About SongSeeds
We are SongSeeds: the home of creative, affordable and inclusive
songwriting retreats!
Fronted and facilitated by singer-songwriter, lecturer and creative practitioner Becci Wallace and a revolving team of established Scottish Music Industry practitioners, SongSeeds is based on the belief that songwriting can help to develop strong communities within the music industry. SongSeeds Songwriting Retreats provide a unique environment where established and emerging songwriters have the chance to share, collaborate, experiment and perform.
A SongSeeds Songwriting Retreat is:
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Affordable - suitable for all budgets with 2 funded places available per retreat
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Inclusive - a safe environment for songwriters of all ages, career stages and identities
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Informative - add to your songwriting toolkit with a mixture of workshops, task based songwriting, and masterclasses
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Productive - enjoy the opportunity for dedicated, distraction free writing time
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Challenging - showcase your newly written material to an audience in a local performance space
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Professional - emulating a music industry style song house
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What to expect from a SongSeeds retreat
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A 5 night residential songwriting experience with a team of practitioners and fellow songwriters
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The chance to challenge yourself creatively
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Tight timeframes and industry style briefs
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An opportunity to develop your creative network
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A chance to collaborate and perform with like minded, skilled songwriters
How it started...
SongSeeds Songwriting Retreats began its journey as 'Songs from Lockdown', which was a network of Songwriters brought together in April 2020 as a creative activity for artists in the Glasgow music scene during lockdown. Having just delivered an Advanced Songwriting module for 3rd year students at UWS which was abruptly moved online, and realising the creative potential that could be harnessed from an online songwriting project, Becci started SFL as a peer-led, task-based group where participants responded to the nominated task setter by writing and presenting a song through Zoom.
After a successful first few weeks, Becci collaborated with Rosie Bans to streamline the experience for participants and develop the network further. Initially, the group ran for 17 weeks. The group now stands at 270+ members with around 40 active writers from the Scottish music Industry. SFL doubled up as a community experience for many, where skills and techniques were exchanged, friendships and collaborations were developed, and general mental health and wellbeing was nurtured.
Rosie and Becci acted as facilitators and moderators and due to our peer-led ethos, natural group facilitators emerged amongst participants. Weekly tasks were drawn to a close in September 2020 as restrictions loosened and the group now operates monthly. SFL was noted in local and national media and acted as an introduction to the industry for emerging Scottish Songwriters of 2020, such as Jen Athan and Mima Merrow.
Rosie and Becci used the successful blueprint of SFL to create SongSeeds.
SongSeeds applies a similar structural framework to Songs from Lockdown but, over an intensive, 4-day period, with limited participants and with a focus on response and development of industry songwriting briefs.
SongSeeds is partly funded by Creative Scotland and promotes affordability, inclusivity, peer-sharing, and community. SongSeeds invites Industry Professionals to present their work and set a brief for participants which has proven to be a valuable and enlightening element of the project.
In its 2020/21 run, SongSeeds has welcomed Carla J Easton, Shay D, Kris Drever, Conscious Route, Eckoes, Jo Mango and Julie Fowlis. Each of these sessions has afforded participants an honest and often demystifying workshop on the songwriting and industry formulas that have given these artists their successes.
About the Creators
Becci Wallace
'Electric, haunting, mesmerizing, unusual, brilliant, a voice to silence the room' NHC
'Captivating, Becci Wallace carries you away.' Janice Forsyth- BBC Scotland
’Original, artful alignment of folk and hip-hop elements’ Celtic Connections
Glasgow based singer-songwriter and producer Becci Wallace is firmly placed at the heart of Scotland's songwriting community. As a solo artist her first album Fragmentality was released in 2015 to critical acclaim. Her most recent project, Present Tense was released in November 2020 and featured as BBC Roddy Hart’s ‘Record of Note’ as well as across national radio in Scotland and local radio across the UK and Europe. Her next release, After The Fog... Air, is scheduled for Spring 2023.
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Becci is known for her unique vocals, tight harmonies and thought provoking lyrics. She has been broadly featured on STV Glasgow, BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio Six Music, Celtic Connections and features on various stages in Festivals across the UK, including Wicker Man, Electric Fields, Kelburn, Doune The Rabbit Hole, Lindesfarne, Deouch n Doris, Soulfest, Junction 1, West End Festival, The Edinburgh Fringe, Chester Music Festival, Queens of Art and Audio Soup to name a few.
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Becci writes across genres, co-writing and performing on the Pearlfishers latest album Love and Other Hopeless Things, Catherine Rudie's The Mobius Kiss and Loki's Government Issue Music Protest. She has co written and worked alongside David Scott, Jo Bennet, Findlay Napier, David Sinclair, Maaike Siegerist, Conscious Route, Rosie Bans, DopeSickFly, Colonel Mustard and Catherine Rudie as well as at the Harris Institute in Toronto and Columbia University in Chicago. Most recently, Becci has written for Karine Polwart's Enough is Enough, COP26 project, with hip-hop collective This is It. Played across national radio and the video streamed Globally during the COP26 summit, Becci worked with the COP26 Climate justice cabaret, alongside Greta Thunberg, Jeremy Corbyn and activists from across the globe to share the message through creativity.
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A known mentor and supporter of young artists throughout Scotland, Becci is the Co-Creator and head facilitator of SongSeeds Songwriting Retreats as well as the creator of That's What She Said - a series of podcasts featuring panels and performances from women in the music industry. Becci also hosts a songwriting show on Glad Radio where guests can geek out on their songs and the building blocks of their music.
Becci has an MA in songwriting and is a PHD Student researching hip-hop education.
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Rosie Bans
Rosie Bans is co-founder of SongSeeds and was instrumental in the creation and development of our online model for 2020. While Rosie has now moved on to a new career path (and country), her tireless energy and passion for songwriting has provided much of the framework for SongSeeds to move forward and she will always be part of our extended family!
