Songwriting 50/90

I stumbled across an interesting site today. It's called The 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge. It's an online community of people who have taken up the challenge of writing, as the title suggests, 50 songs between July 4 to October 1, 2009. This is not the first year for it. I'm not sure how long it's been going, but this year there are over 2700 members and 4400 songs have been submitted. From what I've seen, about 10% of the members have done 90% of the writing. The rest are lurking along checking things out.

I find this idea somewhat alluring. The only way to become a good writer is to sit down and write every day. In the past, I have been an "on-demand" writer. Acappella would need a certain kind of song for a certain album, so I would write it. Keith Lancaster had somewhat the same approach. He just did a whole lot more of it.

The really good writers I've met (who make a living from it) mark out a daily chunk of time to write, say 9:00 AM to lunch. The goal is never really to write one song during that time, but more to document ideas. Over time, several of those ideas flow into one song. And then another, and another, etc.

I find it interesting that I ran across this site just as I am getting into a new group, The Sons of Korah. I really like their writing style, putting the Psalms to music. It runs right along the style I like and the way I like to write.

So who knows? Maybe I might challenge myself to something a little less stressful than 50/90. I'm thinking something more along the lines of 26/52. That 26 songs in 52 WEEKS. One song every two weeks. Even that would be a challenge. My schedule is crazy right now. Something to consider... anyone else up to it?

Shut De Do - Exappella

Here's another song from the Boys Ranch Telethon. We had rehearsed several songs for the show, one of which was Everybody Said. At this point, we were going to sing Shut De Do. My intro confused Kevin and he started the wrong song. Some things never change.

I refer to my ability to confuse Kevin, not his starting the wrong song.

Hush - Exappella

Here's a clip of the four of us, me, Duane Adams, Kevin Schaffer and Gary Evans, singing "Hush" for the Texas Boys Ranch Telethon.