photos by Julian Kovacs
Canadian folk musician Craig Cardiff gives students songwriting lessons and tips on how to be a better songwriter at the Coffee with CAB songwriting seminar, event Friday night in LH 200. Students can attend Coffee with CAB every first Friday of the month.
Last Friday students gathered in the Lawrence Hall multipurpose room, to experience an intimate, coffeehouse-type concert, as well as a songwriting open discussion organized by the Campus Activities Board (CAB).
“Every Coffee with CAB is supposed to feel like a coffee shop, an interactive experience. We have the coffee set up, and this time, we had the tea as an add-on because of vocals and music,” said Jocelyn Hyrb, CAB’s Pioneer Series coordinator.
Guest musician Craig Cardiff began by introducing his first song of the evening, “Safe Here.” He encouraged audience members to sing along to the choruses of all the songs he performed and even had some harmonize with him as he sang.
A notebook titled “Book of Truth” was passed around and Cardiff explained that at his shows and gatherings, he asks people to write something in it anonymously. He said there are stories inside ranging from people’s fears, achievements and even their first kiss.
“This event has always been very directed towards learning something new. It’s the most inventive that we’ve come up with,” Paulina Comeau, a CAB General Board Member, said.
Point Park students weren’t the only people in attendance at the event. A couple from Virginia, who were fans of Cardiff, stopped by while visiting their daughter, who attends a nearby university.
Cardiff had the couple talk about the birth of their child as inspiration for how to write a song based off life experiences.
He pointed out that his workshop is not only a creative experience, but a social one, too.
“So the idea is that there is a forum where people can be encouraged, where people can network, and it’s about taking me out of it and you guys realizing that you have all the skills,” Cardiff said in an interview in the Lawrence Hall multipurpose room Friday evening.
His tips for songwriters would be to “maintain a journal, don’t throw any of your work away, and always keep thinking about the joyfulness in your work.”
Trixie Mahayag was one of the students who talked with Cardiff during the brief intermission of the show. When the group regathered, he invited the audience to provide feedback for Trixie as she sang a song she had been working on called “Midnight Urges.”
“I wanted to know his methods. Maybe I could incorporate it and mix it up with what methods I had,” Mahayag said in an interview that evening.
The experience that Mahayang shared with the group followed through with the goals that CAB hoped to fulfill with this event.
“The program itself was wonderful. There was a little bit of performing, interaction and discussion opportunities. One of our main goals was for somebody to come in and gain further knowledge, for somebody to be able to expose their own music,” Hyrb said. “So in that sense, it was a huge success. The only disappointment is that more students didn’t get to experience it.”
Similar to the new CAB event in January, Pizza Palooza, the songwriting theme for this month’s Coffee with CAB was something different for the Pioneer Series.
“I think that once people realize what a success this one was. They’ll want to keep coming. Especially with Trixie. She was very open to us, and I feel like more people will want to do that after what she did,” Leah Sero, CAB’s Administrative Coordinator, said.
