Write Something “Sign Painter Style”

What the heck do I mean by "sign painter style?"

To be honest, I'm not sure yet. But I watched this video of a guy doing some brush lettering this week and I was feeling inspired.

Sometimes when you're writing music, it can be useful (and fun!) to draw inspiration from something or someone outside of music. In this case, we've got a guy showing how a steady hand and a lot of practice can result in some beautiful lettering. He's not doing anything very complex. He's not stopping to think. Not second guessing or analyzing his progress so far. There isn't room for that. He's just doing something he's done a million times.

For musicians, it's easy to write a little bit, and then stop to wonder if it could be different. I've also had this thought more than a few times: "If it's hard for me to play, it must be good music." This is not always the case. In fact, I try to ignore that reasoning because it usually leads me down the wrong path.

On the flip side, there are things most of us do that are not very difficult at all for us. Maybe it's a pentatonic scale. Maybe it's a few chords you're very comfortable with. Maybe there is a certain scale in a certain position that you always warm up with. Use these things as your starting point.

For this challenge, try writing something thats easy FOR YOU, being sure to emphasize the "FOR YOU" part.

Whatever comes naturally, whatever feels comfortable, whatever that stuff is that you usually noodle around with, try starting there.

You don't have to record in one take, but if you're doing take after take and still not getting it, that might mean you're not in your comfort zone!

Wether you write a whole song, a chord progression, multiple tracks, or a very simple single-guitar pentatonic noodle, start writing from a place where you're very comfortable. The results might feel simple, because they will be easy for YOU.

Write something weird!

"Weird" is a completely subjective term. The idea here is to not take yourself too seriously - an important aspect of being a good musician! "Weird" here could mean a chord progression that doesn't quite make sense or has a wonky chord in there. It could mean a melody that meanders too much or jumps around a wide range. It could be a meter that switches from 3/4 to 4/4 or from 5/4 to 3/4. It could be a weird guitar tone that makes you laugh because it doesn't feel like a guitar. It could be a composition where you just leave too much space, then jam too much stuff into another area.

One of the advantages of exploring deliberately weird things, is that you quite often stumble upon things that end up being kind of cool! If you accidentally stumble upon something cool, you are absolutely welcome to share that too!

Focus on Dynamics

We've already covered this concept in Community Challenge 08, when I asked you to write something with extreme dynamics. I don't need extreme dynamics this time, I just need you to write with dynamics in mind.

The word "dynamics" basically refers to the sheer volume you're putting out. In classical music, you'll see dynamic markings like "p" for "piano" which translates to "quiet" or you'll see "forte" for "loud." There is a lot of variety in sheet music for this kind of thing. Sometimes you'll see "pppp" which would mean "play really really soft" or "ffff" which means "play really really loud" or even "mp" which stands for "mezzo-piano" or "moderately quiet."

What I need from you for this challenge:
1. Think about wether you want to focus on one louder section and one soft section, or if you want to play louder than usual for the whole song, or quieter than usual. The emphasis here is for you to observe
A) what is your personal middle-of-the-road volume/intensity/effort and how would you go about deliberately playing significantly quieter or louder than that?
B) how can you write some music that makes you think about playing quieter and/or louder than you usually do.

2. When you submit your creation to the community forum, give an explanation of the dynamic flow of your creation. It could be "In this 8 second voice memo, I was trying to play softly on X, Y, and Z chords, then I tried to gradually increase the intensity and volume until I reached this H, I, J section where I dug in deeper to make it feel much more intense."

Here are a few things to consider: volume and intensity are relative. Something might be "louder" but not played very intensely. For example, you could turn the volume up on your amp and be WAY louder, but physically strum the strings at the same intensity. In my opinion, the goal of dynamics is to increase or decrease emotional intensity. Ideally, your body language should match the intensity you want your audience to feel. So strumming or picking softly will feel relaxing and gentle and strumming really hard or picking really hard will FEEL intense. Basically, "volume" is a nice quick way to think of dynamics, but if you think of dynamics as "physical effort," it is easier to imagine how dynamics actually translate to guitar.

Team up with another Patron!

I'm so excited to see what happens with this one! There are a couple of tricky things about something like this, so I'll have to throw down some suggestions:

1. THOSE OF YOU WITH DAW CAPABILITIES: If you'd like to participate in this challenge, I'd love for you to type something like "I'm a DAW person" in the comments here or on the community forum.

2. THOSE OF YOU WITHOUT DAW CAPABILITIES: If you'd like to participate, please comment below or in the community forum saying something like "I am NOT a DAW person."

3. For ease of use, each track you share with another patron will require an accurate count-in or either one or two measures. This can be spoken (eg. "1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4" then music) OR you and your partner can establish a count in that you both agree to (eg. two measures of drum beat or two measures of muted strums) THIS IS CRUCIAL

You're more than welcome to work with more than one person AND you're more than welcome to work DAW-DAW or non-DAW to non-DAW, but let me lay out a few scenarios:

IN GENERAL, STICK WITH WRITING SIMPLE THINGS SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON WRITING "TOGETHER"

IN GENERAL, IT IS EASIEST TO USE A DAW FOR THIS PROCESS, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'D LIKE TO PASS TRACKS BACK AND FORTH TOGETHER A FEW TIMES, BUT OTHER METHODS ARE POSSIBLE.

I'll try to lay out options for every situation here:

1. Two non-DAW patrons writing together: If you and your writing partner do NOT have a DAW, you gotta at least have a phone to record with PLUS a separate device for playing your partner's tracks through speakers. The idea here is important: Pick one person to start the writing process with something like a chord progression. Record your progression (making sure to count yourself in in some obvious way) and send it to your partner. Your partner can then open the file, listen to it on speakers, and then (with their phone) record themselves playing along with the track on speakers. This is important so you can capture both YOUR idea AND your partners recording on one track. This is less than ideal, and you likely won't be able to add many layers due to lack of mixing abilities and whatnot, but if you don't have a DAW it's worth a try.

2. One non-DAW Patron and one DAW Patron: This situation is a little better, but also more one-sided. Probably the best idea in this situation is to have the NON-DAW Patron record something first, making sure to count in AND play something simple enough that it's EASY to keep good time. Then send that to the DAW person, who can import it into their computer and record over the top of it. The downside here is that it can still be hard to play in time so the initial person needs to really play something simple enough that they can really play nicely in time.

3. Two DAW people: You've got the easiest time. STEP 1: pick a tempo and make sure your project's BPM is always set to that tempo when you're adding layers. STEP 2, pick someone to write first. Maybe one person starts with a drum beat and the other person adds the first guitar, then sends it back. The coolest thing about this setup is that you can send the track back and forth to each other without ANY degradation of tone or mix. One person could be the "Master mixer" - meaning the person who has the main project file (like the Logic Pro or GarageBand project file.) This person has the job of compiling each separate audio track and mixing as you go.

4. Oldschool aka "In person:" Remember that thing we all used to do so often before March of 2020? That thing where you knock on someone's door and hang out inside? If you feel safe from Covid AND you know someone you could collaborate with in person, this is such a fun option.

To be clear: I don't necessarily condone meeting strangers you meet on the internet! You could collaborate with a friend and ask your friend if you can post audio to our community. Or you can try it out and just report back on the community forum about how it went.

If you've got a rapport with someone in the community forum AND you somehow happen to live close to each other, that might be a fun conversation to have with that person.

POST YOUR CREATIONS, THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PROCESS, AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMMUNITY FORUM.

Reach out to me via private message here or on the community forum if you can't find someone to work with and I'll try to link you up with someone. Or just post in the comments. We'll get it figured out.

Write something in 3/4 or 6/8

Time signatures are not SAID as a fraction even though they are a fraction.

We say "three-four time" or "six-eight time" but it's actually easier to think of them as fractions when trying to apply them in real life. But hold that thought while I explain a few things.

…Continue this post on Patreon.

Pick 1 technique and 1 mood

Your post must include which technique and mood you've chosen

This writing prompt is designed to get you to marry two concepts together. Maybe if this goes well, I'll do more of these where I get specific like this:
"Make sliding feel happy" or
"Make pulloffs feel sleepy" or
"Make fingerpicking feel energetic"

But for this week you get to pick a technique, then pick a mood to try to emulate.

Picking a technique is fairly straightforward - you can be specific or broad. For example, strumming and fingerpicking are extremely broad. Hammer-ons and slides are a little more specific. Long slides (like from 5th fret to 12th fret) or double pull-offs are examples of even more specific techniques. You could also mess with artificial harmonics, pick harmonics, picking close to the bridge, playing lead with octaves only, playing a melody on one string, double-stops, sweeps, chord melody, slide guitar, - - - anything you can think of as long as it is a definable way to play the guitar.

Beginners, feel free to be somewhat broad - like strumming or pull-offs. Those of you really looking for a challenge, feel free to get much more specific with your technique choice.

Then, pick a mood to emulate - sad, happy, angry, frustrated, awkward, weird, grumpy, playful, sleepy, depressed, desperate, etc -

The trick with picking a mood to emulate is - well - what do I do?

There is no correct way to do it, but here are some elements to consider:

1. Dynamic range
2. Phrase length and complexity
3. Space between phrases

Imagine that your guitar is your voice and imagine how your mood can change the way you talk. When I'm sad, I don't wanna talk much and when I do, I talk softly and I take my time. In these terms, my dynamic range is mostly soft, my phrase length is going to be shorter and simpler, and I'll probably leave space between my phrases.

Imagine how you feel when you're angry. When I'm angry, I often want to say a lot, very quickly, without a lot of space between phrases. I might have an outburst and I make mutter some stuff quietly under my breath. In these terms, my dynamic range would be mostly intense with some occasional soft (muttering) spots, my phrase length might range from very long and complex to short repetitive bursts, and there probably won't be a lot of space between phrases.

The most important thing to remember is: think about how your body feels when you're experiencing a particular mood - when you're feeling a certain way. Imagine playing guitar in a way that matches your body. Imagine your body language translating to the way you play guitar.

Feeling tired? Let your fingers be lethargic and slow. Feeling excited and energetic? Let your fingers fly around. Feeling chaotic and out of control? Let your fingers be a little sloppy and make some mistakes. Feeling intense and focused? Play much more carefully and conservatively, letting each note, each strum really mean something.

Post your creations to the community forum, and please make sure to mention the technique and mood that you chose!

IMPORTANT THING: While it's important to give this a try, sometimes you set out with an intention and end up with something that did not meet your expectations. That is OK! Please post anyway. Sometimes we try to write something happy and end up with something melancholy. Or we set out to write something uplifting and we end up writing something sad. This is normal, especially when learning to express yourself. Lets embrace this normal thing that happens and have a nice chat about it over in the community forum.

Write Two Seeds In Half An Hour

For this week's community challenge, we're doubling down on last weeks concept. A few of you truly discovered the relief of only spending a short amount of time to "complete" something. It's so easy to get carried away and spend hours on something only to find you don't really like it that much. Side note: IT IS NEVER A WASTE OF TIME DO TO THAT. But still, writing quickly is an important skill and impulse to hone in on and develop.

Thats why this week I'm challenging you to write two song seeds in half an hour. What is a song seed? It's two sections of music. You could think of it as verse and chorus, but that might be too specific. Just think of it as two sections that go together.

The easiest approach would be to write a quick chord progression in under 7 minutes, then write another one in the same key and record it before fifteen minutes is up, then repeat the process and voila: two quick song seeds.

If you are looking for MORE of a challenge, try coming up with two, two-part song seeds with chords and a melody in under fifteen minutes. OR if you're more of an instrumental DAW person, try coming up with two raw songs seeds with guitar, bass, drums.

THE MAIN POINT: When you're sitting down to write, it's sometimes difficult to define what it actually means to write music. An exercise like this can give you a sense of how easy it is to get distracted from a specific goal. It can also help you see the things you actually prefer over bare bones essential writing concepts. You might find you keep getting distracted by different voicings or different drum tones or just not liking certain chords in a progression.

Deliberate practice (the kind that actually helps you improve) is all about identifying specific things you'd like you work on and then deliberately ignoring other things while you focus on that one specific thing. This exercise is a great example of focusing on one specific thing and seeing what happens.

So try this one out, set a timer (or a few blocks of timers) and see what happens when you limit yourself to an extremely short amount of time. Post what happens to the community forum and feel free to talk about wether it was freeing, frustrating, exciting, weird, disappointing etc. Have fun!

Write Something Quickly!

For this community challenge, the goal is simple: write something - anything - but don't spend more than 30 minutes on it.

This is a little bit like my Ten Turds Challenge (which you're welcome to try anytime you like!) where you spend a very short amount of time trying to write something, then move on to the next.

For those of you curious about participating in a community challenge, but haven't jumped in for a try yet, this might be a fun one! There is something about having an excuse like "I could have done it better but I only had half an hour" that makes it easier to get into writing.

Give it a try! And post what you come up with on the community forum.