I've just come out of an incredible weekend here in Whitehorse. This year's Western Canadian Music Awards (and the associated BreakOut West Festival and BreakOut West Conference) were held right here in the capital of Yukon.  I still haven't caught up on my sleep yet. I have about 20 pages of notes from all the presentations and workshops I attended.  One of them, about social media, convinced me to finally sign up for Twitter, after years of avoidance.  (If you Tweet, find me @fawnfritzen!)  Hello, new addiction. The other two sessions I really enjoyed were songwriting critiques.  For the first one, we were invited to play a song we were working on, and then a panel of acclaimed songwriters (Blair Packham, Romi Mayes, Don Amero, and David Vertesi) provided their opinion on the good and the bad, what worked and what needed work.  As you might guess, they didn't always agree, and that sparked some great debates. For the second session, we were to submit a demo recording (you can check out the one I submitted, "I'm a Fool for You" in the ReverbNation player on this site) and another panel discussed the merits of the song, as well as the production value.  I got some great tips on the right type of microphone to use, for example.  The more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn. I got lots of great feedback in both sessions, and some valuable ideas on how to improve.  Plus I made some friends in the process.  You can't really get more valuable than that, can you? The icing on the cake was, of course, the music awards show on Sunday night.  All night long we saw one amazing combination of artists after another.  Hip hop blended with gospel, classical merged with electronica.  And to top it all off, three tunes and a curtain call from new Hall of Fame inductees 54-40. Next year's awards and festival will be in Regina.  Before this, I'd never have considered making the trek.  Now I'm thinking... I just might.