Turning Stories into Songs (Uncovering Birkenhead's Working Class History)

Convenience Gallery

Join Convenience Gallery, Astles and Wirral Library for a session of songwriting and archiving at Birkenhead Central library. FREE event

Birkenhead Central Library

‘’Turning Stories into Songs’ BiographyDaniel Astles is a musician, songwriter and performer who also specialises in community music workshops. As a performing artist Astles has been described as ‘gorgeous, lilting indie’ by the NME. As well as having been supported by the PRS Foundation Momentum funding, and recently signing a Publishing Deal with Sentric Music and Starwood Management (Michael Kiwanuka and The Kooks) as well as being signed to London Label 7476 (Matt Maltese, Mathilda Mann). He has also performed with artists such as Bill Ryder Jonea and The Mysterines. As a community musician Astles has ran songwriting workshops for multiple different charity’s across Merseyside, a few examples beimg : Oomoo (Running songwriting workshops for young people in care, creating, recording and producing an album with them), Spider Project ( running songwriting workshops for adults in Drug , Alcohol and Mental Health Recovery) and Rawd (Dedicated to helping disabled people grow within the arts, creating and performing a song about self compassion) , As well as running a community choir and open mic at the Bloom Building. Finally Astles also has a First Class Honours Degree at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in Song writing and Production, and was awarded with the Beatles Story Prize for 'application, attendance, enthusiasm and skill in music.'Workshop Details The Session will last around 2 Hours with a small break in the middle. It will cover the things below.- Open Discussion about Birkenhead’s Working Class history, see if anyone has any stories they have to add to ones already gathered.- Dicussion about songwriting – what is in a good song, what makes a song special. What is everyone’s favourite song?- Songs about places – how do they effect how people view the places? How do they add to the story of the place? Eg Penny Lane, Empire State of Mind etc.- Using cut out fragments of previous stories gathered as well as their own words, start individually writing poems and verses about Birkenhead’s working class history.Dan will aim to combine bits of everyone’s stories and songs, whilst starting to write song and encouraging people to sing.Crafting the song into something with a structure, verses and chorus etc. Getting everyone involved in this songwriting process.BREAKFinish song together, practice it a few times and aim to have a phone recording of it by the end.Final discussion – if someone heard this song and hadn’t been to Birkenhead, what would they think of the place? This a Convenience Gallery Porject. It is part of Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants: Celebrating Working Class Histories. The new grant scheme was launched by Historic England earlier this year to support community-led projects and further the nation’s collective understanding of the past.

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Turning Stories into Songs (Uncovering Birkenhead's Working Class History)

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Turning Stories into Songs (Uncovering Birkenhead's Working Class History)

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