Wayne Cresser Writes About The Same Thing Project’s Process

WITH THEIR GUITARS: Mark Cutler (left) with guitar player Brian Camerlin. (Submitted photos)

n June 2020, the Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH), consisting of various Brain Healthexperts and convened by AARP to assess the healthful properties of engaging with music,published a report called “Music of Our Minds: The Rich Potential of Music to Promote BrainHealth and Mental Well-Being.” Although the report targeted issues associated with aging, theGCBH’s “recommendations” for individual involvement with music are universal in their application.Number eight of ten recommends that people, “Try making music with other people,” and goes onto say, “Singing or playing music with and for others can generate positive feedback that enhancesself-esteem and provides a satisfying sense of accomplishment.”

Singer, songwriter and bandleader Mark Cutler and his The Same Thing Project have been doingjust that since 2016, the year after he was inducted into the Rhode Island Rock and Roll Hall ofFame. A Cranston resident and fi xture of Rhode Island popular culture, Cutler fronted New Waverockers the Schemers in the 1980’s, later the nationally recording and touring Raindogs, and nowat least two bands that play venues throughout the state, Men of Great Courage and The Tiny String Band. This is not to mention a continuously surprising catalogue of solo recordings (“SideEffects” debuted in early December). With his success and all it demands, it’s hard to imagine thatMark Cutler fi nds the time for anything else, let alone a weekly commitment to helping peoplefeel creative and better about themselves.

On most Tuesday mornings, you can fi nd him at the Outsider Collective in Pawtucket, RhodeIsland’s Hope Artiste Village, running a songwriting workshop for all-comers. This exercise incollective creativity is the engine that drives The Same Thing Project, which as Cutler told merecently, “has been doing songwriting workshops with Roger Williams National Memorial Park,among other places for the past few years,” and takes its name from the idea that “the same joy,laughter, and sense of belonging are experienced by all the participants in the workshops, witheach contribution from each songwriter, however small, having the same importance.”

One can’t be a fl y-on-the-play at one of the Project’s songwriting sessions. Cutler is fond ofrepeating the line, “Everyone’s a songwriter here.” And just minutes into the session, a clipboardgoes around for signatures. The workshop barely has an idea for a song and already we’re claimingcredit. That’s part of the process, one learns quickly – you are welcome, and you’ll get a coolsongwriting credit, but there’s work to be done.

Strumming a simple series of chords on his guitar, Cutler chats with the session’s scribe, who sitsin front of a blank white board, black Sharpie in hand. His name is Michael Eddy, and he will giveus the fi rst line in a song called “Gratitude.” It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The suggestion ofgratitude as a theme comes easy.

Now what is Michael Eddy grateful for? He’s grateful that his family, “Finally got rid of that olddusty table, sitting in the basement with all that junk.”

Let the versifying begin!

For the bandleader, he is simply starting a conversation. As Cutler says, “I help wrangle a line fromthe conversation to start the ball rolling. From a line, I ask for a rhyme. Through different prompts,we start getting at some things that help reveal a song, an idea. I don’t try to force anything heavy.I let the process and the people dictate that. If there are other musicians present, I ask them tocome up with a simple chord structure and we base the meter of the words around that.”

Today’s musicians, Peter Bortolotti on mandolin, Ed Dean and Brian Camerlin on guitars, anewcomer called All Vallese on percussion and eventually Jack Moore on washtub bass, followCutler’s lead and fi ll in the sound behind him. Not sure what key to start the song in, Cutler looksat his collaborators, already knee-deep in the process and having a good time and asks one toname a letter. When the room gets too noisy, Michael Eddy turns around and says, “Quiet on theset.”

Somebody calls out “D’, and it’s back to work.

We spend lots of time hunting down the right syntax, getting the phrasing right. Creating musicwith a small village of people – eventually there are about 30 participants – is not a linearprocess. We double back, triple back, take it from the top, sing and handclap our way through twohours of song-making.

The all-important language of the tune may come from quiet side conversations, or excitedbrainstorming.

A young man with black hair and sharp eyes engages Cutler for a bit. When they’re done, he tellsthe group, “Freddy and I collaborated and we discovered ‘there ain’t no reason to sob,” whichbecomes the line, “And I got no reason to sob.”

Cutler’s “everyone’s a songwriter” credo is based on the notion “that music is at the root of some oflife’s best emotions, especially when experienced together.” Clearly, some of the folks at the“Gratitude” session were workshop veterans. They know a good thing. Others in my cohort seemedfar less seasoned. Everybody’s engaged, however, the broad swath of people attracted to thenotion of making music together: musicians, non-musicians, artists, working people, retired folksand people with disabilities.

In 2023, Cutler will expand The Same Thing Project to include songwriting workshops at collegecampuses. With support from the National Museum of Mental Health Project, a “museum withoutwalls” whose mission is to “strengthen mental health literacy through the arts nationwide bybringing the exhibition to you,” the Community Songwriting for Mental Health College Tour may bethe fi rst collaborative undertaking of its kind. Successful sessions have already happened at DeanCollege and Assumption University in Massachusetts.

Paul Piwko, an Accounting Professor at Assumption and Alexandra Orlandi, a Mental HealthSpecialist at Maclean Hospital, are Co-Developers of the NMMHP. Their connection with Cutlermaterialized after Piwko attended a Same Thing Project Event at Hope Artiste Village, “Those 90minutes were among my most treasured of 202l,” he told me in a recent email exchange. He addsthat he thinks that the Project and the artist, “chose one another. But, even that falls short of how Ithink about our relationship – one of natural collaborators. Both TSTP and NMMHP help peoplecreate things that help people. We both are motivated by community/social goals vs. profi t goals.We both believe creativity holds a special place in building community and wellness.”

Piwko acknowledges that the “similarities end” there, and says Cutler brings not only a genius forwriting music that connects, but also the ability to lead with grace. An ability, as he says, “to be anequal to a group of people, a community, and through his genius of collaboration involve thatcommunity via emotions, lyrics, and melody in a common experience that explores the samethings that connect us to one another.”

When I ask him if he’s fi nding the experience of working with 18 to 22-year-olds different from thecross-section of people who usually participate, Cutler says, “We haven’t done enough colleges togive a complete answer. But we have done workshops at various community and cultural centers,and I fi nd it the case that just about everyone, (no matter what age) wants to feel that sense ofbelonging. I think it’s a universal issue.”

The story of where the Community Songwriting for Mental Health College Tour will go in 2023,will involve multiple college communities and the trust NMMHP has “in students and their passionto do transformative work.”

“In our own way,” he says, “all of us are Mark’s backing band, and it is an incredible honor to workwith him.”

More information about The National Museum of Mental Health Project can be found athttps://www.nmmhproject.org/

More information about The Same Thing Project, and the Community Songwriting for MentalHealth College Tour can be found at www.thesamethingproject.com orwww.nmmhproject.org/collaborations.