Being on note with the pros

Matt Walters from Gladstone and Jaimee Cox from Winfield play along to their newly-created song during the song the Song Trails workshop, at the Bundaberg Civic Centre yesterday.

News Mail/Ron Burgin

ASPIRING songwriter Jaimee Cox did not expect to be singing about rum in the river when she attended the Song Trails workshop, but the 16 year old did not care about the subject matter.

“It has been brilliant,” Jaimee said.

The Winfield girl was one of about 50 local aspiring song writers to attend a workshop with Scott Edgar (Tripod), Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca's Empire), Robert Forster (the Go-Betweens) and Peter Farnan (Boom Crash Opera) at the Bundaberg Civic Centre yesterday.

Jaimee said the workshop had been a huge learning curve for her.

“Just getting together and meeting people and sharing ideas has been fantastic,” she said.

Workshops are being run throughout Queensland as a part of the Queensland Music Festival.

At each workshop songs are written in groups and will be performed at the Powerhouse in Brisbane on Sunday.

Scott Edgar said his time on Tripod's “song in an hour” segment on Triple J had helped him during the workshop.

“The song in an hour thing has come in pretty handy, we only get an hour, and that sense of the clock and we should be up to here by now,” he said.

Mr Edgar said during the tour he was amazed by the talent hidden throughout regional Queensland.

“There always is (a lot of talent) everywhere you go,” he said.

“Especially something like this, which always brings out of the woodwork people who really are passionate about music and writing.”

At yesterday's workshop, Mr Edgar, Rebecca Barnard and a group of 27 writers wrote the locally-flavoured Rum in the River.

“I thought we would (write songs about the local areas) when we started on this tour, but this is the first time that it's actually come out about the local area,” Mr Edgar said.

Song Trails was open to any aspiring songwriter over the age of 14.