Grammy & Emmy nominated, CMA & ACM award winning songwriter Billy Kirsch has harnessed the power of creativity to lead a successful life as an entertainer, songwriter and entrepreneur. His body of work includes award winning songs and career songs for the artists who have recorded them.
Before pursuing his songwriting career, Billy enjoyed success as a jazz pianist and composer, appearing at the JVC Jazz Festival and popular New York City clubs such as Michael’s Pub and Eddie Condon’s where he was a member of the Eddie Condon’s All Stars. Billy recorded a well received jazz instrumental CD, “Southern Fried”.
With a publishing deal and a move to Nashville, Billy brought his unique take on songwriting to the country and pop market, finding success on the charts with hits and recordings by a who’s who of stars.
The list of artists who have recorded Billy’s songs include Tim McGraw, Wynonna, Rodney Atkins, Kenny Rogers, Engelbert Humperdinck, Alabama, Donny Osmond, Lee Greenwood, Clay Walker, Mark Wills, Collin Raye, Steve Wariner, Patty Loveless and Jimmy Wayne to name just a few.
“Holes In The floor Of Heaven” recorded by Steve Wariner, won a Country Music Association song of the year award, Academy of Country Music song of the year; was nominated for a Grammy award and was a number one hit.
Top 10 songs, “Is It Over Yet” and “Come Some Rainy Day”, both recorded by Wynonna Judd, have become standards in the repertoire.
“Stay Gone” launched singer Jimmy Wayne’s career as a Top 5 single. Other chart topping hits include, “Of Course I’m Alright” by Alabama and Clay Walker’s “My Heart Will Never Know”.
Billy Kirsch Song Sampler
Pictures of People I Love
It’s all Coming Back to Me
Holes in the Floor of Heaven
Billy’s unique abilities as facilitator, team building speaker and performer are the foundation of his highly successful corporate event programs, Team Building Through Song and Harnessing Your Creative Power. The presentations help people rediscover their creativity to become more innovative and engaged in their work.
Passionate about spreading the creative word, Billy Kirsch travels worldwide introducing the concepts of play, disruption, innovation and creativity to organizations that want to excel. Through Kidbilly Music and with his team of award winning songwriters, Billy brings the power of story and song to every program he facilitates.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
Creative courage is mostly a willingness to experiment; to play with new ideas and to search for solutions without knowing if you’ll get results. Failure is an integral part of success. The courage to chase ideas, fail more than once and try again is foundational to the culture of every genuinely innovative organization. When you engage with Kidbilly Music, you’ll get to experience creative courage for your own organization.
The Journey
Billy Kirsch’s own journey to becoming a team building speaker models this concept of creative courage. Not because he’s unusually courageous in a grand sense, but because as a lifelong creative it wouldn’t occur to him not to pursue ideas, hunches, and feelings.
When the music business began to change, Billy had a hunch that the opportunity for songwriters to find commercial outlet for their work was going to greatly diminish. Never one to reflect too much on the past, Billy began to search for new ways of sharing his musical experience, his unique skillsets and creative passion. This came at a time that the corporate world was becoming increasingly aware of the value of right brain (creative) thinkers.
For almost every organization, the only constant is change. To thrive, successful organizations become adept at meeting change, staying ahead of trends and succeeding at continuous improvement. All of this requires creativity. It requires support for innovative thinking within an organization.
With the need identified, to help organizations embrace creative thinking, Billy learned everything he could about group facilitation, program delivery and how to be an effective, entertaining team building speaker. He delved into the connections between the type of storytelling songwriters use and the type of storytelling that corporations use to increase employee engagement and to share mission or vision.
From the germ of an idea, Team Building Through Song® was born. It has grown into a vibrant set of offerings, all anchored by Billy’s ability as a hit songwriter, collaborator, team building speaker and program leader.
The distinction between our right brain or left brain is over amplified. Most of us are adept at using both our analytic and creative abilities. Yes, we all have preferences. But when we identify ourselves as creative types or non-creative types we limit ourselves unnecessarily. Writing a hit song or creating a work of art requires step-by-step problem solving. Most creative output is 95% hard work and 5% inspiration. And the inspiration component usually appears after lots of hard work.
We’re all aware of our ability to solve problems in the course of our work. Every time we solve a problem, we’re using our creative powers. To solve a problem, change is required. In order to change, we need to bring in something new. To come up with something new we need ideas. And to find ideas we need to use creative thinking.
But creative thinking doesn’t mean pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Creative thinking evolves from research and practice. It evolves from modeling what’s already out there. Creative success comes from combining ideas and lots of input into a new and workable solution which becomes the output.
A group songwriting session is a powerful way to practice creative problem solving. Groups start with a problem – the blank page. Through an actively led step by step program, participants create ideas, fill the page, refine ideas and come to a successful conclusion – the finished song.
The experience is a beautiful combination of analytic thought and emotional musical expression. The take away is creative confidence and a blurring of the artificial distinction between right brain and left brain thinking.