The FAWM Blog

This past July a handful of FAWMERS set out to undertake the Iron Man of Songwriting - The 50 Songs in 90 Days challenge. This challenge is similar to FAWM but at 3 times the length and a slightly more aggressive speed, this challenge is test of willpower, determination, self-discipline, and raw musical creativity.

During this challenge, songwriters attempt to write 50 songs between July 4th and October 1st of the year. According the 50 Songs in 90 Days MySpace page, the original version of the challenge “was inspired by the experience of professional label songwriters functioning under time pressures. Standard Nashville traditions of the American song formed the basis of rules about song structures for the challenge.”

The challenge transformed into its current incarnation in June of 2005, by broadening its definition of a song entry, adopting its current name and moving to its current home on the Yahoo Groups website.

Throughout the 90 days of the challenge participants post messages to the central message boards including lyrics, notes, comments, and links to finished recordings as well as providing feedback on completed songs and encouragement to the other participants. There are currently 70 registered members of the group.

Three FAWMERS made it to the finish line with 50+ songs each: Larry W. Jones, Tim Wille-Jørgensen, and Scott Martin, with many other FAWMERS also cranking out a respectable number of tunes.

We asked a few of the participants a few questions to give us an idea of how this uber-challenge compares to FAWM and how the entire experience played out.

Q: How was your 50/90 experience like FAWM? How was it different?

Andy Dwyer: “50/90 had me thinking and doing music every single day, in the same way FAWM does. Which is nice. Although it goes on three times as long, you need to turn songs out at about the same rate as FAWM to finish. There were fewer people actively doing 50/90 than FAWM, but participants made an incredible effort to listen and comment on each other’s stuff - so I got the same sense of getting regular and helpful feedback along the way, which is a great inspiration to keep going. Because of its scale and the fact that it happens through a yahoo group, it’s a more intimate experience where you get to know a smaller number of artists’ work in much greater depth. Where FAWM is like being at a huge songwriting festival where you wander from tent to tent and see what different folks are up to, 50/90 is like a 3 month songwriting house party!”

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “The biggest difference is the scope for experimentation. 14 songs is really not much if you want to push the boat out. In 50/90, you can write 10 really, really weird songs and it will still be a minority of your songs. This year, I did a purely symphonic, film-score-like piece, an acapella lullaby, a song in Danish, a strange sonic experiment, heavy metal, a song with a Text-2-speech application doing the vocals, etc. But I’m pretty sure people would still characterize my challenge as being mainly “typical”. “

Scott Martin: “Sitting down to satisfy some of the song requirement, regardless of how much larger that requirement was, was very similar. And though the community was much smaller, I still felt the support of my fellow songwriters. It was easier to develop closer relationships, and I did so with songwriters whose genres I probably wouldn’t have explored in FAWM. The spirit of openness and exploration was very similar to FAWM, and FAWM came up repeatedly as a good model to follow.
As a mailing-list driven community, it had a completely different infrastructure. The advantages of the FAWM jukebox, for example, were sorely missed! “

Q: What did you learn through this experience about yourself and about songwriting?

Andy Dwyer: “If FAWM is a crazy sprint though, 50/90 is an insane marathon. I found out I’m a better sprinter than a marathon runner. But it’s amazing how the ideas for songs keep coming if you keep at it. Even though I didn’t finish, taking it on has made 14 songs in a month next February seem like a piece of cake.”

Larry W. Jones: “I learned that lyrics can be written on one side of the globe, and in less than one day, someone can put it to music and recorded. Pretty amazing!”

Aquamunkee: “Overall, it seemed the musical interests of the FAWM crowd more closely match my tastes while much of the music posted to 50/90 wasn’t as inspirational to me. It seemed the 50/90 crowd was further from the mainstream and I guess that makes me ‘too commercial’ for 50/90?”

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “This is my third completion, so I think I can finally rest assured in the knowledge that I can write 50 songs in three months. I also know that I can sit down with no ideas and write a song. That is actually a very nice thing to know about yourself.”

Scott Martin: “It confirmed a lot of hunches I developed during FAWM. Primarily, I learned that songwriting is work. Sometimes it’s fun work, and sometimes it’s not. I learned that the muse is really not worth waiting around for. It’s better just to sit down and write, and hope that she shows up. Either way I ended up with a song, and sometimes the uninspired ones polish up very nicely. I also learned to play to my strengths as much as possible. I have a hard time writing lyrics while I’m trying to write music. I wrote each of the FAWM songs this way, and it was very difficult for me. I decided to try splitting the lyric writing time from the music writing, and that worked really well.”

Q: What were the highlights of the challenge for you? What conversations, comments, or interaction sticks in your mind?

Brian “Aquamunkee” Morse said the number one highlight of his 50/90 experience was his first time ever collaborating with another songwriter, which led to his eventual engagement to Molly “Meuse” Lemmer! (Congratulations Brian!) For Larry W. Jones, a highlight was seeing the variety of subjects that songs can be written about.

Andy Dwyer: “The collaborative spirit. The way in which people inspired each other and fed off each other’s work and feedback was just amazing. We had lyric writers posting lyrics, which musicians would then perform, which then inspired others to do something different with the theme. The Hoopshank-Wille songwriting challenge generator http://www.paulturrell.com/challenge/ played a starring role - hearing how different artists interpreted the same challenge so differently was very cool. We even had a little song fight - good natured of course - between two participants who shall remain nameless which provided some entertainment. Oh and Garden of Ash’s 50 song rock opera was incredible. I’m amazed how those guys kept the theme going and kept it sounding so fresh all the way through.”

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “Plenty. The collaborations this year were great fun, and particularly my rivalry with Andy Dwyer, which spanned five songs in total, each one more insulting than the last, was a particular hoot. Andy was really inspirational in the way he could grab onto a theme from the forum and spin a song around it in record time. Scott’s accomplishment - being the first ever to complete a full 50 recorded songs on his first attempt at the challenge - is one for the history books. Hoopshank’s comments were always particularly welcome because he’s a good friend and a very like mind in songwriting. And of course, Garden Of Ash completing their mammoth, 100-song concept western-horror concept album was just monumentally astounding work. Oh, and FAWMER Larry W. Jones completed 250 lyrics in 90 days… gasp.”

We heard repeatedly that there was some interesting collaborations that happened this year. Many of the participants collaborated in different ways, passing lyrics and chords around, adding music to others lyrics and even doing remixes. Here’s what 50/90 vet Tim Wille-Jørgensen had to say:

“Personally, I recorded 3 of Julie Tawse’s lyrics, collaborated on two songs with Hoopshank (where one person wrote a song and forwarded the lyrics and the chords to the other one, who then recorded the song using the same lyrics and chords, but without hearing the original track. The songs were hugely different both times), and I recorded a Larry W. Jones lyric, too. Aside from this, I did two remixes (which I don’t count towards the 50) of Andy Dwyer’s excellent “Aquamarine” and a song about me by John Taylor.”

Considering the nature of the challenge, we asked some of the FAWMERS who completed all 50 songs a few more questions aimed at trying to understand the difference in scope.

Q: How steady was your output throughout the months? Did you find yourself hitting walls?

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “This year was the first time I didn’t hit a wall per se. I felt really sluggish at times, but I didn’t get that sinking dreadful feeling of “this is impossible” that has beset me the first two times. I worked more or less steadily, starting out fast with 1-2 songs a day and allowing myself to go on holiday in the middle of it. I slowed down towards the end, which I think is the best way to do it.”

Scott Martin: “I was able to keep a pretty steady output. I set up a calendar and charted the number of songs I would need to write to keep up (e.g., if I didn’t have 16 songs by the end of July, my calendar would let me know that I needed to step it up). It also de-personalized the stress, because it’s hard to get mad at a calendar. When I hit a wall, I wrote a song about hitting a wall. It happened three times. The first one, “Don’t Listen to This (Rotting Brain),” is actually one of my favorites from 50-in-90, though it’s probably the dumbest song ever written. “

Q: FAWM is in February for a reason (besides the groovy sound of the acronym). During that month, there isn’t much going on besides Valentines Day, especially in the northern latitudes. How hard was it to stay working in the studio during the warmest part of the year? Did it provide additional inspiration or was it more detrimental? That time of year is also a popular time for playing and attending shows/festivals and other music related activities. Did that inhibit or strengthen participation?

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “No-one does 50/90 without breaks to enjoy summer. The good thing about it is that it’s three months, so a two-week break isn’t a huge deal, actually. As long as you plan for taking breaks when you start out, it actually can seem like a lesser commitment than FAWM, where everything has to happen during 28 days.”

Scott Martin: “I would write lyrics during lunch and write music after the kids went to bed, so I didn’t miss much sunshine. I did this 2 or 3 nights a week without fail. The impact on my day-to-day activities was actually pretty minimal, aside from occasional exhaustion.”

Q: One of the major challenges of FAWM is managing to coordinate “real life” with writing at a feverish pace. It is the prospect of having to manage this for a much longer period that may turn some away from such a large challenge. How did you manage to juggle these things for a span three times longer than FAWM?

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “You get into a mode of conscience where 50/90 is simply part of your life because it’s such a long challenge. You find a couple of hours here and there automatically, and you’re walking around sucking up inspiration and composing. You need to be disciplined to begin with, but after about a month you get into a stride where the challenge and your life seems to meld seamlessly into one another. It becomes much more natural to write music at a crazy pace after the first month or so. (In fact, FAWM is almost evil for ending just as you’re getting into the mindset. I didn’t feel I sacrificed a single “real-life” activity during the three months. Conversely, 50/90 enriched my summer by giving me lots of new music and making me look and listen actively to the world around me.”

Scott Martin: “Schedule, schedule, schedule. I tried to make it all as regular as possible, while minimizing impact on family life. I think the trick for juggling anything is creating periods of time where I only have to work on one thing. Sometimes it was just half an hour, but I was able to concentrate on songwriting and nothing else. With my level of recording expertise as low as it is, I also decided to make the challenge about writing, not production. My recording goals were very modest. Recording immaculate takes wasn’t my intention, so most of my songs were fully recorded and mixed within an hour of completion. I left the more amazing productions to Tim Wille and Garden of Ash.”

Q: Did you find yourself experimenting more or less with 50 songs to fill? Did the greater demands help you to grow as a songwriter?

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “I always feel that I go into the challenge at one end and come out of the other end as a different songwriter. I don’t think you can write 50 songs and not develop as a songwriter. I experimented a lot, but then again I always do.”

Scott Martin: “I experimented quite a bit more, if for no other reason than to fight boredom. I tried different rhyme schemes, tried to write in keys I’ve never used, tried writing without using the word “I” or “you,” etc. I would identify elements that were present in most of my songs, then try to write a song by either denying myself that element or requiring the opposite of that element. “

Q: Of the 50, what percentage came out as “keepers”, or songs that you want to revisit or perform? What songs surprised you with their quality or their reception by the other participants.

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “My definite 50/90 baby is a 19-minute piece called “And She Said”, which took me almost three weeks to write and record (an insane length of time for 50/90!). It was the longest song I’ve ever written, by far, and it was a hugely satisfying experience to finish it. My biggest reception surprise was a song called “Awkward” which I hated from start to finish while recording it. It was one of those songs where you really feel like you’re trying to shove a sock through a sieve and everything was just gummed up and there was no inspiration at all. I ended up making it a song which was purposely as awkward as I could make it, to reflect my feelings towards it. Everybody loved it, and Hoopshank especially was over the moon about it. I have since grown to like the song a lot more, but I would never have guessed in a million years that the song I was agonizing over so much would end up a “good song”. So, the lesson is, don’t give up! Force yourself through the bad patches, kids, and you might end up with something useful after all. Going through this year’s output, I’d say that there are 4 songs out of the 50 which are “songs which I would have canned if it hadn’t been 50/90″. The rest I would have been happy to have written at any point during the year, so that’s a “keeper” rate of 92%. (Of course, I’m no critic…) I’m pretty sure, though, that if I took my favourite 10-15 songs out of the 50, I’d have myself a pretty good album.”

Scott Martin: “I’ve identified 20 songs that I like and are worth developing. Percentage-wise, that’s about the same as my FAWM set. One song, “Black Shoes,” is so ridiculous and odd for me that it naturally became the most commented-upon song (and my wife’s favorite).”

Q: Would you do it again?

Tim Wille-Jørgensen: “Of course I’d do it again. There’s nothing like it for improving songwriting skill. And even if you quit a third of the way in, hey, you just did another FAWM! That’s still a huge achievement.”

Scott Martin: “It was a great exercise, but it was truly exhausting in the end. It was too much. I recommend that every songwriter try it at least once, but in the same way that my brother decides he’s going to run a marathon. Once every few years may be plenty.”

The challenge sounds like it was a great experience and good songwriting exercise during the FAWM “off-season”. For more information on the challenge, head over to the 50 Songs in 90 Days Yahoo group.