Vol State Music Students Performing In Livingston Thursday

Students from Vol State’s Songwriting workshop will be performing in Livingston Thursday Night.

Americanaville’s Mark Hauser said the program began this year. He said he enjoys teaching songwriting as an art form because it is a great outlet for self-expression.

“Whether you’re doing it professionally, or you’re just doing it for yourself, it’s very self-satisfying in a way,” Hauser said. “But also people have things they want to say, and it’s therapeutic, I think that’s the main thing.”

Hauser said the program has been a great success in its first year and many professional songwriters have been guest speakers. He said people from all different ages across the country have joined in on the workshops.

“We have students that range from 14 in this class to their late 60s, so it’s a wide range of students,” Hauser said. “We’re available on Zoom, we have students who watch the presentation from Ohio, and far away as Iowa. And we have about 10 to 12 in class each week.”

Hauser said the eight-week program covers many subjects relating to music and songwriting. He said he hopes to continue the class to help people expand their writing ability.

“We start out just talking about the history of music, then we go into lyrical writing, the styles of lyrical writing for songs,” Hauser said. “Then we go into musical theory, and then we have these guests that came in.”

Hauser said this year’s class wrote a song that will soon be recorded as the theme song for Vol State Gallatin. He said students from the class will have the opportunity to perform in a show Thursday night at 7, at the Iron and Oak Event Center in Livingston. He said each student will be performing two songs.