Thursday, January 29, 2009
News The RPM Challenge
Posted by Andrew R Tonry on Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Here's a little something for musicians in the End Hits readership: The RPM Challenge. I'll let them explain:
This is The Challenge - Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.
It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days, or the great folks over at February Album Writing Month (fawm.org), who encourage artists to write 14 new songs in February. Maybe they don’t have “Grapes of Wrath” or “Abbey Road” at the end of the month, or maybe they do—but that’s not the point. The point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something. You can’t write 1,700 words a day and not get better.
Don't wait for inspiration - taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You'll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day’s quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.
At rpmchallenge.com there is a little community to get involved in. Share, listen, learn more, etc.
It starts in February, so seriously, think about it. I am.
What they say about forcing yourself to produce is true. Last year I embarked on what I call the "7 Songs in Seven Days," project. I wrote and recorded a new song each day, for seven consecutive days. It nearly killed me. I blew a deadline for another newspaper because I was so creatively focused, sapped, and under the influence. It was fucking great. I expect to do it again, but it takes some serious free time—had to shut out almost all work and outside communication, though after the song was in the can each night, if I finished before bar closing time, the need to plumb the depths of twisted spirit were important as both release and for drumming up new material. It was a difficult, dark, rewarding march.
An album in a month doesn't sound too difficult. Right? (Assuming one doesn't wait until the deadline is bearing down...) It doesn't have to be GOOD, but I bet pieces of it will be.
If anyone from Portland decides to do it I'd certainly look into posting some of the results when it's all done.
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