In February of 2007, Steelgrass was host to a three-day Songwriting and Recording Workshop presented by four leading music industry professionals: Kathy Mattea and Jon Vezner from Nashville, Producer-Engineer Stephen Webber, and songwriting teacher Pat Pattison, both on the faculty of Berklee College of Music in Boston. We're planning to offer the workshop again in February of 2008. Please check back here for dates and details. SONGWRITING: This is a workshop to stimulate your creative energies, and sharpen your lyric writing skills by discovering the techniques that have helped people like John Mayer and Gillian Welch win Grammies and write number one songs. You'll learn how to generate better ideas, find the right words to express those ideas, and organize rhythms and rhymes into compelling verses, choruses and bridges. Craft more vivid lyrics by mastering the elements of structure and the process of building great lyrical ideas into great songs. Whether you're a beginner or seasoned writer, this course will help you brainstorm ideas more freely and structure your lyrics more effectively. RECORDING: Why not make records and demos that people actually love to listen to? As a participant in the workshop, you'll develop your recording skills by employing the techniques that have helped Stephen Webber's students record Grammy-winning hit records for Sheryl Crowe, Sting, and Melissa Etheridge. You'll learn to avoid the pitfalls that beset most recording musicians, and produce compelling, focused records that seduce listeners and convey emotion. Discover simple engineering tricks that will give your mixes clarity and depth on almost any budget. Whether you've been recording for years or are just starting out, this workshop will help you focus the big picture, while zooming in to the most salient sonic details. About the Presenters Pat Pattison is Professor of Lyric Writing and Poetry at Berklee College of Music, where he developed the curriculum for the only songwriting major in the country. In addition to his lyric writing courses for Berklee, Pat has written three books, Writing Better Lyrics, The Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure, and Essential Guide to Rhyming. Pat has published over 40 articles for Home & Studio Recording Magazine, The Performing Songwriter, and the LASS Musepaper. Pat's students include Gillian Welch, John Mayer, Train, Kami Lyle and many others. He continues to present songwriting workshops across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Kathy Mattea can look at her 20-year career and make a profound statement: "I am exactly where I want to be." The West Virginia native came of age musically in the Nashville songwriting community, where she sang demos for rising young tunesmiths. Signed to her first recording contract in 1983, she nurtured that connection, giving a score of now-famous songwriters their first hit -- and many their first #1, including Nanci Griffith, with Kathy's recording of Love At The Five and Dime in 1986. She's won two Grammy awards and two Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year awards, and her song Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses was named CMA Single of the Year. Kathy's recordings also brought attention to such diverse talents as Guy and Susanna Clark, Gillian Welch, Tim O'Brien, Jim Lauderdale, Pat Alger, Don Henry, Fred Koller, Gary Burr, Larry Cordle, Mark Germino, Karen Staley, Steve Key, and Craig Bickhardt. She also made unusual yet prescient choices when hiring musicians for her records and her band, because many of them have gone on to great acclaim as instrumentalists, including Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Edgar Meyer, Jerry Douglas, David Schnaufer, John Jarvis and guitarists Ray Flacke and Vince Gill. Originally from Minneapolis, Jon Vezner moved to Nashville in 1986, and within that year had songs recorded by Reba McEntire and Ronnie Milsap, followed by Lorrie Morgan's first single in 1987, Train Wreck of Emotion, which Vezner co-wrote with Alan Rhody. 1989 brought Vezner's Where've You Been, co-written with Don Henry, which earned him "Song of the Year" honors with both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM). The song was honored with a Grammy Award for "Best Country Song" and the Nashville Songwriters Association "Song of the Year." Vezner was subsequently named "Songwriter of the Year" by the NSAI. Other co-penned songs include A Few Good Things Remain, Time Passes By, Whole Lotta Holes, Slow Boat, Who's Gonna Know, All Roads to the River, The Innocent Years, Calling My Name, Trust Me, and most recently the touching ballad Ashes in the Wind. Some of the other singles written by Vezner include If I Didn't Love You (recorded by Steve Warriner), Has Anybody Seen Amy (John and Audrey Wiggins), Then What (Clay Walker), and You're Gone (Diamond Rio). Other Vezner songs have been recorded by Martina McBride, Janis Ian, John Mellencamp, Nancy Griffith, Faith Hill, and Native American recording artist, Bill Miller. Vezner also has a growing list of production credits, producing CD projects for such artists as Danny O'Keefe, Victoria Shaw, and singing legend Patti Page. Stephen Webber is an Emmy winning composer and Professor of Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music. In three decades as a record producer, engineer, session player, music director, recording artist, DJ, and studio designer, Stephen has recorded with Ivan Neville, Meshell Ndegeocello, the Manhattan Guitar Duo and the Turtle Island String Quartet, and performed with Bela Fleck, Mark O'Conner, and Emmylou Harris. A writer for Electronic Musician, Remix, and Mix Magazine, Stephen is the author of Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ, the first book to teach the turntable as a musical instrument. Stephen has been profiled on the Today Show and All Things Considered, and in the New York Times and Rolling Stone Magazine. He is the designer of the recording studio at Steelgrass.