Reports From Rocky Mountain Folks Fest Song School

Sounds of a group practicing yodeling echo across the lawn. A knot of three people sit under a tree, listening intently to a man playing his guitar and talking. Green- and white-striped event tents of various sizes are widely scattered across the large, tree-dotted space. In each tent, providing welcome shade on this sunny Colorado day, a circle of people sits. They are the students and teachers of the Song School, a week-long orgy of creativity that happens each year at Planet Bluegrass in Lyons, Colo., right before the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest.

Brian Eyster, director of media relations for Planet Bluegrass, gives me a quick tour of the 13 acre ranch. He stresses that they work very hard to create an intimate, nurturing environment so that students feel free to express and create. So I lurk in the background and listen to some masters of songwriting share their wisdom with a very age-diverse group of students.

The man playing his guitar under a tree with three intent listeners turns out to be Tom Prasada-Rao, a master of East-meets-West, and his listeners are other teachers at the Song School, who have asked for an impromptu class. Vance Gilbert has set up a fake coffeehouse backstage, where he critiques students' performances and songs. The coffeehouse atmosphere isn't the only fake thing: he also fake vomits at a student's lyrics, saying, "That verse is so 14, and you're what? It needs a legal age verse that can be sung by a mature young woman." He is then very complimentary about the core of the song and her presentation, and she leaves the "stage" joking and self-confident.

Pat Pattison, who teaches song writing at Berklee College of Music and seminars all over the country, is speaking to a large crowd. He talks about when it is justified to repeat a first verse as a last verse. According to him, most of the time, it isn't, because the lyric needs to have gained meaning through our having heard the verses in between. He cites Suzanne Vega's "Luka" and calls her repetition of her first verse as a last verse "chilling."

The sessions end, and students either stay to talk to teachers or each other, or pick up their instruments and wander away. It is late afternoon break time, and some take chairs to the riverside and give solo performances to the cliff across the water. Small circles of singing and guitar playing people crop up like mushrooms under trees and tents. Maybe they're previewing the songs they'll sing at the Open Stage tonight, or maybe they're trying out what they just learned by writing new songs together. They look relaxed, happy, and very focused on the songs they are singing at Song School.