Tom has requested a songwriting challenge. I know we have some folks here who are already comfortable with composing, or arranging, or improvizing, or songwriting, but many have never given it a try. Don't be shy!
The goal here is not to post something worthy of admiration, it's to post something original. The more comfortable you can get coming up with and trying out bad ideas, the sooner you'll stumble across a good one.
I've performed and recorded songs I've written, none with any commercial success, but I enjoy it and can say it gets easier with practice. It helps to have people to bounce ideas off of and to get the ideas flowing with a "what if you tried this?..."
Your challenge is to write a 16 bar ditty about the accordion in C major which includes a F minor chord in the progression. The melody does not have to have words, and can be played on your right hand if you're not able to sing and play at the same time. However, it should be possible to sing "accordion, accordion" to it if you later brought in a choir to back you up!
1. Start with some rhythm. Say the word "accordion." In 4/4 time I think it sounds most natural with the "a" as an upbeat and "cord" on the downbeat as a dotted quarter or dotted eight. It could fall on the end of a phrase like:
"praise the lord and say amen,
he brought us the accordion."
Or it could fall on the beginning of the phrase.
"The accordion is real good friend of mine,
With an accordion you have a real good time."
We're not aiming for excellence here, just something passable!
2. With that rhythm in mind, work out a sequence of chords on the left hand. Since some of you are new to this, let's keep it in C major. Can't go wrong by picking chords built off the degrees of the c major scale. C, G or G7, F, Dm, and Am would be good candidates. But one added requirement! For a little drama, let's have that F major go to a F minor.
3. Once you're happy with the chord progression and have it written down, noodle around on right hand to find a suitable melody. If you need, to record yourself playing left hand and play it back while you noodle.
4. Put it all together!
I expect that within these constraints we'll get a lot of different ideas!
The goal here is not to post something worthy of admiration, it's to post something original. The more comfortable you can get coming up with and trying out bad ideas, the sooner you'll stumble across a good one.
I've performed and recorded songs I've written, none with any commercial success, but I enjoy it and can say it gets easier with practice. It helps to have people to bounce ideas off of and to get the ideas flowing with a "what if you tried this?..."
Your challenge is to write a 16 bar ditty about the accordion in C major which includes a F minor chord in the progression. The melody does not have to have words, and can be played on your right hand if you're not able to sing and play at the same time. However, it should be possible to sing "accordion, accordion" to it if you later brought in a choir to back you up!
1. Start with some rhythm. Say the word "accordion." In 4/4 time I think it sounds most natural with the "a" as an upbeat and "cord" on the downbeat as a dotted quarter or dotted eight. It could fall on the end of a phrase like:
"praise the lord and say amen,
he brought us the accordion."
Or it could fall on the beginning of the phrase.
"The accordion is real good friend of mine,
With an accordion you have a real good time."
We're not aiming for excellence here, just something passable!
2. With that rhythm in mind, work out a sequence of chords on the left hand. Since some of you are new to this, let's keep it in C major. Can't go wrong by picking chords built off the degrees of the c major scale. C, G or G7, F, Dm, and Am would be good candidates. But one added requirement! For a little drama, let's have that F major go to a F minor.
3. Once you're happy with the chord progression and have it written down, noodle around on right hand to find a suitable melody. If you need, to record yourself playing left hand and play it back while you noodle.
4. Put it all together!
I expect that within these constraints we'll get a lot of different ideas!
