Scott Paul Johnson
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Community Challenge 78 | Write something in A Minor
🕑 Added 2025-01-14 16:00:11 +0000 UTCWhere to Start • Lesson Archive • Recommended Lesson Plan
Hi Everyone,
I'm getting back into Community Challenges! If you're not familiar with the idea, let me expain:
Imagine learning a new language without ever speaking or writing your own thoughts - only speaking travel phrases. Imagine you've only memorized the sounds of those phrases and don't even know what word each sound corresponds to. Imagine how much better you'd be able to communicate if you understood grammar and syntax and just general linguistic concepts in the language you're learning. Imagine if your teacher pushed you to speak your own ideas in that language instead of just travel phrases. Wouldn't you be much better at speaking that language? Some might argue that you're not really speaking the language unless you can articulate your own thoughts and ideas.
A LOT of people learn music by memorizing sounds and shapes on the guitar. Some people even learn a bit of theory, But if you never write your own music, it's a little like sticking to the travel phrases without practicing coming up with your own ideas. The best musicians (especially in the pop/rock/indie/songwriting world) tend to be really good at coming up with their own ideas - whether writing a full song, a bassline, a lead line, and interesting chord progression. That takes a knowledge of music theory AND practice taking that knowledge and making something new with it.
Community Challenges are designed to be a place to practice writing music. Yes, PRACTICE writing music. I don't need your best, I don't need you to pour out your heart and soul, though if you do thats totally cool too! I just need you to try to write something.
If you've never written anything before, watch the video - I walk you through the basics of how to start writing something.
I don't care if it's a voice memo you spent five minutes on or a full band Pro Tools session you spent 5 hours on - whatever you come up with, post it to the Community Challenge 78 thread on the community forum.
HAVE FUN!
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Comments
Scott Paul Johnson
Ask me in the next Office Hours! I'll post it now and i'll copy your question into the comments section
Gareth Thomas
Hi Scott, really enjoyed this and have put some time aside tonight to give it a go. It might be one for your office hours but I would love to hear more about adding in sus chords etc when building progressions. I'm going through your music theory for beginners and have the basics down, just looking to expand on standard progressions. Also agree with Ziggy, love the funky bass line :)
Scott Paul Johnson
Thanks! I wish my software didn't weird out. I might rework this one because I really dig that bassline too
Ziggy Funkdust
Great bass line! Stay Funky SPJ! 🎸🎶
