What's a few (hundred) songs between friends?
It took Guns ‘N’ Roses 14 years to release an album. The album had 14 songs.
Between July 4th and October 1st, Rob and I are going to try to write 50 songs.
Each.
That’s 50 songs in 90 days. Or about 100 between the two of us.
We’ve signed up for a song writing challenge and community called, aptly, Fifty-Ninety. (http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/) This is our second year doing it. And no, last year, we did not write 50 songs last year. Combined, I think we hit about 30-40 songs. Honestly, not all were keepers, but a couple tunes we collaborated on during the challenge last year made it to our album Serious as a Heart Attack, and a couple made it to my new EP, Rolodex.
So why would we do this to ourselves? Because it’s an awesome experience. It’s a great chance to give yourself a simple goal: write music, and if possible, record it. Fifty songs is the target, but the true goal is to write anything. Sure, some people banged out 50 songs before I wrote the bridge of my first track. But that’s not what’s important. If you write one song, you’ve succeeded.
The community at 50/90 is fantastic, sharing constructive criticism, production tips, plugins, songwriting ideas, even collaborations. The aim here is to foster creativity and writing, not focus on crafting finely tuned and polished recordings. It’s about the writing, not production. Some people have home studios that rival anything you can book; other people record one take acoustic tracks using the built-in mic on their computer and Windows Recorder. And some people focus on lyrics only. It’s really the full gamut, with people making of this experience what they choose. It’s just so wonderful to share music with hundreds, thousands of musicians from all across the world.
In the coming weeks, Rob and I will be sharing a few of our 50/90 produced tunes here on the blog. If you’re a musician, though… come join us.
-M!?
