{"id":52,"date":"2009-06-25T13:28:01","date_gmt":"2009-06-25T17:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2013-10-08T15:56:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T23:56:08","slug":"muses-clues-apr09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/irenejackson.com\/songblog\/muses-clues-apr09\/","title":{"rendered":"Muses’ Clues Apr\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

M u s e ‘ s C l u e s : by Irene Jackson<\/p>\n

From The April 2009 issue of Muse News at Muse’s Muse<\/a><\/p>\n

—————————————————————–
\nYears ago I heard about a songwriting challenge called “50 Songs
\nin 90 Days”, which was basically a summer-long (for those of you
\nin the northern hemisphere!) challenge to complete 50 songs
\nwithin a limited amount of time, brilliant or not, just to do it.
\nA lot of songwriters enjoy the challenge of a deadline, and if
\nyou’re one of those, then you might enjoy this challenge. It
\nstarted out as a Yahoo group but it grew and was eventually
\nsponsored by another group called FAWM, or February Album Writing
\nMonth<\/a>, which you can find here: http:\/\/fawm.org\/.<\/p>\n

February is over, of course, but check their website out anyway,
\nbecause even though you’ve missed the challenge this year, you
\nmay find some inspiration in some of the forums and submissions
\non the site. They have also spurred some online and live
\nregional events in a number of places, mostly in the US, where
\nsongwriters gather to showcase and hobnob. As well, there are
\nsome online events including podcasts and chats, mostly held in
\nFebruary but certainly worth checking out as well.<\/p>\n

One of the best parts, of course, is their Jukebox where you can
\nperuse some of the songs that have been uploaded to the site by
\nsongwriters participating in the challenge. This year they had a
\ntotal of 7375 songs uploaded by 754 active members. You can also
\nlook through the songs page and listen to the latest submissions.
\nSome of the songs are listenable but others are “locked” for
\nvarious reasons.<\/p>\n

The website is kept alive by donations, and even though the
\nchallenge is over for this year, songwriters are still able to
\njoin up and for those who are participating, there is a little
\nmeter beside each name to show their progress. There is also a
\nforum where songwriters discuss their progress among other
\nthings.<\/p>\n

To those of you who are constantly looking for inspiration,
\nGoogle “songwriting challenge” and you’ll find other songwriters
\nwho have participated in the 50\/90 challenge, or who have created
\nchallenges for themselves and are blogging about it.<\/p>\n

Inspiration is always out there if you look hard enough!<\/p>\n

\"Reblog<\/a>