The Song Fight Bulletin Board

It's that time of year again! Fun-A-Day is a challenge where folks try to work on art every day in January. Jamuary meanwhile is a challenge started by Jonathan Mann a couple years ago where folks try to write a song every day in January. He also made a set of prompts for each day: https://www.jonathanmann.net/jamuary (I'm not actually sure Jonathan is keeping that up anymore, it's listed as "Past Project" on his homepage.) I think there may have already been a "#jamuary" thing going on before Jonathan's too. Anyway, time to make some stuff! I'm going to give it a whirl again. Glenn Case is going to do it too, he'll probably be live streaming himself making a song every night.

I made my first piece of music, it's very dumb.

Here's my first one from yesterday. Moody synthy post-rock.

No idea where this came from, but, I kinda like it. It's a "serious" song this time, electronic, slow and atmospheric. Oh yeah, and I snuck in the current Song Fight title so I will probably enter this in the fight.

I did a Song Fight entry on day two, day three found me a little short on inspiration but I managed to get a synthpop instrumental done. Ran into some Melodic Confusion towards the end so threw in a guitar solo... as you do.

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:19 pm

No idea where this came from, but, I kinda like it. It's a "serious" song this time, electronic, slow and atmospheric. Oh yeah, and I snuck in the current Song Fight title so I will probably enter this in the fight.

This is lovely.

I was short on time and also low on inspiration so I just made a live synth jam. (No MIDI sequencing, just using the built-in step sequencers on my volcas and in this case the arppegiator on my SH-101, plus effects pedals on everything. I added some reverb on the drums and bass in post too...)

My 4th song is very stupid. A beat that I made on my Circuit, plus Duolingo samples.

So for Fun-A-Day I set the bar low and just try to "work on music". Tonight I cut rhythm and lead guitar tracks for a Song Fight entry that will either be me and Ken or BSS.

EDIT: I also cut a possibly too late guitar solo for Glenn Case's Jamuary song for today, and, shared a Song Fight entry I had started last week with somebody who I may collaborate with on it. So, productive after all even without a song to show for tonight.

Sad little country-pop song today. Really enjoyed this one, super-obvious chords etc. but I like the result.

topical synthpunk for day six!

I forgot to post last night, I made some more instrumental electronic music.



I doubt I'll have much time during the week for actually writing songs with lyrics and vocals, it seems like.

Instrumental electronic again, this time a drum and bass ish live synth jam. Man, I'm just feeling like weeknights are brutal, and I don't see myself having enough time or energy or inspiration left to actually write songs during the week much.

I've been furloughed from my job (again) so all I have is time. That said, I have a piano lesson tonight so this one was written and recorded very quickly. Atmospheric guitar instrumental...

Dang, sorry to hear that Vom, that sounds crappy, other than the upside of having more time to make music. I hope you can get back to work soon.

More electronic garbage from me. This one is not a live jam, it's a weird composed thing with a really crazy bridge.

Low on energy and inspiration today, and spent too much time setting up Ableton on recently-upgraded laptop (first seven songs were done in Reaper).

Little synthy thing will have to do, hopefully get more into it tomorrow.

Oof, so tired today. Instrumental music with instruments this time, typical band setup. My hard drive that I record to also was acting up, which is very scary. Also, I'm sick of the damn bots on Soundcloud!! Ugh.

I assumed I'd have more energy and inspiration when the weekend arrived but... I didn't.

Still, this was quite fun - I sampled my Reface CS into my Casio SK-5 for each of the instrumental parts (and used the built-in bongo samples). Feel like it could have been the start of a fun song but I am totally blank on lyrical ideas.

I very nearly threw in the towel today. I've been poisoning myself with too much social media and news since Tuesday. Maybe this is a tiny bit of opening a release valve or something.

I assumed the weekend would provide me with more energy and motivation. But it didn't! It provided me with backache and a hangover. Still, this one's quite fun. A noisy ode to online discos.

I made a silly cover of "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails but it's about donuts. I spent way more time on this than it deserved, but, I was having fun.

Ahhh I didn't pick up on it being a cover, that makes more sense now somehow? Loving the synths!

I got experimental today and made a rhythmic techno thing from chopped up sounds from the BBC archives.