The Song Fight Bulletin Board

You know you love it. I love it too. This will be my third FAWM and I am really looking for a creative angle to approach it.

FAWM 2007 - I tried just writing 14 random songs and had a really hard time coming up with ideas. I found that the challenges helped me with starting points.
FAWM 2008 - I used the 6 songfight titles for the month, the four challenges, and the writing of a 6 song interconnected suite, and I was much more successful in completing a whopping 23 songs.
50/90 2008 - I planned out a lot of ideas: a 12 song concept album, three 4 song EPs, 13 weekly challenges, 8 songfight titles, and five random songs. During the challenge, the structure almost felt overpowering, but I finished and was able to hold a pretty good pace and not have to scramble at the end for inspiration.
For FAWM 2009, I'm looking for a new idea. Something different...a different way to write or structure songs, or...I don't know...something...
Any ideas?

Last two FAWM's, I have written lyrics for Zinkline.

Bending The Worlds (2007)
Grace of a Car Crash (2008)

Hopefully we'll pull off #3 this year. Just like you, TWS, I've gotta pull together some inspiration. But I know it'll come together when the time comes.

When I had my mega-month of February in 2006, I used these 'concepts' to get me started:
FAWM - 14 songs about neighbors I have or have had.
RPM - 10 songs about the plots from adult films I had seen in the old army days. Yes, the plots, such as they were.
AAD - 12 songs, one for each astrological sign. Although not into astrology, I did a song about a bullfighter, people whose sign I knew, etc.
SF! titles - Well, there you go. Whatever they were.

So. Point being just take any idea that gives you a pack of ideas and run with it, no matter how cheap. Good luck, I'm not in this year.

If I decide to write an album for FAWM I'll make the songs tell a story, at least on a very abstract level. I'll decide what story once I start writing songs.

jast wrote:If I decide to write an album for FAWM I'll make the songs tell a story, at least on a very abstract level. I'll decide what story once I start writing songs.

that sounds a lot like what i did for my 50/90 concept album. on the first day of the challenge i used the random title generator on modplug.com to generate a title for the album (taking the first title generated). then every monday for the 12 weeks of the challenge, i used the same generator to generate each song title and continued the story based on the title. it was pretty challenging for some of the titles (again, forcing myself to use the first title generated).
here's what i had to work with:
Title: Ascending Imbrogio
01. Deadly Comrades
02. Free-Flowing Serenade
03. Serious Webmaster
04. Ignorant Tedium
05. Sensible Asteroids
06. Adaptable Sisters
07. Emotionally Kneeling
08. Marching Apparitions
09. Inside-Out Danger
10. Frivolous Molecules
11. Gauche Sock Puppets
12. Motionless Conscience

other songs i've written using the modplug.com title generator include:
Confident Knowledge from Within
Vibrating Statues on the Dance Floor
Analog Landscape
Shrink-Wrapped Bunnies Watching Us
Daunting Meditation from Mars (covered by Plain Songs)
My Sky
and the titles for my 3 50/90 EPs (again, using the first title generated for the title and the four tuneflow.com titles for the song names):
Disturbing Diffidence in Your Ears
Improvident Relics Out in the Open
Blue Scenario

Last year was my first FAWM. I'd had a weird year and wound up writing my autobiography, which I desperately hope to finish re-recording and printing before feb09 is over!

For this year's FAWM I plan to hang out, have fun, Rock the Renaissance.

Elaine!....you look SO cute in your new avatar. Too bad I already know how you are, or I'd be all over that!

I'm probably just going to write 14 songs about my superman complex because I keep trying to write stuff for RPM because its record production month, so as long as I don't start recording anything before then, I'm not cheating, but nothing fits the idea that I want to make and everything seems to revolve around saving (or wanting to save) people from vague troubles and I've probably written about 10 of these types of songs in the last week alone it seems, so maybe that should be my RPM album and I should just call it Superman Complex.

This post looks like it belongs in the RPM thread, so, uh, FAWM, I'm probably just going to write whatever I write without any actual ideas in mind because if there are no ideas there are no songs that can be written that aren't about those ideas. And if I push myself to write at least one song per day, maybe at some point, some of them will have a theme. Not that an album really needs a theme just well written songs and I could totally, probably accidentally write 14 well written songs in 28 days.

This will be my fifth FAWM, I believe

2005 Signs of Life (concept album based on photographs of signage taken on my walk to work)
2006 Make-Up for The Break-Ups (www.johnnycashpoint.com/fawm/)
2007 Hoosenbergler’s ‘Everything’s Better With Monkies’
2008 The Holy Romance Empire (Concept album about a relationship break-up www.johnnycashpoint.com/fawm08/hre.m3u)
2009 …

I dunno what i am going to do (and shouldn't really think about until Feb 1st according to the ruleage) - i would love to do a collab album. I like the idea of revisiting the idea of songs inspired by photos, like the first one.)

We shall see, we shall see. It definitely helps to have a clear plan, in my experience, if only for the motivation of finishing.

j$

I think it's fine to come up with your concept or approach, just not lyrics, riffs, etc. Nothing mapped out or whatever, just leaving it at "I'm going to do an album about the history of light-bulbs" and stop right there.

RPM does actually allow you to pre-write stuff as long as you don't record it. Personally, if I decide to participate in RPM or FAWM (or both? OMG hack!), I'll do absolutely nothing for the album before the month beings.

I'm writing more drinking songs this year.

Paco Del Stinko wrote:I think it's fine to come up with your concept or approach, just not lyrics, riffs, etc. Nothing mapped out or whatever, just leaving it at "I'm going to do an album about the history of light-bulbs" and stop right there.

Actually, for me at least, it seems like it would be impossible to have any concept in mind when it comes to something like FAWM, unless I was planning on being entirely distracted 24/7 and kept away from anything that makes noise until the start date. It just doesn't seem that easy to have an idea and be able to ignore coming up with stuff for those ideas, like, if you're messing around with some instrument or thing that can replicate the sounds of an instrument and a riff or beat or whatever pops out and even though you're not supposed to be thinking about it, all the sudden you start singing along to it and poof, a song about light bulbs pretty much gets written.

Then what? Do you pretend it didn't happen? Then again, FAWM seems like something for people who don't have stuff just pop out of their heads and need motivation to write. If you're writing stuff regularly, FAWM and, I guess, RPM, (but thats more about people who don't actually make their song lyrics into albums, so if you're writing and recording regularly, both) aren't really necessary and might even get in the way of creativity since it puts constraints on your natural abilities that just happen organically anyway.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Elaine!....you look SO cute in your new avatar. Too bad I already know how you are, or I'd be all over that!

Girls luv it when guys notice their new 'do.
This avatar comes from the cover art for my album from FAWM08, which is why we're talking about it in this thread, of course!

I figure I will double dip FAWM and RPM again this year.

Elaine - I think I will have to go check out your fawm

I think I'm gonna do FAWM this year. It'll be a good way to improve my songlist for the year. Of course my motivation over the last uhh lifetime has been lacking. So we'll see.

I always say I'll do FAWM, and then I never finish it. So maybe I'll opt out this year, and somehow that will make me finish it!

I want to do FAWM.

I have started playing live a fair bit (solo) and I am running out of "guytar" songs.

I would like to do a strictly guytar FAWM - for new material.

But I wont. I am too busy

Rone Rivendale wrote:I think I'm gonna do FAWM this year. It'll be a good way to improve my songlist for the year. Of course my motivation over the last uhh lifetime has been lacking. So we'll see.

"Improve my songlist"?

jimtyrrell wrote:I'm writing more drinking songs this year.

Now that sounds like a challenge......maybe I'm not too busy after all

The boards finally opened up today. I'm in.

I'm signed up.