SAC Song Writing Challenge #3 - collaborate with someone else

SAC song writing challenge #3

In this challenge we had to collaborate with another person who is part of this song writing group.  I responded to the call of Jennifer Noble who lives in my city.

We spoke by phone and she indicated that she had the word "rattle snake" rolling around in her brain and thought it might be nice to work with it.

I went down to her home.  We started with a cup of tea and a nice chat.  Then we got to work.  We determined that we wanted our character to refer to him or her self as "rattle snake" because of a tatoo they had gotten.

We discussed stories of people who seemed touch on the outside but inside were softies.

At first we thought our character would be an 18 year old male motor cycle rider who is trying to persuade a new girl of his approximate age to come for a ride with him.

To get our thoughts out we did a letter writing exercise.  Each of us separately wrote a letter from the boy to the girl.  Then Jennifer and I read the letter to each other and extracted the interesting phrases.  Eventually we decided to turn it around and make it the girl who is the biker trying to persuade a new boy in town to ride with her.

I normally would have sung on the recording with Jennifer, but I had to go out of town on the Saturday that the recording studio was booked, so Jennifer is doing it solo.  I know she will do a good job.

SAC Song Writing Challenge #2

WRITE A STORY IN A SONG

This song I recorded while camping using only the build-in microphone of my lap top.  I apologize if there are background noises.

I have only ever written one story song before so I found this to be a challenge I enjoyed.  I think most of our songwriting is egocentric, viewing life through our own eyes, so to write a story song is to see life through someone else’s eyes.

First I came up with the story.  They are fictional characters based on various couples I have known during my life time.  After I had the main themes for the first verse, second verse and bridge in my mind, I set to work getting the first verse done.   Then I mapped out the syllables and circled the syllables which rhymed so that I could repeat the process in verse 2.  I had already written the chorus before I even started verse 1.

Then I made chord charts for each bar of music and began writing the lyrics below and the chords above the proper beats.

Lastly I started recording.  I had to do it a few times as there were some really loud noises in this camp ground.

Hope you enjoy.

Do you Miss Me?

Copyright 2016 Words and Music by Patricia Loranger

They met on the fourth of July,

He with his muscles and her big blue eyes,

Love at first sight, talked into the night,

Shared dreams and values and hopes for their lives.

He said, “Maybe we shouldn’t get involved,

I leave in the morning with my platoon squad”.

She said, “I feel this thing has already evolved,

I’ve found a friend in you.”

He said, “Write me”.  She said, “Nightly.”

And every letter they ended like this,

Chorus:

“Do you miss me?

Do you miss me?

Do you miss me, like I miss you?”

His tour complete he came home,

Snatched up that woman and made her his own.

They both got jobs, a cat and two dogs,

A mortgage, three kids and two cars in garage.

There was house work and home work and meals,

Pressures at work, a real balance wheel.

Building their kingdom, building their kids,

Something got left behind,

She said, “It’s gone.”  He said, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel, we’re friends anymore,”

Chorus:

Bridge:

He put down his paper, looked into her eyes,

Said I’ve been feeling this way for a while,

Tell me your pet peeves and I’ll tell you mine,

Let’s rebuild our friendship, while there’s still time.

Chorus:

https://soundcloud.com/user-329357000/do-you-miss-me-sac-challenge-2

Song Challenge #1

Song Challenge #1 Blog

When I opened the email containing the challenge, it wasn't anything like I imagined.  We all start out learning 3 chords, so to be limited to only 2 chords was something I had never done before.

Many years ago when I was trying to learn bar chords, I would try and give up, try again and give up.   I made excuses that I couldn't do it because my fingers were too short etc.    Then one day, I began to say to myself, "If anyone can do this, I can do this".  From that time on, I began to be successful.

When I read the song writing challenge, The words, "I can do this" came to my mind and I just spontaneously began singing chorus.

When I sat down with my guitar, I was surprised that I was actually singing in A minor and the E minor chord just happened to fit with it.

The inspiration for the verses came from my helping my son with his math homework.

Here is the link.

https://soundcloud.com/user-329357000/i-can-do-this-sac-challenge-1

Hi folks, this July I am doing something different, something I have never done before.  I signed up for a songwriting challenge with the Canadian Song Writers Association.  Each week they will give us specific criteria and we have one week to write and submit a song.   We do this for the four weeks of July.

I am like a race horse waiting at the gate.

As part of the challenge we have to start a blog and write about our experience each week.  I have never written a blog, so here is my first entry to make sure that my blog is working.

Keep following my blog and I will let you know about my progress.

Happy summer everybody!