News - June 2008

Hey Everyone!

Well June is here and it's time for our monthly meeting. It will be on Sunday June 8th from 1pm to around 5pm at our usual spot, Belle Cooledge Community Center. The address is 5699 S. Land Park, Sacramento Ca 95822. Our room is the McClatchy room. Remember I-5 is messed up so you might want to find a alternate route if passing though downtown is you normal route.

This month I am going to concentrate the meeting on Groove. Dan Hodges told me that the groove in our songs really impressed him, so we will try to capalize on it. Remember up tempo songs are what Nashville is looking for. If you can write a song that grooves like Rascal Flatts version of "Life is a Highway", trust me you will run circles around alot of Nashville's songwriters. Bring in your favorite song with a cool groove and we will break it down. I will be bringing in a few of mine. No lyric sheets are necessary for this portion of our meeting.

We will also be Ripping apart our Top 100 songs by other songwriters. You can bring in any song that has charted in the top 100, that has not been written by the artist and we will rip it apart. Please remember to bring in ten copies of the lyrics or a transparency copy for my 1955 overhead projector.

And last but not least if you want a critique of your song bring it in. Again you will need to bring in ten copies of the lyrics or a transparency copy. If you just want to try out one of your songs, and really don't need a critique yet, that's cool too,come on in and play it.

If you were able to make it to April's meeting I think our session on Hooks went well. I really enjoyed going thru the different songs,and taking a hard look at the hooks in them. Thank you for all of you who brought them in. I hope this was helpful.

Dave has added a cool feature to our web, a list of Sacramento open mic's. If you were wondering where you can play, just check out our website,NSAI-Sacramento.com. Thanks Dave for all your hard work!!

I have been working on a really exciting event that involves a local radio station, a local tv station, a local charity, two big time Nashville songwriters, and us NSAI-Sacramento. I can't let the cat out of the bag yet, but this will come together this year. NSAI Nashville has green lighted this event, so come hell or high water I am going to make it happen! Once the dates are confirmed, I will give you all the details, but I guarantee this will be one you won't want to miss. Stay tune!!

I have been only running this group for the last 6 months, so if you have any suggestion on anything please feel free to email me, I will take them all into consideration.

Thanks to all of you who showed up last month on Mother's day, I really thought it would just be me and Bob staring at each-other for 3 hrs, so thank for showing.

I want you all to know that I know sometimes it's hard to stay positive, and up about your music career, if it's writing or being your own artist, but that is why I am here. I took on this group because I believe you all have something great to offer, even if you can't see that right now. Keep writing, keep pushing the envelope.
If you want it BELIEVE!
See ya soon
Kurt Ozdaglar

kboturk@sbcglobal.net 916-548-5540

Previous Issues: