Song Fight!: The how, the what, and the why
People sometimes ask me how they can start making music, or how they can get better at making music when they’ve hit a wall.
A thing that has worked for me quite a lot over the years is participating in Song Fight!, an online songwriting competition that’s been going for a bit over 25 years now. It’s an incredibly low-stakes yet highly-satisfying way of learning how to make music and how to hone your craft.
It also really could use more new people participating!
### Some history
Back in the early 2000s, there was the Dumbrella Collective, which was a group of Internet friends who all made stuff. One of these people was Collin “Narbotic” Cunningham, who would take random titles from Internet submissions and turn them into songs. (This was similar to explodingdog, where Sam “sambrown” Brown would do the same with images. I’m not entirely sure which of the two came first, but both were part of Dumbrella.)
After a little while, Narbotic found that making music this way was a very lonely pursuit, so he invited a bunch of his friends to participate as well, and challenged them to a songwriting contest where random Internet people could vote and comment on the songs to decide who did it the best.
A few months later, he opened it up to the world, and surprisingly enough, a lot of people started to submit music. The first open-invitation was Zero to Phantom. I happened to find the site for the first time when this was the title, and while I didn’t have any ideas for that one, I ended up entering for the next one, I LOVE YOU.
Over time, the updates became more and more sporadic, and a couple of frequent participants, namely JB of the John Benjamin Band, and Spud of Octothorpe, started their own spinoff site, “Meanwhile,” as a sort of side challenge to take place in between the posts of titles and fights. Then eventually Narbotic abandoned Song Fight! entirely, and Spud+JB decided to rebrand Meanwhile as the new Song Fight! sometime in 2002. It’s been running pretty steadily ever since.
### How the site works
Every 10 days or so a new title is posted, and people have some amount of time to write, record, and submit a song written for that title. At the same time, the submissions for the previous title go up for a vote, and people are encouraged to listen to all of them, vote for their favorites, and post reviews on the forum.
There are no restrictions on genre or style, length, or even quality of song. The only rules are:
1. The song must be written for the provided title
2. It must be written/recorded/produced by a sentient being (i.e. it can’t just be an AI prompt); the point is to get better at making music yourself
The vote is basically just there as a formality. It feels good to win, but there are no prizes aside from the satisfaction of having others decide your song was the best. (To that end, asking all your friends to vote for your song and no others doesn’t really do anyone any favors.)
It’s basically a song-writing circle with the trappings of a friendly competition. And it is a lot of fun and very worth joining in on!
### How to get started
You almost certainly have all the software you need already, or can acquire some very cheaply, even freely.
Pretty much you’ll need something you can make music with (even just your voice), something you can record it with, and a willingness to have room for improvement. You don’t need any fancy equipment or expensive software. The voice recorder on your phone is a good starting point, or the microphone built-in to your computer or webcam or whatever.
Here’s some free/cheap software you could consider looking at:
* Audacity
* REAPER
* LMMS
* FL Studio
* Ardour
Also, if you’re on a Mac, you probably already have a copy of GarageBand, which is exceptionally good for this stuff.
Don’t know how to play an instrument? That’s fine, you can plink notes in on the piano roll, or even use free loops or the like.
Don’t know how to sing? That’s fine, you can do spoken-word stuff, or pitchbend your computer’s text-to-speech, or even do an instrumental (gasp!).
Have ideas for lyrics but not music, or vice-versa? Post on the forums and form a collaboration with someone else!
Worried you’re going to suck? That’s okay! Everyone starts out bad. In the immortal words of Jake the Dog, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.
I started out awful, and now I’m pretty okay. It’s all a process.
And your song might be better than you think it is. Enter it anyway.
