Learn how to write a protest song at Guelph Hillside Festival workshop

Music can be a powerful medium.

It can evoke emotions.

It can motivate people to act.

But putting pen to paper to create a great song can be a challenge particularly if the songwriter wants to get a specific message across.

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The basics are similar, but writing a song for peace or change can be very different than writing a love song, songwriter Doris Folkens said.

"With a love song, you can probably get away with some more poetic, vague, cryptic lyrics, especially if you kind of want to hide your emotions a bit and not make yourself too vulnerable," Folkens said.

"But with a protest song, there needs to be a clear message and it needs to be delivered effectively, otherwise you've kind of missed the point of what you're writing about."

Protest songwriting workshop

Folkens will be co-leading a songwriting course through Guelph's Hillside Festival for those who want to write songs to encourage change or peace or protest.

She has led a Girls and Guitars course for the past two years ahead of the Hillside Inside festival in February, but this year, she noticed many of the women in the group were writing songs about the current political climate.

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Marie Zimmerman, the festival's executive director and who will also lead the five-week workshop, said they noticed the shift.

"They felt motivated to create some kind of intervention and I think a good protest song does that it makes them kind of trespass," Zimmerman said.

It inspired Zimmerman and Folkens to start the protest songwriting course.

History of protest songs

Zimmerman said protest songs have changed over the decades.

"A lot of people think protest songs are kind of propaganda, and it is true that was their very, very early history," she said, noting the songs were often sung together on a picket line or a union meeting.

But when Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit in 1939, that changed.

"It was this moment of chill where people thought, 'Oh my god, this is a song that has incredible social and political significance. It's about racism, but we can't all sing it together. And yet, it has that kind of loneliness that some love songs can have, so what is this?'"

Workshop offers peer support

The only prerequisite for the course is you must have a basic knowledge of music and be able to accompany yourself on an instrument. But Folkens said you don't have to have any songwriting or performance experience.

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The course will give people a space to create their songs with support from other songwriters and their peers. There will be one-on-one time with Folkens and Zimmerman, but also brainstorming sessions with the other songwriters. The two women said it is meant to be a very welcoming space.

Those interested can sign up for the course, Songwriting for Peace. Songwriting for Change,on the Hillside Festival website. The registration deadline is Thursday and the course will be held Friday evenings starting this Friday, March 31.