"Three chords and a story," one of our friends likes to say, is all you need for a song. Well, sure, a melody helps. And maybe a bass line, and some good percussion fills.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves; we all have stories to tell, and some of us want to tell them with music. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute--OLLI--at Southern Oregon University includes among its course offerings an Advanced Songwriting class for people who want to develop their skills.
Teacher Denny Caraher describes the process; students Jack Cannon and John Cox describe their end of the transaction and share some song clips.