July Songwriting Challenges
Morphing Timbres: Experiment with morphing timbres within your voice throughout the melody.. Explore how changes in vocal color can shape the sonic character of the composition. Reference points are Nicki Minaj’s album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Beat Exploration: Create a simple beat using your preferred digital audio workstation (DAW) and samples from Splice or other sample libraries. Experiment with different drum samples and patterns .
Emulate a Hero: Pick a writer or artist or producer whose work you love. Write something in their style lyrically, vocally, and in terms of production. Use this as an exploration in analysis and replication.
Introduction to EQ: Use Youtube to learn the basics of equalization (EQ). Record a guitar and vocal demo, then, practice using EQ to shape the tonal balance of individual tracks and ensure they sit well in the mix. See how different EQ’s transform your own perspective of your work.
Epistolary Song: Write a song in the form of a letter. Explore the emotions, stories, or confessions that could be conveyed through a personal letter. A great reference point is Taylor Swift’s “Dear John.”
Book Title Inspiration: Choose a book title as the inspiration for your song. Create lyrics that capture the essence or themes of the chosen book in a musical narrative.
Poetic Structure Experiment: Write a song in which the rhyme structure changes from verse to verse. If you’re using an AABB structure in verse 1, try to use an ABAB structure in verse 2. See if this interplay makes your song better….or…worse!
Chromatic Escapade: Write a song that explores chromaticism. Experiment with incorporating chromatic passages and intervals into your melody.
Elongated Intros. Short, almost perfunctory intros have been a mainstay of pop music recently, its like a “don’t bore us get us to the chorus” mentality on steroids. Fight this trend. Write a song where the intro drags on for at least 1 minute.
Short Song. Write a song where the entire story, lyrically and melodically, wraps up within 1 minute.
