiar with Songwriter Safari, you can check it out at http://lateblooming.substack.com. If you like it, please subscribe and spread the word so the songwriters I’ve been showcasing can enjoy a wider audience. And whether you do or not, keep writing, keep playing, keep showing up.

David Coffel

Some friends of mine and I are opening a listening room in Avon at the site of the old Aunt Annie's Quilts and Silks, which was regionally famous for their high quality of both performers and sound, which we are trying to recreate.

We have an Open Mic every Wednesday, 6-9 pm. Sign up as you arrive, 15 minute time slots. Monthly songwriter challenge coming soon.

We will start having national/regional acts in March with great singer/songwriters. Here's our scheduled acts so far-

• Sunday March 1 David Huckfelt 4 PM
• Friday March 27 Tim Grimm with Sergio Webb
• Saturday April 4 Radoslav Lorkovic
• Sunday April 12 Pieta Brown 4 PM
• Sunday April 26 Erik Koskinen duo 4 PM
• Sunday May 17 Weary Ramblers 4 PM
• Sunday May 31 Julian Taylor 4 PM

And more to come soon!

We also have an art gallery with the first show coming soon.

The address is:
109 Avon Ave S
Avon, MN, 56310

Our website is still in development but the URL is www.aalisteninggallery.com

Amanda Grace

We meet most Mondays during the "school year" – Our current meeting location is in the lower level of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard, 4801 France Ave S,  Edina, Minnesota.

We start at 6:00 PM and end at 8:00 PM.

We are also moving to an alternating schedule. Chromatic Club Tunes for 2 hours one week and Diatonic Jam Tracks for 2 hours the following week.

 

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Articles

If You Want to Write Songs (You Might Start by Just Writing)

By Mary Kealy-Falk

I have been writing one thing or another for most of my life.  I remember as a grade schooler in about 4^th grade or so, I wrote a poem for a school assignment.  I can’t remember the poem except for the one phrase that maybe showed that there might be something to the writing life for me.  The poem was probably about the seasons changing because the line I remember was “And the next comer Is summer”.  At least I had a vague idea about rhymes in poetry. 

It was also about fourth grade that I took lessons from my piano teacher of several years, Sister Genette.  She was a wonderful teacher and became a huge influence in my life.  I remember coming to one of my piano lessons and playing for her my very first piano composition that I made up. I can’t say I wrote it because I didn’t know how to write music scores at that time.  But she helped me by teaching me how to chart simple notes to simple melodies.  And she encouraged me to keep writing my own songs and piano pieces.  What a gift.

When I was in high school, probably a Junior, I wrote a short story for an assignment by our English teacher.   It ended up being 25 typewritten pages long about two misfit guys who live on the streets of New York City starting a restaurant but with a tragic ending.  My teacher called me into his office one day shortly after I had handed it in and for a good hour was grilling me on where I got the idea, why did I have the setting in New York, why did I have the younger partner get killed by the older partner in the end, etc.  All I kept saying was “It’s just a story, I don’t know why I wrote it that way.”  It took me some time to realize (I was only 16 at the time), that he didn’t believe that I wrote it and thought I was getting help from someone or plagiarizing someone else’s story.

What that story reminded me of as I recently dug it out of an old box in my basement to find it, is that when we are acting and responding to our creative side and we are in touch with the artist within us, there is no “reason” why we can do things like write stories or write songs or draw beautiful paintings or do anything else that is at the level of artistry.  Yes, we need to work at our craft, and we don’t always hit the mark of creating something truly beautiful and unique. But if it is tapping into the creative energy that we nurture with work and study and practice and help from those who can teach us, we each can be a songwriter, poet, musician, singer, writer, or any other artistic pursuit that we are gifted with so we can give that energy back to the world.

I have recently been reading a book I have known about for years and have had a copy on my bookshelf for again – years.  It’s been named by many authorities as the best book about writing that was ever written.  It’s called “If You Want to Write” by Brenda Ueland.  And she wrote it in 1938.  She talks about this same theme – that the artistry of writing or any other artistic pursuit is not about popularity.  It’s about expressing something that a person needs to express.  It’s about telling the truth.  But it needs to be their truth, and it needs to come from their true self and not from the self they think they need to be.

This certainly can apply to the songs we write, the lyrics we choose, and the melodies we incorporate.  Is the song coming from our truth or is it just trying to fit into the mold of the right sound, the right lyrics, and the right ideas of the day.  Brenda Ueland tells us that the most important thing in a creative pursuit like writing songs is to be original and create from who you are and not who you think you should be.  If you write songs from yourself, you cannot help being original.

She continues, “So remember these two things:  you are talented and you are original.  Be sure of that.  I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing (and songwriting).”