His hits are on their list, and they can go for that

Back in the olden times, before iPods and iTunes and MP3s and everything else that's changed everything musical, Lansdale and Sellersville and North Wales were filled with little coffee shops.

And the little coffee shops were filled with folkies and guitars.

"There was a folk revival going on," John Oates told a group of high school students and aspiring musicians yesterday afternoon.

"I started right here in Lansdale - North Wales and Lansdale," he said.

Alas, the coffee houses are gone. Folkies are gone. But the desire to write songs and to sing and perform are alive and well in the area.

Oates, 60, learned that during an hour-long songwriting workshop he conducted, Taylor acoustic propped on his knee, at the Lansdale Center for the Performing Arts on West Main Street.

Oates, half of Hall & Oates, the pop duo who rose to megastardom in the 1970s, also performed at the center last night.

But though the modes of delivering music have changed from the days of LPs and radio, the writing of songs proceeds in the same way, Oates said.

You write what you feel; you write from what you know is true in yourself. And it doesn't hurt to play a little piano. Oh, and don't confuse a recording with a song. Two different animals.

"I have expressed my deepest emotions through songs," Oates told the room. "Don't be afraid. A lot of people are afraid to make that step. . . . You have to be fearless."

Oates didn't sing anything for his three dozen or so listeners, but he introduced Carsie Blanton, 24, a guitarist and songwriter in Philadelphia. She joined him onstage, talked about her own writing (she likes to work alone; Oates likes to collaborate), and performed a song.

Mutlu, another Philadelphia songwriter, also performed a song.

How is the Philadelphia music scene? a young man in the audience asked Blanton, who hails from Virginia but has been in Philadelphia for about three years, building a career. "It's great," she said. "I love it."

Most of the students in the workshop, drawn from Oates' alma mater, North Penn High School, listened intently for the hour he spoke.

Kristen Lilly, 15, a sophomore singer, said Oates' experience spoke to her of the long, hard work necessary to make a career in music. She's thinking about it.

Taylor Baciocco, 15, a sophomore, said she saw the workshop as an opportunity. "I can see someone, listen to their point of view, listen to how they did it," she said. Oates, she said, offered real insight into songwriting.

"I've tried it," she said. "I could do lyrics, but the whole melody part wasn't so great." (Oates gets a lot of song ideas riding his bike and hiking, he confided.)

Emily Kirsh, 16 and a North Penn junior, said listening to Oates was important because of his roots at North Penn.

"I can feel an extra connection," she said.

Valerie Balock, a 15-year-old, guitar-playing sophomore, said she wanted to hear what another guitarist had to say about songwriting. Most songwriters, she said, are piano players.

"It's a very different instrument," she said. For his part, Oates urged songwriters and guitarists to work with pianists. A piano, he said, offers a completely different perspective on music.

"I learned that you really have to try and stay true to yourself," Balock said. "I think that if I did, I'd have a really hard time with a producer. I'd say, 'No, I like my song the way it is.' "

And what about places to play? What about all those coffee houses Oates described with such vivid affection?

All gone, she said. There is a club on Main Street, and that's about it.

"People aren't really creating. They're just listening," she said. "Society has taught us to conform as opposed to, like, doing your own thing. Doing your own thing has become really hard."