Ex nihilo - Reverbnation/Larry Karol August 1, 2009

Sometimes songwriting feels like it happens out of nothing - "ex nihilo." It really doesn't work that way, at least I don't think so. I had the experience while on faculty at Crane Lake camp (a Reform Jewish Camp in West Stockbridge, MA) for two weeks (July 12-26, 2009) of writing three songs (actually four, but I wasn't at all satisfied with one of them). Every experience was different.
The first song emerged from my desire to write my own song based on some of the customary Jewish bedtime prayers. I looked in prayerbooks I had brought with me to camp for ideas from English renderings and interpretations of an evening prayer about God's protection at night (called Hashkivenu). That gave me ideas for verse lyrics, and I knew that the chorus would come from the last stanza of the "hymn" Adon Olam - the words in English are: "Into God's hand I charge/entrust my spirit when I sleep and when I wake, and with my soul, my body, too, God is with me, I shall not be afraid." That song came from working with the English and Hebrew lyrics and adjusting the melody so that it would be unique among the songs I have written.
The second song came from a mini-course I taught 8th through 10th grade campers called "God's on my iPod." I had collected 25 popular/secular songs that related to God and hoped the campers would find songs on their personal music players. On the first day of each week-long series of the course, I asked the campers to complete the sentence, "God is...." and to come up with a question that could be asked of God if God could answer. The responses came back all across the spectrum of belief - from a very traditional view of an all-powerful, all-knowing God to uncertainty about God's existence. The music had to go for the middle of that continuum, so I settled for Cm as my key and strung the campers' comments together and added some thoughts of my own for the verses and chorus.
The third song was a second try at summarizing the comments from the campers who took my course during my second week at camp. This was harder to do - a song that was very "forced" came out initially, but, even then, I knew I wanted to link the students' comments to a blessing in Judaism that praises God for making the works of creation. On the next-to-last day of the 2nd week, when I couldn't get the campers to respond to questions about songs I was playing on my iPod, I asked them to write lyrics that they thought belonged in a song about God. I started reviewing those responses and their "God is...." statements to write a new song that night, but nothing came to me to get a new song going. I went to sleep, and woke up the next morning with a melody for the "works of creation" blessing in my head - that tune came out of nowhere (or else I was just working it out in my head when I was asleep). I immediately wrote out two verses and the chorus quickly and got it printed out. I played for the campers "live" the first song I had written from week #1 of the course, and then showed them this new song that included their comments. I asked them to help me write a "bridge." We came up with a statement about being a community even with our diversity. The song was mostly done, and after a few tweaks on the bridge lyrics and a tempo change the next day, the song was really finished.
Writing even one song during my two weeks at camp would have been enough. I am VERY grateful for three!