30 Day Challenges: Write, Record, Release

Write a long player. Record it. Release it.

During my album club challenge someone asked me what I’d be doing for 30 days in August. I said “I don’t know” and he replied, as a joke, “you could record an album”.

But it occurred to me… I’m far too precious about my own music, and that is what has stopped me actually ever recording a decent album of my own stuff.

So the challenge is this: Write an LP (about 7 songs) from scratch, record it, and release it onto Spotify and iTunes, within 30 days.

I really hesitated about whether to tell people that I was doing this, before it’s actually done. I came to the conclusion that I would be a little more likely to actually do it if I did tell people. So here I am.

I have attempted something similar before but I didn’t pull it off. I have no intention of releasing something that I think is crap, and it is truly a challenge for me to work any song up to something that I like. If this doesn’t come off, it won’t be surprising. Really want to give it a go though.

A few rules I’m observing…

  1. I’ll be keeping it more or less “acoustic” to reduce the number of parts I have to record.
  2. Aiming for 7 songs but I might have to write more, or settle for less!
  3. I haven’t pre-written any songs. They will all be written from scratch.
  4. That said, I do have a pool of riffs & lyrics which I might use as starting points for a song.
  5. The time will be broken down into about 10 days of writing, 10 days rehearsing, 4 days recording, and 6 days to mix. I want to submit the whole thing to iTunes and Spotify by the end of August.
  6. If I pull it off, it will be available on Spotify to listen to for free, and to buy on iTunes for whatever they charge.