Here is one of our many members who have brought life to our community. We are grateful to see the process and progress our members share with us, and we are honored to give them the spotlight! Their story is our story. Read on to be inspired by our latest Member Highlight interview…

Meet Lizanne Richards

Lizanne is from Romsey, Victoria, Australia

What do you do during the day?
I am a full time mother of four. I have 3 in primary school and 1 still in pre-school kindergarten next year. I get the kids up and breakfasted, pack lunches, do the dishes, assist my 9 year old with her piano practice and my 8 year old with her violin practice, then drive them to school or 3 year old kinder. On three days I hang out with my 4 year old Oscar. We go swimming and grocery shopping one day. I play basketball and he does Mini Maestros (a pre-school music program) one day. And Oscar has a dance class and library story time session on another day. There are two mornings that I have that are kid-free. This year is the first year in nearly 10 years that I have had kid-free time during the day. I have tried to dedicate this time to music stuff, as this is what I longed for throughout the last 10 years.

Share a song you wrote during the last 100 DOS challenge:
I wrote the lyrics in March, re-worked them and then recorded it in early November. I was away for the launch of the 100 day challenge so unfortunately felt like I missed the boat. My deadline was to record the song for my friend, who is in hospital, battling cancer. He's heard it and has informed that he intends to hang in there and keep waiting.

Lyrics:

Waiting Room by Lizanne Richards

Sitting a waiting room
Looking at the trash TV
Waitin’ for my number
Who knows when it’ll be?

I heard that you’ve been called
You’re too young but you say
I’ve had a good life
No regrets
Now you’re sitting in a waiting room
Waiting for a place to go
If waiting is the thing we do
I want to wait it out with you

BREAK

Your mother has the hardest road
To watch her grown up baby boy
Be the first to leave
Depart this waiting room

(And I want her to know) Every moment mattered

We’d do it all again
You’re sitting with us
In this waiting room

BREAK

If waiting’s all that’s left to do
Then I’m gonna wait it out with you
Cos’ it’s you that matters most
In this waiting room

There’s waiting and there’s being free
Free from all constraints
No more smashed egos
No small complaints
Sitting in a waiting room
Waiting for a place to go
If waiting is the thing we do
I want to wait it out with you

Listen here:
Click here to listen

Is there anything surprising about your musical taste?
My husband is a Tool fan and I have seen the light. I haven't naturally gravitated towards this style of music, but I have broken through into the realm of appreciating going to live performances of heavy styles of rock music. Concrete Blonde, Queens of the Stone Age and Stephen Wilson are a few artists that I have thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to.

What does your songwriting habit look like?
In the depths of this winter just gone, I started a new routine of getting up half an hour earlier and completing 20 or so minutes of song writing exercises. I followed Pat Pattison's Sonwriting Without Boundaries book. I also joined up with 100 Days of Songwriting online community which has provided me with deadlines and extremely helpful tutorials.

Who are your influences? How have they shaped you?
Gillian Welch. I discovered her when I was a teacher in London in my early 20's. Her voice is not trying to be anything it isn't. Her lyrics are intelligent and highly crafted. She has something to say. Her instrumentation is sparse and musical. Her sense of rhythm is impeccable. I can think of no other songwriter who has floored me with their craft more than her.

What challenge are you facing with songwriting?
Finding and making the time to slot songwriting in is challenging. Working out a new way to work alongside parenthood is challenging. It's all pushing me towards a desk home music studio set up and approach where I work when I can and save the work that I do, to be continued when the next session arises. It is requiring me to step up to the plate of learning software, completing online tuturials and stepping into the role of producer for my own music. It's slow going but it's all actually good stuff.

Tell us an early memory about a song that woke something up inside you.
Roads by Portishead, Dummy album.
I remember being in the Bluetrain Cafe on Southbank in Melbourne. I was with my fiance who would soon become my ex. The song transported me into a beautiful space of longing and loss. It's a timeless recording. Beth Gibbon's vocals sit perfectly atop ethereal sounds, strings and beats. It's sparseness and space makes it.

Check out their work here:
https://www.lizannerichards.com

https://www.instagram.com/lizannerichardsmusic/

Here is one of our many members who have brought life to our community. We are grateful to see the process and progress our members share with us, and we are honored to give them the spotlight! Their story is our story. Read on to be inspired by our latest Member Highlight interview…

Meet Simon Woodward

Simon is from York, UK

What do you do during the day?
My job now is mostly Engineering Manager. Although my background is electrical engineering, I'm actually doing more mechanical designs for generators. I've been a Production Manager, an Operations Manager, and I once spent 3 years in Wales designing and building a bio-fuel power station.

Share a song you wrote during the last 100 DOS challenge:
I've decided to share a song I wrote late last year, called Another Piece Of Me. After working through the pandemic in not-so-very nice circumstances, I found that it had an effect on peoples' mental health, including my own. Then I was on TikTok and started following a girl who was going through serious issues, to the extent some guys stopped her from jumping off a bridge. Those were real problems that I could never comprehend, but it was her that inspired this, although she actually turned it around and is now pregnant and happy, to the extent that she changed her username, as if she had become someone else.

Lyrics:

Another Piece of Me by Simon York

I've been trying to tell you how I feel inside
But the words just run and hide
In my head I always want to run
Waiting for that starting gun
And as I start to walk away
The strength I need, to live and fight another day

Takes another little piece of me
These chains of doubt, they won't set me free
In my mind I need some sanctity
I want to feel that I hold the key

I've been living in a darkened room
Let you see what I want you to see
A prisoner of my own anxieties
All my fears, cling to me
And as I sit and I hide away
The strength I need, to live and fight another day

Takes another little piece of me
These chains of doubt, they just won't set me free
In my mind there is no sanctity
Now I know, that I won't hold the key

The mask I show you slowly falls away
And inside I get so burnt and torn
Every knock I get just chips away
How I wish that I could be reborn
And as I lie here and I fade away
I have no strength for another day

All the pieces now lie at my feet
Those chains of doubt that constricted me
In my mind there was no sanctity
To late to know that there was no key

Listen here:
Click here to listen

Is there anything surprising about your musical taste?
When I was a teenager and Heavy Metal started its rise, that was the genre I liked the most. However, as I've "matured" I find myself liking every genre except one: sea shanties. My one guilty pleasure used to be....... Barry Manilow. Oh, hang on, Cliff Richards was also quite good.

What does your songwriting habit look like?
My habits vary, but I find that I'm more productive if I have a lyric to work from. I've created 5 songs that did not have lyrics to go with them, but after 4 or 5 years, 2 remain waiting. Voice memo on phones make it a lot easier to get the lyric idea and melody down, so I've used that method quite a bit, and I also once made a complete song in GarageBand on the iPad - including guitar solo - transferred that to a computer and did the vocals.

Who are your influences? How have they shaped you?
There are a lot of people that inspire me, but the two people most are my wife Anne, who writes stories and is hoping one day to get them published, and the song writer Albert Hammond. I had a various artists tape and he was on it with The Free Electric Band, which inspired me to buy the album. I then find out he wrote When I Need You, that Leo Sayer had a hit with, and also The Air That I Breathe. He's written loads of songs for so many different artists.

What challenge are you facing with songwriting?
The biggest challenge I find is always the theme, which is why I'm so pleased at learning the Mozart Method. I'm now wondering if the original letter was about politics, would you write a political song. If it was about war, would you write about war? My one ambition is to write a concept album, as I think that would be the ultimate challenge.

Tell us an early memory about a song that woke something up inside you.
I've been listening to music since I was very young. My father wasn't particularly interested in modern music, but my mother and uncle were, so we had access to all the old Rock 'n' Roll records, which I used to love listening to.

We used to also watch Top of the Pops on TV, and I liked the Glam Rock scene, but the one song that got me was Queen's Tie Your Mother Down. We could hire LPs from the library for a week, and I hired A Day At The Races. When it started, there were these strings, and I'm wondering what the heck it was, but then the riff kicked in. I was hooked from that minute, and just sat there thinking this was my music. I loved everything they did for years.

 Here is one of our many members who have brought life to our community. We are grateful to see the process and progress our members share with us, and we are honored to give them the spotlight! Their story is our story. Read on to be inspired by our latest Member Highlight interview…

Meet Curtis

Curtis is from Charlotte, NC, USA

What do you do during the day?

I teach Delta Airlines Ramp techniques to their contractors. Its a dangerous job with loud machines that have their own rhythms. I end up hearing melodies that I often have to leave the ramp to go write down.