Recently I promised you some embarrassing teenage demo recordings of my first band. Frustratingly, I’ve been struggling to transfer them from cassette tape to my computer so I can share them with you. In the UK the problem was not having the correct cable… when I got to the US I found that my cassette recorder no longer works. I will find another way to transfer them for you (I’m sure somebody must have a cassette player I can borrow), but rather than keep you waiting any longer I’ve managed to dig out another piece of my past that I think you’ll get a kick out of.
While staying at my parent’s house last month I went through my old desktop computer, listening to old recordings I had on there, when I came across 6 songs from over 10 years ago and so many memories came flooding back…
The 20 Song Game
I can’t remember the exact year, but it was certainly over a decade ago – I’d read about something called The 20 Song Game and thought I’d give it a try. The aim of the game was to write as many complete songs as possible in a 10 hour period, then meet for a listening party at the end of the day. The idea was to create an environment of intense creativity; the unfeasible goal of writing 20 songs in 10 hours was there to prevent the trap of overthinking – there would only be time to get a song idea down in its raw form before moving onto the next one.
I arranged a day to play The 20 Song Game with 3 friends – 2 of them wrote their songs in other rooms of my flat in Brighton, while one wrote at his house and then came over for the evening’s listening party.
I started off at a great pace – I remember writing and recording my first song of the day, aptly titled The 20 Song Game, in 30 minutes. However, as the day went on my arrangements got more and more complex – I started programing drums, bass, layering guitars and backing vocals… the 20 song target went out of the window pretty soon!
This month’s download is exactly what was created on that day – every single note, lyric and drum part of each of my 6 songs was written and recorded in the space of 10 hours. As a result there were no second takes, no polishing and no time to agonise over note or lyric choices. Before today I probably would have considered much of this material embarrassing but now listening to each song brings vivid memories of that day, and period in my life flooding back.
I hope you enjoy listening to a much younger me struggling against the clock as I took my first steps into songwriting with an intense time limit.
I’ll be posting the songs to download tomorrow – they’ll be available to anyone on a tier that includes the monthly download. Hope you enjoy!
