In a Nashville office, sitting on a shelf somewhere, is a song written by Janice Bell that’s just waiting for some big-name singer to belt it out and make her rich and famous.

Well, at least give her a fat enough wallet to afford the finer things.

The song, called “The Dinner Table,” is one of several tunes the Oak Harbor native has penned over the past few years.

Her songwriting hasn’t taken her to the top of the charts, yet. But it has given Bell the opportunity to vote on the Grammy awards — a grab bag of musical accolades bestowed annually on America’s top bands and singing sensations.

The past half-dozen years, Bell, 28, has dutifully mailed in a voter’s packet, outlining her choices in a variety of categories — from best male vocalist to best new artist.

In fact, Bell attended the Grammy’s in 2001 and got to see many of her favorite musicians up close and personal.

It may come as a surprise to the general public, but regular people can attend the popular music awards show, if they purchase a ticket well ahead of time. This year the show is set for Sunday, Feb. 8.

“If you want to go to the Grammy’s you can go,” said Bell. “It’s not this completely untouchable event.”

A talented musician as well as songwriter, Bell plays both guitar and piano. She often carries around a tape recorder and will hum a bit of melody, so she doesn’t forget a tune that pops into her head. She’s known to scribble some of her lyrics onto paper bags and napkins.

Much of her focus has been on contemporary Christian music and she is active in helping select winners of Christian music’s Dove award.

But it’s the Grammy’s that make people stand up and take notice.

As her dad, Rick Bell, KWDB radio station general manager, put it: “It’s pretty cool.”

Electric bus tour

In fact, Bell found herself in front of a microphone at the 2001 Grammy awards, answering questions posed by VH-1 reporters and other music-industry insiders. That’s back when she was part of an entourage known as the Electric Bus, a mobile song-writing lab that crisscrossed the country as part of Experience Music Project.

Also known as EMP, it’s actually a museum created by Microsoft founder Paul Allen as an ode to his first love: rock music.

Before Bell boarded the bus, she was a student at Skagit Valley College, studying music and English. A friend turned her onto a job at the music museum. Indeed, she worked for a company that helped set up the funky museum, which looks like a shimmering, metallic, funhouse at Seattle Center. It opened to much fanfare in 2000.

Soon, Bell was working in the museum’s visitor services. She then moved on to become a supervisor, overseeing the museum’s Sound Lab. The lab features custom-built drum kits, keyboards and mixing consoles, as well as guitars and bass guitars, all linked to touch screens in a series of sound-proof rooms.

During that time, museum staff often called on Bell, an outgoing, articulate young woman, to lead tours for some of the VIPs who came calling. She knew the museum inside and out, and she wasn’t shy about talking about it.

So when the opportunity came to be part of the museum’s cross-country song-writing crew, Bell leapt at the chance, and won herself a seat on the bus.

First stop, Grammy’s

The bus was actually a customized tractor-trailer, with sides and a top that popped out. Inside was a substantial collection of rock-and-roll artifacts, including guitars that belonged to Northwest legends Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix.

Bell and other members of the crew would run a short movie, with different artists talking about music and songwriting. They taught classes on the craft of writing songs and they invited visitors to have fun with the portable Song Lab, which included microphones and mixing boards.

“The focus was on getting people to learn about music,” said Bell.

They made their debut at the Grammy’s, held in Los Angeles that year.

Although the tour manager was supposed to do all the talking during taped interviews, Bell found herself drafted to stand in front of the cameras and answer questions about the newly opened museum.

“I was a tour guide so I had tidbits about the museum and information about it in general that I had memorized,” Bell said.

Famous actors and musicians checked out the Electric Bus.

“It was really neat to see them come in there. But, hey, they’re like everybody else coming through,” she said. “I’m not an awestruck person.”

One musician she saw regularly was noted techno-wizard, Moby, who stopped by several times.

After the Grammy’s, Bell flew with seven other crewmates around the country, while a professional driver got the tractor-trailer where it needed to be. The Electric Bus crew touched down in cities up and down the East Coast, across the Midwest and down into Texas. Often they set up shop at a college campus and taught mini song-writing classes.

The first few months Bell worked with hardly a break.

“It was kind of like a big blur,” she said. “I did double shifts and there was no day off for the first three months. I wanted it to succeed as much as anybody else.”

A great experience

Experience Music Project, or EMP, has been open for going on four years, and times aren’t nearly as good as they were at the beginning. There have been layoffs at the funky museum and the bus no longer rambles around the U.S.

But Bell said she had the experience of a lifetime and no regrets. She got a chance to sample a wide range of places and people.

When she taught song-writing classes, sometimes her audience would be Ivy League college kids, such as when the bus stopped in Princeton, N.J. Other times, she and her fellow crew members taught music to inner-city children.

They taught the basics of writing a song, from coming up with lyrics to layering on a melody, a first verse and chorus.

“It’s not as hard as people think,” Bell said.

Bell comes home

About two years ago Bell came home to Oak Harbor. She wanted to spend time with her family. She also had been injured in a fire that burnt much of her left hand. Since then, she has largely recovered. She is still immersed in music.

“I loved living in Seattle, but I like living in a small town … and Seattle’s not too far away,” Bell said.

These days, Bell works at Whidbey Music Center, a full-line music store in Oak Harbor, where she helps customers with guitars and pianos — her twin loves.

“It’s a part of everybody’s personal life,” she says of music. “It’s just a bigger part of my life than maybe my next-door neighbor. Even if I wasn’t working at Whidbey Music Center, I’d still be writing music.”

Indeed, Bell spends much of her free-time writing songs. At home, her Roland keyboard is hooked up to her personal computer, allowing her to print out sheet music, every time she writes a song.

Who knows, her next tune may lead her back to the Grammy’s— as a nominee.