hey sign me up for this. Sabbath Worship would be my top choice. sabbath-loving death is cool too....

Does the song have to be written within a specific period or can I submit a song I'm currently working on?

Down for death metal anyway.

It must be written and recorded within a certain timespan, id est February.

yea can't be something you have been working on or been tossing around. That takes away from the challenge of it all.

Righto. Is it against the rules to work on it with someone if he's credited?

No that's alright. As long as he is credited or meantioned even as 'your friend' it's good.

I'm in!
cast my vote for death metal, and I think if there's some limitations to be had, maybe they should be about the song structure, like, minimum of 5 different riffs plus the solo (or intro/outro/whatever)...

well I was thinking limiting as in scope of the genre of death metal. but yea a limit of 5 parts is pretty good. on average the shortest and less complex of my songs have at least 5 parts or riffs.

Might as well add some items, like one of the riffs having to be in 7 or 9/8 and shit like that.

yea that won't work for me cause I have no idea about counting timing and creating riffs in that timing.

Well, I could write some small introduction into odd times and even make some midi files as examples, provided that people would be willing to join the challenge.

If not, might as well write it as a quick how to for anyone interested anyways and post it as a separate thread, though I'll take some time to do so.

I know what odd times are and I know I've played them in a few of my bands. I don't conciously pay attention to it so it just feels natural to me. Like I've even gone and listened to drummers breaking down some supposed to be weird shit like 13/9 or whatever.. to me it actuallly all just sounds like normal 4/4. esp when there is a riff involved I follow what the riff is doing, not trying to make the riff follow into some set time signature.

I guess I'm saying I'm not going to take the time to do so.

Oh well, didn't expect it to get much approval as an idea, but don't lose anything by asking, let's see if someone else would like it though.

yea I'm just speaking for myself by all means if everyone else is interested then go right on.

if it is going to be a death metal challenge count me in.....I might need a help in the vocals, since I can only do black metal growls...but I'll see about this later.
and +1 to kingnuuuur idea (old school death vs modern death).

I'd be glad to add keys if anyone needs 'em

I'd probably be down for this, depending on what actually gets chosen.

I wouldn't do something like that. If you can spice up your song with that, kudos to you, but it will not be an obligatory element.

Yeah, forcing odd time signatures and whatnot eliminates a good chunk of players methinks....myself included. Anyway, so we have a genre consensus?

Judging from the replies it looks like death metal is in.

So best death metal song wins? Also, I'd like to enter.

There is no winner Poe. It's just a fun non-competitive event to inspire all the musicians on the forum to exercise their abilities to write and record a song in a given period of time under certain restrictions. Been great fun for quite a bit now.

Then unfortunately I can't participate. I have no means of recording stuff or a band to do the musical parts.

I'll participate this time around.

Regarding odd times or something similarly challenging, perhaps we can add a few options for the more technically skilled musicians? Anyone can obviously work them in, but it might be fun to have a list of three potential challenges if you have more experience and want to try something new or unusual. Possibly:
-Odd time signatures
-Borrow or modify a Sabbath riff
-Repeat a guitar riff, but syncopate the drums and accent the riff differently to make it sound different

Well how did you plan to participate? It's not like we were going to sit around and talk about the sweet riffs and drumbeats that are in the songs that no one else can hear.

The later of those 3 suggestions are neat but is what I do normally in my recording and writing to begin with.

It wouldn't be the first time someone submited a song with no recording whatsoever... I'm sure you remember those midi songs from previous challenges! It's a songWRITING challenge, recording is just something that makes the song better sounding, I don't think it should be a must... and I'm sure a lot of people are gonna submit songs with programmed drumming instead of recording the drums, so where do you draw the line?

Yea I thought about that later. I thought we discussed how we really didn't like the midis not that we won't exclude them but they weren't really heavily discussed or reviewed by anyone.

And hell you shouldn't ask me that cause I'd force everyone to play everything with no programming just to see the results.

Samesies. All my shit is my own playing, but then again, I imagine most people don't have the same amount of free time I have. Anyway, I'm for death metal I s'pose. I've already got some cool ideas for mixing heavy metal and death.

I just want to play old school death/thrash. No Sabbath rip-offs and no weird time signatures. If people are down for that I am not participating.

It’s been called a song ‘writing’ challenge, but I think most people probably see it as the whole thing- writing, production and performance. Production can be just as challenging as writing for home studio musicians, so I think it’s good to get all the discussion and feedback on it.

Anyway, I can’t play a death metal riff to save my life so I’ll probably just sit back and heckle from the sidelines.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to sit this one out as well. Still need to get gear and such, what I had got damaged in the move, and I'm still job hunting. But I will try to comment this time. I should probably save genre requests for the time when I'm actually in it, but I would consider it part of the challenge anyway if it's off what I usually do. (Then again, I'm even experimenting with writing blackened death metal that tends to be more black then death as well these days, so at that point, who knows what would be off my style? It's actually brought up some ideas.)

I just remembered that I still have shitty strings on my guitar. No wonder why I haven't touched the thing for a while.

Looks like this is going to be a death metal challenge after all.

I wouldn't mind participating. And I'm good with any style of death metal. But I'll participate no matter what's chosen.

while I was in showering thinking of how a child tried to mod me I thought of a way to implement the death metal challenge of old vs new... if we are going with that.


Instead of just dividing up the participants into one or the other perhaps have a list of old school death metal bands as a reference point and the same with the modern dm.

And then like in the song writing challenge with the assigned lyrics. do the same with the bands. randomly chosen and not shared till it's time to turn in the songs.

Those who want an extra challenge can perhaps do one from each category

And the reference band is just that... a reference.. not that you have to sound exactly say for example Autopsy but you add in some of their nastier slower stuff into your composition or their punkier moments.. maybe one of the elements that you don't write with to begin with.


Just an idea.

and I guess cryboy stinky can do death thrash since that's all he is willing to do.

It's a good songwriting skill that a lot of guitar players who program drums could gain a lot from implementing and learning how to work with. I know you play drums so you're probably used to it, but most of the people here tend to do one-man-band stuff for the challenges, and a lot of guitar players choose to program drums, that's why I think it would be a great addition for those people. I recently picked it up myself and it really helped my songwriting, that's why I suggested it.

Yea I wasn't saying that it should not be suggested or done. I think it'll be interesting to see if it does get used. Hell it can be combined with what I suggested with the old vs new as part of the challenge of it all or at least an additional challenge to those who want to up their writing abilities.

With a broad category like death metal, I think it would really help to throw out a small list of ideas that people can work to implement into their songwriting, and people more experienced with those techniques and styles can in turn provide insight into how they work with them.

I can't supply any help, But it's a neat concept. I usually don't think about what I'm doing in a song in context to explain why i did it to someone. i just know when it sounds right.

I want in! This sounds like fun