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Jack Covell and Laura Couzens (Jennifer Brummett/jbrummett@amnews.com / February 10, 2013) |
Laura Couzens hurries into the second-floor room at the Community Arts Center where she takes guitar lessons from music instructor Jack Covell. She offers greetings, smiles brightly and immediately gets out her instrument and music book. While they prep for the lesson, the 15-year-old talks about her background with music.
“I first got into music in sixth grade, in band,” says the Danville High School student, who plays tenor sax in the school band. “That’s when I really developed an interest.”
She’s picked up tenor sax as well as guitar and will move on to piano in the near future. She’s also taken up writing songs since last summer.
“I felt like God was telling me to write songs,” Laura says. “So I did. ... (I write) when I have something on my heart.
“I feel like the songs have been given to me.”
Covell says Laura writes “age-appropriate stuff,” much as Taylor Swift has done in her career.
“She’s learning about the trials and tribulations of songwriting,” notes Covell, who has been teaching her for several years.
Covell says she started with the sax and played guitar on and off before getting serious about it about a year-and-a-half ago.
“She said she wanted to get better. I showed her basic chords and we would do (music) reading and a music theory program,” Covell explains. “All this built up her knowledge. She (made the transition) from monophonic to polyphonic and made the transference very nicely.”
One day, she sat down and started playing something she’d put together.
“I told her she needed to write lyrics to it,” Covell says. “She wasn’t sure what to write so I told her to write about her faith. Then she came back with more.”
He told Laura her songs needed to have several connection points to appeal to listeners. “Lo and behold, she was bringing in songs that needed very little tweaking on my part.”
He then encouraged her to work on her singing, which led her to engage a vocal instructor.
“She’s on the right track,” Covell says. “She is getting the instruction she needs.”
Laura also takes voice lessons from a Lexington instructor. She describes her sound as “country with influences of my faith.”
“I listen to a lot of country and inspirational music,” Laura notes.
She likes sharing her gift with others. On fall break, when her family and she went to check out Belmont University in Nashville, they made a stop at The Bluebird Café, a small but well-known concert venue there. According to Laura, 30 names are drawn each night and those 30 are allowed in to perform. Usually, dozens more are lined up outside the café in hopes of drawing one of the 30 coveted spots.
“I got (number) 19,” Laura says. “It was funny because people who had been writing music forever were there. I got to go and they didn’t.
“It was cool. I was singing and playing the guitar. I was pretty nervous at The Bluebird. Everybody was really good.”
She performed a song she wrote called “Behind the Scenes,” which was inspired by a novel she was reading at the time, “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Laura loved the experience.
“I’m not gonna lie to you — I love being onstage. ... It doesn’t scare me — it gets my adrenaline pumping,” she explains, smiling.
Laura also has written a song inspired by Danville called “Town of Love,” about “how blessed I am to live in this sweet little town.” Another, “Grandpapa’s Song,” is a strongly personal tune that includes fond remembrances of her late grandfather. She performed it the day after she wrote it — at a Gallery Hop Stop downtown.
She adds her favorite television show is “Nashville,” which is “made to look like The Bluebird Café, I think.”
She hopes to study music in college, specifically Christian music.
“I’d like to use my gifts for my King. ... I need to give it back to him,” Laura explains.
“I first got into music in sixth grade, in band,” says the Danville High School student, who plays tenor sax in the school band. “That’s when I really developed an interest.”
She’s picked up tenor sax as well as guitar and will move on to piano in the near future. She’s also taken up writing songs since last summer.
“I felt like God was telling me to write songs,” Laura says. “So I did. ... (I write) when I have something on my heart.
“I feel like the songs have been given to me.”
Covell says Laura writes “age-appropriate stuff,” much as Taylor Swift has done in her career.
“She’s learning about the trials and tribulations of songwriting,” notes Covell, who has been teaching her for several years.
Covell says she started with the sax and played guitar on and off before getting serious about it about a year-and-a-half ago.
“She said she wanted to get better. I showed her basic chords and we would do (music) reading and a music theory program,” Covell explains. “All this built up her knowledge. She (made the transition) from monophonic to polyphonic and made the transference very nicely.”
One day, she sat down and started playing something she’d put together.
“I told her she needed to write lyrics to it,” Covell says. “She wasn’t sure what to write so I told her to write about her faith. Then she came back with more.”
He told Laura her songs needed to have several connection points to appeal to listeners. “Lo and behold, she was bringing in songs that needed very little tweaking on my part.”
He then encouraged her to work on her singing, which led her to engage a vocal instructor.
“She’s on the right track,” Covell says. “She is getting the instruction she needs.”
Laura also takes voice lessons from a Lexington instructor. She describes her sound as “country with influences of my faith.”
“I listen to a lot of country and inspirational music,” Laura notes.
She likes sharing her gift with others. On fall break, when her family and she went to check out Belmont University in Nashville, they made a stop at The Bluebird Café, a small but well-known concert venue there. According to Laura, 30 names are drawn each night and those 30 are allowed in to perform. Usually, dozens more are lined up outside the café in hopes of drawing one of the 30 coveted spots.
“I got (number) 19,” Laura says. “It was funny because people who had been writing music forever were there. I got to go and they didn’t.
“It was cool. I was singing and playing the guitar. I was pretty nervous at The Bluebird. Everybody was really good.”
She performed a song she wrote called “Behind the Scenes,” which was inspired by a novel she was reading at the time, “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Laura loved the experience.
“I’m not gonna lie to you — I love being onstage. ... It doesn’t scare me — it gets my adrenaline pumping,” she explains, smiling.
Laura also has written a song inspired by Danville called “Town of Love,” about “how blessed I am to live in this sweet little town.” Another, “Grandpapa’s Song,” is a strongly personal tune that includes fond remembrances of her late grandfather. She performed it the day after she wrote it — at a Gallery Hop Stop downtown.
She adds her favorite television show is “Nashville,” which is “made to look like The Bluebird Café, I think.”
She hopes to study music in college, specifically Christian music.
“I’d like to use my gifts for my King. ... I need to give it back to him,” Laura explains.
