School of Music students practice creation and collaboration at annual songwriting retreat

A group of 24 Liberty University School of Music students participated in the school’s annual songwriting retreat Sept. 25-26, featuring alumnus Steven Musso (’15) as guest songwriter.

The event, open to all School of Music students, is designed to give students experience in co-writing songs. Students were selected for the retreat after submitting a demo of an original song. Throughout three writing sessions, each lasting about 2 1/2 hours, the students worked in small groups to create songs based on a unique prompt drawn from Scripture. The artistic theme for the weekend was “songs for the church.”

By the end of Saturday, the students had created 24 new songs, two of which were then chosen to be recorded in the School of Music’s Mathena Recording Studio by the recording ensemble, a class led by associate professor Nathan Zwald.

Each session began with a talk from Musso, a former music and worship master’s student at Liberty whose résumé is heavy with co-writes, including several songs on Charity Gayle’s 2018 album “Endless Praise.” He has had the opportunity to work with numerous artists, such as Micah Tyler, Jennie Lee Riddle, and others, through his involvement with the Christian songwriting collective “People & Songs,” and has served as a worship leader at his home church in Albany, N.Y. He spoke about his passion and calling for songwriting.

“We are using a powerful tool that God has given us to physically inscribe his Word into our brains and into our hearts to carry with us forever,” Musso said. “There is no moment that the church is more unified than the moment that we all begin singing together.”

The first prompt focused on Ephesians 2:1-10 and being made alive in Christ. From that prompt, students Alivia Gillispie, Joseph DeFriese, and Krysta Klodt wrote the song “Gift of God,” one of the songs that was recorded.

“It was Verse 8 … specifically ‘gift of God,’ that became our North Star and our song title,” Gillispie said. “We made the song based on the gift of God being Jesus.”

Through the co-writing process, Gillispie said she not only learned about the systems that make writing together work but also about the importance of Holy Spirit movement in the songwriting process.

“There was one moment in the first night when it was like the presence of the Holy Spirit fell upon the room,” Gillispie said. “I don’t remember what word was written or what part we were at, but after we wrote it, everyone kind of just took a step back like, ‘Thank you Jesus for that.’”

“Exalted,” the other song chosen to be recorded, was based on the second session prompt: writing an upbeat song that focused on singing to Jesus. Caitlyn Nail, Eloid Washington, and AJ Cantrell wrote the song with a strong gospel-sound influence.

“We wanted to write a song that was praiseful and prayerful and glorifying and exalting but also told the story of how, in the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and He was God, and into the Gospel of what Jesus has done for us and who He is for us,” Nail said.

For both songs, Musso acted as the producer in the recording studio, helping the writers and the recording ensemble collaborate to bring the songs to life. He said having the opportunity to come back as a current voice in the industry and show students what a songwriting journey can look like has been one of the most meaningful aspects of the experience.

“My hope would be that students could maybe lay aside some expectations that aren’t reality in regard to what a songwriting career looks like, so that they can walk out of school sober-minded but also Kingdom-minded. I hope they know that they’re not walking out to build a career for themselves, but they’re simply taking the things that they’ve studied and learned to serve the church with and use for expanding God’s Kingdom in whatever way that looks like for the context that God puts them in,” Musso said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Nail said she had never written worship music before and was “was a little worried … (thinking) ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be good at this.’ In my first co-write, we prayed beforehand and we were really wanting to go where the Spirit led with the song, and I think that happened. It was really cool to be able to take Scripture and just let it breathe out through God-given creativity.”

The retreat has been an annual event since 2010. David Hahn, chair of the commercial music department and organizer of the retreat, said he was grateful for the opportunity to give students experience in a realm that many of them may not have encountered before.

“Songwriting is the heart of creating the songs that change the world,” he said. “We want to encourage the creative work that God has pressed deeply into us through His image. There’s just nothing more amazing than for an entire group of people singing a song that you’ve written that is being used by the Holy Spirit to bring transformation.”