Electric guitar solos, pounding drums, vocals and an animated audience filled a backyard on Saturday night at the USC Songwriters’ Forum’s first house show of the semester. A lineup of three bands — Gracie Percival, bigfish and Ponytrick — performed both original songs and covers.

USC Songwriters’ Forum is a student organization where student musicians, songwriters, poets and creative writers come together and develop their songwriting abilities through group exercises and peer review. The club has also released seven albums in the past, which demonstrate the production they’ve accomplished together.

“When I first joined the club, it was definitely a space where I could take constructive criticism and really apply it and make my songs better,” said Sarah Hyun, the social media director of the club and lead singer of Ponytrick.

The forum organizes song circles and demo workshops, where artists give each other feedback on pieces they’ve written, and also writing exercises where members collaborate to share their writing styles and advice.

“Sometimes I feel like I have my own way of approaching songs. And then I’ll see someone else, and then they’ll offer a piece of advice I never would have thought of,” Hyun said, a sophomore majoring in music industry and communication. “It’s just a really great way to bounce ideas off of each other.” 

The exposure to what other songwriters are doing also drives members to improve their own work, said Christian Lising, the vice president of Songwriters’ Forum and a second-year graduate student studying global supply chain management.

“It’s kind of funny because you see somebody write a really good song, [and] you’re like, ‘Damn I want to write a good song,’” Lising said. “And so it’s kind of a little bit competitive in that way. Or like, ‘I want to write a song as good as that’. But we’re all friends, and we all like each other.” 

Outside of club meetings, the concerts provide student musicians with an opportunity to see how their peers perform and gain inspiration as to how they may want to showcase their songs to a live audience.

“I love going to house shows. You get to hear people you’ve never heard before,” said Gracie Percival, a freshman majoring in popular music, who performed with Songwriters’ Forum for the first time at their concert on Saturday. 

Songwriters’ Forum reached out to Percival asking her to perform for the concert, as she isn’t a member of the club; the event was her second house show ever, making it an experience where she could learn from groups that had already performed with the club in the past.

“I had never heard bigfish. I had heard Ponytrick, but it’s always so good, especially in the music community, just to listen to more music, because that’s how you are inspired, and want to make even more music, right?” Percival said.

The bands that perform at the house shows aren’t entirely composed of Songwriters’ Forum members. Sarah Hyun, for instance, is the only member of her band Ponytrick in the club; however, she said she often develops songs for Ponytrick through opportunities she’s had in Songwriters’ Forum. 

“One of the songs I played, called ‘Big Risk,’ was one that I wrote because I wanted to bring a song to share with Songwriters’ Forum,” Hyun said. “That one ended up being one of my favorite songs I’ve written. And so I feel like [Songwriters’ Forum] definitely just existing … has allowed me to write a lot of songs with my band.” 

The club includes people regardless of their experience with songwriting and music in general; whether a band, a solo artist or a creative writer, they join in effort of improving through collaboration, Hyun said.

“There are people that have never written a song, and then there are also people that spend all of their time writing songs, which is  a great thing about the club, is that we all learn from each other,” Hyun said.

Davis Armstrong, a junior majoring in music industry and the events director for Songwriters’ Forum, said he thinks that the community is the best part of the club.

“The openness and warmth and honesty, it makes a perfect sandwich when you’re trying to get better at art,” said Armstrong. “Something that made me want to stay is the people, honestly, just that community and culture that was there from the first meeting, I hadn’t really seen anything like that before.”