Write a Melody with Harmony

If you have a difficult time writing melodies and harmonies, here are some lessons that will be helpful:
Melody Making
Writing Harmonies 

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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Write Something with a Guitar Solo

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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Write Something Simple

I figured this would be a good place to start for the New Year.

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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Write Something in B Minor

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Polish a Previous Challenge

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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ONLY Write a Chord Progression

Make it as simple or interesting as possible. If you're just joining us, pick a few chords you like in a key! No melody, noIf you don't know how to do that yet, choose a few chords from one of the sets below:

G Am Bm C D Em F#°
C Dm Em F D Am B°
D Em F#m G A Bm C#°

If you're more advanced, try playing around with more interesting voicings, secondary dominants, modal progressions, and whatnot.

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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Write Something in 20 Minutes

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

POST WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN RIGHT HERE ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

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Write Something with an Excessive Element

That could mean writing something with a crazy amount of bending or sliding, or a track with ten rhythm guitars playing simultaneously, or excessively longwinded verses, or an excessively busy chorus with too many countermelodies. You can either try to figure out how to do this tastefully, or you can have fun with it and make it sound wild!

Your personal skill level, comfort zone, and free time are all important considerations when approaching a Community Challenge - I’m not asking anyone to write a full song! I’m asking for whatever you have the time, mental bandwidth, and skill to accomplish in roughly two weeks.

If you end up writing ANYTHING, I consider that a huge success. Write SOMETHING. It could be just a simple chord progression you put together or a riff you came up with using a pentatonic scale. Use the writing prompt to guide you and watch my video if you need more ideas.

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Rewrite Something

This one is pretty straightforward. The goal is to rewrite something you've written before. Maybe you like parts of something you've written, but the verse feels off - try writing a new verse or adjusting the melody or chord progression! Maybe you like all the parts, but want to tinker and adjust to see how it feels.

Thats what I'm going to do when I go live. I'll share my general approach as well as whatever tips and tricks I have for going about this less creative and more thinky process.

Upload your rewritten thing to this community forum post along with the following:
1. Why you chose what you chose to rewrite
2. A link (or upload) of the previously written thing
3. How the process went - was it smooth or janky? Did you have a hard time?

This stuff takes practice, so don't be too hard on yourself and make sure to HAVE FUN!

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Write something in Phrygian Mode, rooted on B, with BONUS

If this challenge seems like TOO much, try out an easier challenge from the previous 64 I've posted so far.

The idea is to write whatever you can based on your free time, skill level, and interest. You don't have to write a whole song and you don't have to use recording software. It could be a chord progression, a melody, a bassline or a riff recorded to your voice memos. Just try something and have fun doing it!

This was my first time doing a live community challenge and I think I'd like to do it this way from now on. If you have any community challenge ideas, throw them in the comments below! After 65 of these, it's getting more difficult to come up with new and exciting challenges!

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Write Something Inspired by Rothko Paintings

Here is a little online Rothko gallery so you can get a better idea of what his art looks like.

Post audio (or video!) of whatever you write to the community forum.

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Write a melody to poetry

The video gives you plenty of ideas, but the general principals are:

1. Find the meter of the poem - if it's a sonnet, it'll be 10.10.10.10. If it's in common meter, it'll be 8.6.8.6. but you'll likely find all kinds of things in the list of poems below.

2. Once you find the meter, write a chord progression - or at least pick a key and try writing a phrase to the first line of the poem.

3. Write a new phrase for your second line, or repeat your first line again (aka repeat your A phrase or turn it into a B phrase)

4. Arrange your phrases however you deem appropriate. Common Meter lends itself to a melodic structure like ABAC or ABCB, or even just ABAB because the lines are 8.6.8.6, and sonnet meter (10.10.10.10, also called "iambic pentameter") is a little more forgiving - you could do AAAA or AABB or AABC. In general, the options are much more open ended when your poems have an even meter like 8.8.8.8. or 6.6.6.6.

Keep in mind, the poems I've linked below are written in an antiquated version of English - sometimes that actually takes the pressure away because it sounds kind of silly and impersonal. Scroll through a few of these poems, count the meter yourself (like I did in the video) and see which poem you can imagine having a melody.

Post your melodies to the community forum and remember: these should be more like napkin sketches than full songs - no need to try too hard or get anything perfect. The goal is to practice and have fun.

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Write Something Sad

In the video I talk about a few technical ways make something sound sad, put part of the goal here is for you to explore how you might make something sound sad.

Post what you write to the community forum. Feel free to explain HOW you went about writing something sad.

Fun side note - I was originally feeling like my chord progression was in Am, using dorian mode, but I'm starting to think it might be in E minor - what do you think? Which chord feels like home? Em or Am?

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Write Something Outside Your Comfort Zone

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Write Something With A Lot Of Space

The video helps explain what I'm talking about here. Have fun! And remember, you don't need to write your best work, just write something.

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Write something using G Am Em D

Check out the video for more details and to watch me give some examples.

If you get into the habit of writing a little something once a week or so, you'll start seeing guitar differently. You'll figure out songs quicker. You'll learn new things quicker. You'll have more ideas when you jam with people. You'll be a better band mate. There are only benefits to learning to write, even if you have no intention of becoming a songwriter!

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Write Something In A Minor

The goal of a community challenge is for YOU to write in a fun, low pressure environment. No need to write a whole song, no need to write multiple parts. You start from your comfort zone and write from there. Wether thats a single-note melody, a chord progression or a whole multitrack song. You can record what you write with your cell phone, your ipad, or your home studio. Post what you write to the community forum.

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Write Something Difficult (For You)

You don't have to write something CRAZY difficult, just set out to write something that is hard for you to play. Watch the video for elaboration.

What is a Community Challenge? It's an invitation to all of my Patrons to create SOMETHING. When you're learning guitar, it's easy to lose track of what ALL your favorite musicians have in common. Creativity. It's easy to lose track of the fact that music isn't something to study, it's something to explore and experience.

The goal of a community challenge is for YOU to write in a fun, low pressure environment. No need to write a whole song, no need to write multiple parts. You start from your comfort zone and write from there. Wether thats a single-note melody, a chord progression or a whole multitrack song. You can record what you write with your cell phone, your ipad, or your home studio. Post what you write to the community forum.

The only rules are:

1. Write something new

2. Write something based on the prompt

These rules mean you're supposed to write something new, based on the writing prompt, rather than posting something you've previously written that might fit the prompt.

These challenges come out every other Thursday. This gives you about two weeks to write something for each prompt, but I recommend spending no more than an hour or two on each challenge.

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Write Something with a Big Transition

Here are a couple ways to approach this challenge: 

1. You could think of it as a position transition. For example, this could be a jump from the 3rd fret to the 12th fret in either your melody or chord progression. For example, if you're playing a D Shape D Chord down in open position, you could write a progression where you zoom that shape up to frets 7&8 for that G chord. To be more general, write something that takes you up and down the fingerboard.

2. If you like writing lyrics, write about a big transition in your life.

3. If you want to be more etherial, think of the big transition as a transition from one section of a song to another section. Maybe the first section is playing low low bass notes, the chord progression is also using low voicings, and the melody is using lower notes. The second section could be an explosion into a higher register for each instrument, creating the effect of "woah that was a big transition from one section into the next."

Remember, keep it simple. Good music does not equal difficult music.

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Write Two Quick Things in Under an Hour

The idea behind this challenge is to help you see what you create when you don't have a lot of time to stop and think. What are your go-tos? What are your hangups while you're writing? What slows you down?

In the video I talk about this as your baseline. It doesn't mean this is how you always write, it's just supposed to be a snapshot of your strengths and weaknesses at the present moment. It's a good opportunity to think about the kinds of things you might like to practice and improve and adjust.

You could set a timer for 30 minutes two times, or just a 1 hour timer.

You don't have to write the way I did in the video, thats just my comfort zone. Your comfort zone should be your starting point - wether thats just guitar and voice, just guitar, or a full DAW experience.

Have fun, don't overthink it and post what you come up with to the community forum. As an added bonus, I would love if you could share what you learned through this process about your own writing.

Check out the Lesson Archive for more Community Challenges - you’re welcome to participate on any past Challenge at any time!

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