RUMFORD – Foothills Arts Center brought a chance to River Valley residents Wednesday night to develop a song reflecting the heritage of the area.

The workshop, the first of two planned for Rumford, was led by Martin Swinger, a musician and songwriter from Augusta.

Songwriting workshops are being held throughout western Maine area to give people a chance to brainstorm song ideas that will reflect the entire region. In November, the Continental Harmony Community Chorus will perform the results of those workshops in Jay, Strong and Rumford.

Amid strums of the guitar and a few lessons on how to write songs, the small group came up with many ideas, from the importance of the Androscoggin River to the region and the mysteries of the Moontide spring, to the height and power of Pennacook Falls in Rumford.

By evening’s end, a decision was made to focus on Hugh Chisholm and the impact of the paper mill on the River Valley.

That doesn’t mean, however, that all the others ideas will be excluded.

Swinger, who has assisted in other songwriting projects for Foothills Arts Center in Farmington, said Chisholm may be the major theme, but many of the other ideas will likely be woven into the final composition.

Songs, he said, generally fall into four types, or combinations of these four types: stories, lists, persuasion, and mood or description.

“Any story song will have a list, descriptive elements or persuasion toward an action,” he said.

One idea is the marvelous architecture that grew up around the town when it was being developed. So are the importance of native son Edmund S. Muskie, who worked to clean up the air and water; the variety of ethnic groups who moved to the Rumford area to work in the mills; and the importance of agriculture.

Pennacook Falls, which attracted Chisholm because of the energy it could produce, also figures into the area’s heritage. It is described as the highest waterfall east of Niagara Falls.

“Chisholm came for the river and the trees,” said Sherry Judd of Jay, who has been working to establish a regional pulp and paper museum.

With the theme established Wednesday, fine-tuning will happen at the Sept. 8 songwriting workshop at Scrappers Domaine on Canal Street. Less storytelling and more song-writing, said Anne Geller, director of Foothills.

“We’re inventing this project as we go, we’re learning of all the interconnectedness,” said Swinger.

River Valley residents are invited to the Sept. 8 workshop and to any of the other song-writing workshops planned in Farmington and Jay.

Rehearsals for the Continental Harmony Community Chorus, open to any adult or young person who wants to participate, will begin in late September.

More details on fees, workshop dates, and information on how to participate in the chorus, may be obtained by calling Geller at 778-0448 or on the Internet at www.foothillsarts.org