The core idea behind this year’s Song and Score Week at Massey Hall was that there is a real, live person behind the songs you love, weep to, and crave to hear over and over again. Song and Score Week brought in songwriters, performers, producers, composers, music publishers, and industry mainstays for many wide-ranging conversations and informational sessions. Programming in late September led up to the Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony and was presented in part by SOCAN.
Sessions included production tips with pop singers and songwriters, the business of making music, a masterclass on TikTok, fireside chats with inductee Roch Voisine, Jim Vallance, and a podcast taping with Leslie Feist, AI and music, the state of the music industry, catalogue acquisition, bringing a cue to life, and how Peter Peter really figured the sound of Heated Rivalry.
Song and Score Week 2026. RALPH and Rêve. Photo by Lia DeVries-Voves.
During the production workshop, pop songwriters and performers RALPH and Rêve gave an overview of how they write their songs, working with a producer, and the ways in which this process has evolved over their nearly 15 years making music. Rêve emphasized that her songwriting and producing experience has been driven by the need to unlock what she calls the “euphoria molecule,” ascribing instinct and feelings that exist beyond words to the music she wants to create. RALPH, who is releasing new music for the first time in three years soon after a period of great creative and personal transformation, said that having fun in sessions is key to her process. Both performers explained that the technical aspects are important to know, especially the language of producing, in order to see an idea come to life but to be flexible, take breaks, and—most importantly—trust their gut.
Jennifer Brown, SOCAN’s CEO, delivered a short presentation on the state of the industry, followed by a panel with a number of other songwriter and composer organizations discussing copyright and AI. “Music is enjoyed by more people than ever before,” Brown said, with music creators able to travel and collaborate across time zones and cultures. But there are significant issues to sort through while navigating this global terrain. Brown spoke of four key areas affecting songwriters, composers, and music publishers today and their ability to make a fair living off of their work: fragmentation of royalty streams, AI, writer’s share, and the Online Streaming Act.
Following this, Brown, along with organizations from Québec, Music Publishers Canada, and CMMRA, spoke to the real conversation we need to be having in the industry about artificial intelligence: generative AI. Using generative AI may mean a music creator can’t say with 100 per cent certainty that their song is entirely theirs, or their idea, as this technology is trained on and uses existing material in the world. Setting aside the moral and ethical part of this conversation (though these are incredibly important to have), the panel discussed any potential liabilities to the music creator using existing toplines or instrumentation in their own work and passing it off as original. This was particularly relevant for screen composers who follow a production chain of rights on films, television, and video games, which often requires rigorous clearances.
Jennifer Brown, SOCAN CEO. Photo by Lia DeVries-Voves.
Peter Peter spoke to fellow composer and songwriter Alexandra Petkovski about transitioning to screen composing and scoring from other songwriting and performance projects. The musician—new to screen composition—talked about how much help he received from other screen composers, that the best way to learn is to really be in the work and using the tools, and how different timelines are in this line of music creation—after scenes were locked, for example, he had seven weeks to finish those cues. But central to all of this was how Peter Peter followed the narrative by being a “good listener of the story” showrunner Jacob Tierney was telling and trusting his instincts as a musician to be able to put something evocative and emotional to the screen.
The music industry has weathered technological changes before. (Remember Napster?) Audiences still prefer their songs made by people and not the AI we’ve been repeatedly, and perhaps too liberally, told is inevitable. Song and Score Week reminded us of that, and how we wouldn’t get to feel what we do listening to music without the real, live people behind the song.