• The Other Side (songwriting challenge)

    The Other Side artwork - sunset over lake with reflected sky and clouds with boat heading towards the horizon

    The Other Side by Neel Modi In late 2020, on the Song Talk Radio podcast, we decided to do another songwriting challenge; this was our second challenge in two years. Songwriting challenges, or prompts, are a great way to jump start a song and give you focus while writing. In fact, songwriters do this all [...]

  • Music and Me (songwriting challenge)

    Neel sitting on a rug with two piano keyboards

    On Song Talk Radio, we engaged in our first songwriting challenge. One month, we solicited ideas for a song from our listeners. The next month, we picked one of the ideas as the basis for the hosts to write a song. The following month, we shared our completed songs on the show. https://soundcloud.com/neelmodi/music-and-me The songwriting [...]

  • Collaboration with Melanie Peterson: I’d Still Choose You

    I'd Still Choose You cover art with young woman alone outdoors on a balcony, facing outwards

    This song was the result of a collaboration between Melanie Peterson and I. We wrote the song together fairly easily, and recently recorded it in my home studio. I came up with a chord progression on the piano (I was going through a Dorian phase at the time). Melanie started with singing a melody with [...]

  • Music for Self-Isolation – Piano by Frank Horvat

    Neel playing Frank's easy piano piece

    My super-inventive composer friend Frank Horvat had a fantastic idea when the COVID-19 pandemic had us all hunkered down at home. He wrote over 30 short compositions for solo instruments or voice and asked musicians everywhere to post a video of them playing his pieces. We even talked to Frank about the singer-songwriter pieces he [...]

  • Van Attack One Year Later

    "Love will triumph" written in chalk on Yonge Street

    One year ago, a van mounted the sidewalk in North York on a sunny spring day and plowed through over 25 people, killing 10. The driver was quickly arrested, and the community came together in solidarity to express our collective grief over the incident. During the van attack, I was working from home with a [...]

  • The Countless Few (#MeToo)

    Following news of sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein, many of my female friends posted “#MeToo” on social media. Some of them even shared their own harrowing stories of sexual assault. Their courage and vulnerability really got to me. It’s one thing to hear about famous people who live a world away, but [...]

  • Winter Without You (with Shari Archinoff)

    A yellow flower in the snow

    I met singer-songwriter Shari Archinoff at one of my meetup groups. Shari plays piano, guitar, sings, and lives in the same neighbourhood I grew up in. The first time we met, I came up with a simple chord progression on the piano. Shari developed lyrics and a melody for a song about moving on from [...]

  • Holiday Shopping Spree

    performance of song for video

    Through co-hosting the Songwriter’s Meetup and Song Talk Radio, I get to meet many singer-songwriters in and around Toronto. Some of them have written original Christmas songs, including Carmen Toth’s This Christmas I’m Giving You Love and Melanie Peterson’s Santa’s Sleigh. Themes of peace and love tend to come up, as is typical of many holiday songs. [...]

  • Jam session: I Never Write Her a Song

    The latest Song Talk Radio backup band jam session was for my own song, I Never Write Her a Song. We rehearsed for a couple of hours, and then performed about three takes for the video recording. Thanks to the guys who put their hearts and souls into the performance, especially David St Bernard who took [...]