Today marks the beginning of a new round of the six week songwriting challenge. I have referenced this challenge in previous entries as a number of songs featured across the website were completed as part of these six week writing groups. This writing group has been invaluable to my songwriting and creative output over the last few years.
This group was started by Tim Bulster of Tiller of the Moon and first assembled in Fall 2023. That session was comprised mostly of folks from our little music community on the southern Oregon coast. Since then we have done a total of six rounds of the challenge, essentially two per year and the group has steadily grown beyond the Oregon coast music scene and now has members across the US and Europe. All the members are friends and friends of friends and this online community of writers extends out into lots of real world collaborations, projects, events and friendships
There is one big change to the group in that Tim is not participating and with his blessing I am hosting the group in his place. Tim has made great effort over the years to bring us together and I’m honored to be facilitating the challenge in his stead.
Everything I’ve written previously about these challenges has been retroactive, this time around I intend to write regular updates from within the challenge. Documenting the songs written over the coming weeks along with notes on my process and general insights from the group.
Going into the group I made some social media posts with a video inviting folks to participate.
Invitation to a six week song-a-week songwriting group. Since Fall 2023 this group has completed six sessions, collectively writing hundreds of new songs. We will begin September 14 and finish the week of Oct 19. Submit one newly finished song each week via email. If you miss a week… YOU ARE REMOVED FROM THE GROUP! But fear not! A song can be any length, subject or style (even instrumental) The goal is to dedicate time each week to creating, with a group that encourages accountability with ourselves and each other, to take our ideas to the “finish line.” To join, message me with your email. Or email ericprincessdragon@gmail.com
As the video indicates, the challenge is done online via email. Each week the host sends an email to all the participants, and each songwriter has to submit their new song by the end of the week. If someone doesn’t submit then their email is removed from the chain the following week. Here are the full rules of the group as written by Tim at the start of our previous challenge:
1. 6 Weeks Long. Our last song will be due Sunday, October 25th. You can drop out at any point.
2. Only newly finished songs. Honor system here. We don’t want that beautifully recorded song you finished a month ago. We want the song you finished that week. If you forget to write anything and at the last minute you need to write a 30 second song in order to meet the deadline for the week, that’s preferable than sending us your year-old masterpiece.
3. Yes– old, nearly finished songs are fair game. Do you have a year old song that’s 3/4’s done, but you could never figure out the ending? Figure out the ending and it can be your song for the week.
4. Send the song however you want. You can send us a rough voice memo,
something more polished, you can send just lyrics, or a combination of those. Don’t stress about recording quality. A roughly recorded song is much better than no song at all. Many submissions are recorded straight into the phone.
5. Send us your bad songs. Your song this week sucks? Send it. At the end of 6
weeks, most of my songs might suck. Hell, they all might suck. Or maybe the 6th song I write will be a great song that I never could have written without getting the 5 shitty songs out. The songs you send don’t need to be “good”. Relieve yourself of that
pressure.
6. Let’s not spam each other’s emails. Send ONE email per week to the group with your song in it. If you write multiple songs in a week, I’d recommend picking just one to send to the group for the week.
7. No feedback required. If you want to offer someone some praise or suggestions for their song, send them a private email. But, there’s no pressure each week to respond to people’s songs. I think it’s best not to expect that of each other.
8. If you don’t send a song, you’re out. We still love you, we tip our caps, we raise a toast, we shoot our flaming arrows at your boat, but you need to send a song to stay in the group. A group like this can fall apart really quickly if songs are coming in inconsistently and randomly. It feels less inspiring that way. I fully expect there will be less of us by the end, which sucks. But, again, you miss the deadline, you’re out.
9. The deadline is Sunday night. Each Monday morning, I’ll see who sent their song and include them in the new week. Everyone I don’t have a song from won’t be included.
Usually I’m worried about getting my song submitted before Tim’s Monday morning emails so I don’t get removed from the group. Now as host I’ll be the one removing folks from the group and I don’t feel I have the option of dropping out so this time I truly MUST write these damn songs.
Hosting responsibilities aside I am thrilled to be participating in this group again. To dedicate time over the coming weeks to finishing new songs, recording new demos and sharing that here and with the group is a wonderful thing. Everybody shares a simple intention at the start of the week: finish one song in seven days. Yet no two songs are alike, everyone has their own unique voice, approach and style. I am fascinated with the gap between nonexistence and existence. By sharing this intention and dedicating ourselves over the next six weeks we are on track to collectively write well over a hundred songs — songs that today we cannot imagine. I cannot wait to hear what we create and in addition to the songs that come through me, I hope I get a chance to share some others from the group with the writer’s blessings of course.
That’s all for now, time to get to work.
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