The Time of the Nine Songwriters' Corner
For those wishing to write their own song, follow these instructions. Return to Seasons Page at Ukulele Underground Forum here
Random Songwriting
Something Different -
After my unusual theme in week 396, I didn’t want to do anything that far out of the box here at 410. The theme is the number nine, specifically songs that were written in years ending in nine or created by artists who were in an X9 year of their lives.
I was toying with the idea of using this special songwriter area as the theme for the whole week, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. We’re going to play in the sandbox of random song generation.
I considered several ways to introduce randominity into the process. As songs about are mostly about people, that’s what we’re going with….
There are two options.
Option One - A Random Historical Figure
Write a song in a random key about one of the 100 most important people in world history. Click here to go to the 100 people selector page.
But before you go, take a spin on the wheel of fifths (Circle of fifths, what have you) to find your starting key!
Have a spin on the wheel!
To fit the nine theme we have 29 nouns in column A, 19 verb phrases in column B, and 29 more nouns as the objects in the sentences in C. That gives us 15,979 different possiblities!
Random Gallery
Coming soon, a video gallery of 410 Random contributions.
What is option #2?
You're going to create a character using three elements. Noun-who-verbs-another noun. You can then have your song be sung about that character or from the character's point of view.
In any musical style, but you too need to spin the wheel to finds your starting key.
The Noun-Verb-Noun format comes from a popular role-playing game called Numinera. The first group of nouns is mostly drawn at random (filtered a bit) from a wonderful card game called Apples to Apples. I would bet money most of you have played this game.
The verb part I wrote myself, but they're based on what was typical of the game.
Some of the cards come from a game called Cards Against Humanity, which is essentially an "adult" version of Apples to Apples.
I am a.........
As an example, lets pretend my random numbers were 30, 20, 30 - but I've taken those numbers away from each lists to make them end in a "9" ( I just thought of doing this...)
I am a COWBOY who CAN IMITATE ECONOMIC NATIONALISM
Easy enough... a country song by a cowboy who mocks "America First" by seeming to agree with it.... then ironically... Oh shoot the Key... Forgot about that part... spin spin... F# or minor mode Ebm.. F#! The wheel tells me the IV and the V would be C# and B.. hmmm.... but a capo on the first fret or just tune up to Canadian tuning and play in F..
