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Hey, what's your favorite holiday? Perhaps Christmas, Easter, or your own birthday come to mind, to list a few. Personally, my favorite holiday is FAWM, with a sizeable lead over any other options.
"Ok, Mark", I hear you say from a (social) distance, "What the googly-giggly heck is FAWM?"
Hang tight, friends, allow me to elaborate:
"February Album Writing Month", or "FAWM" for short, is an annual songwriting challenge where the goal is to write 14 original songs within 28 days. Starting at midnight on February 1st & coming to a close at the month's end, you would have to put out a new song every-other day in order to stay on pace for the win.
Sounds intimidating? Don't worry. Whether you're a beginner songwriter or an expert producer, you can definitely benefit from participating in FAWM!
A Brief Word On Accessibility
First and foremost, I wanna make it clear that there is no barrier to entry whatsoever with FAWM. You can come into the challenge with absolutely no songwriting or music-making experience and still have a good time. If you've been meaning to learn how to write songs, FAWM is a great place to practice. The FAWM community makes a collective effort to leave friendly and constructive feedback on every song posted, even if you only have so much as the first verse written. Said community is also very open to collaborations, so if you post a song with only lyrics, a musician may come along and put your words to music! Also, do check out the forums if you'd like to chat with the community, & the muse if you'd like some AI-generated songwriting prompts!
Limitations Breed Creativity
An easy roadblock to starting a new creative project is figuring out where exactly to start. After all, how do you take that blank canvas and turn it into a Bob Ross masterpiece?
I'm a big believer in the ol' saying "limitations breed creativity". When you impose constraints upon your creative process, you're starting from somewhere, per say, & all you have to do is put the puzzle together.
The most glaring example of this that pertains to FAWM is that ominous 28-day time limit. You can't sit at the drawing board forever, bucko! Put pen to the paper while you still can! Whether or not you actually intend to go for the full 14 songs, keeping this time limit in mind will definitely inject some urgency into the process.
Wanna pour jet-fuel on the time constraint? Try a skirmish or two on for size! Skirmishes on FAWM are like a challenge within a challenge. You'll be given a theme/prompt, start time, & one hour to write a song to said prompt. Not for the feint of heart, but definitely worth your attention if you're seeking that extra bit of challenge!
If you're not big on time-based constraints however, FAWM has four official "weekly challenges" every year. Just a little something to get the gears turning if you're not quite sure what to write about.
With A Little Help From My Friends
I touched a bit on the FAWM community in my blurb about accessibility, but I wanted to dedicate a section of this post to it nonetheless. FAWM fosters an incredibly cozy culture of musicians and songwriters from all over the world, with all sorts of walks of life accounted for. We give each other constructive feedback, share creative insights, play games on the forums, & just have an all-around good time. Don't fret if you're brand new to the community; say hello!
Also, as I mentioned earlier, no song posted on FAWM will go without feedback... Fawmers accumulate "zong-buster" points for commenting on zero-comment songs (these points don't really do anything, but it's incentive nonetheless to provide feedback).
What Are You Waiting For? Inspiration?
I think that just about wraps up my case for FAWM, which you should definitely join. Definitely check out FAWM's help page for further information, should've this blog post peaked your interest. Sometime later today, the FAWM site will refresh for the 2021 season, so the community should start flocking back to this sacred shrine in no time! I hope this blog post has been helpful/inspiring! If so, feel free to say hello! ;)
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LadyRafela
Thanks! for this! Gonna look at the prompts to help me get started! I'll try the challenge next go-round, but I wanna try and get started now.