Heartaches and Harmonies

By AMANDA PETRUSICH
Published: December 16, 2010

Songwriters have been translating heartache into melody for centuries, scoring the human condition with weather-worn notebooks and battered guitars. As the Irish folk singer Frank Harte once said, “Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.”

In Brooklyn, at least, they don’t have to suffer alone. At the Brooklyn Songwriters Exchange, a free monthly series for aspiring and established songwriters, they can air original work for eager, empathetic ears.

The exchange — the next one is on Monday, before a monthlong hiatus in January — was founded by Rebecca Pronsky, 30, a voice teacher and musician who describes her songs as “more western than country and more twangy than folk.” Participants have included novices and bona fides like Lucy Wainwright Roche, a daughter of Loudon Wainwright III and Suzzy Roche.
The exchange can function as a formal showcase, where a handful of artists play abbreviated sets, or as a string of in-the-round sessions. “It’s an old Nashville thing, where three or four songwriters sit in a semicircle and face the audience, and one plays a song, and then the next one plays a song, and then the next one,” Ms. Pronsky explained. The effect can be serendipitous, with other musicians adding welcome embellishments. “Somebody will sing on top of someone else’s songs, or someone will noodle and play,” she added. “It’s a group effort, like a campfire.”

Ms. Pronsky began the series at a former Brooklyn coffee shop called Vox Pop in 2005. “I didn’t have any connections,” she said. “The espresso machine was always whooshing.” In late 2006 it moved to the Brooklyn Lyceum, a cavernous space on Fourth Avenue in Gowanus, where it ran weekly before moving again, to Union Hall, a bustling bar and music site in Park Slope. The lineup consists primarily of locals, although Ms. Pronsky also recruits artists from outside the borough.

Sarah Donner, 30, an “alternative folk-pop” songwriter and exchange alumna from Princeton, N.J., said it provided solidarity for musicians accustomed to playing alone. “As a singer-songwriter you’re usually solo, so it’s really nice to have that same kind of support from your peers and colleagues,” Ms. Donner said.
Ms. Pronsky has worked to imbue the series with a small-town, all-inclusive energy. “The scene of playing in New York is very ‘get in, get out,’ ” she said. “You go to see your friend’s band, and then you leave and go see another band somewhere else.” At Union Hall the audience lingers.

“At the end of the show you’ve created a teeny-tiny community of artists that you didn’t have before, and that goes a long way,” Ms. Donner said.

In the new year Ms. Pronsky will relinquish her duties to Jason Crosby (a singer-songwriter and producer who has performed with Bruce Springsteen and Eric Clapton) and one of his collaborators, the singer and multi-instrumentalist Megan Palmer, who plan to move the exchange in February to Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg, with continued financial support from the performance rights group Ascap. “There is such a large talent pool in Brooklyn, and it hasn’t stopped growing,” Mr. Crosby said in an e-mail. “This series is a way for these people to come together and meet, and share their art.”

WHEN AND WHERE Monday. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; show at 8 p.m., Union Hall, 702 Union Street, at Fifth Avenue, Park Slope.

MORE INFO (718) 638-4400, brooklynsongwritersexchange.com.