So far I’ve talked about a couple of my own musical projects, those being BHP and Surviving Myself. Today I’m going to talk about another ongoing project that I take part in from time to time called Audio Challenges.

The name you’re going to see pop up pretty much most of the time that I talk about my own projects is James Blair. If you read the posts on BHP and Surviving Myself, you know that Jim is a part of those projects. He was also a part of all but two of the bands that I’ve been in over the years (and one of those bands I had no part in writing and creating songs). Even when Jim isn’t involved in a particular music project that I’m working on, I still tend to bounce things off him a lot. In the 10 years that I’ve known Jim, we’ve done a ton of music together.

One of the things that Jim and I came up with to keep ourselves busy between writing projects is something we call Audio Challenges. The reason I’m sharing the idea in this blog is that I think it’s something that has stretched me, and if I can speak for Jim I’d say him, too, and I really recommend trying your own challenges between you and some music friends that you have.

Basically an Audio Challenge is a song (or some other audio project) that we have to create in a set time frame following a set of rules agreed on by both of us at the beginning. So Jim and I would pick a set of rules or a theme or something along those lines and we’d set a time frame, which was usually a week or so for a single song. We would then work separately on our projects, usually hiding any information about what we were doing from each other. The challenges drove us to be creative, because even though it wasn’t really a contest with a winner and a loser, we were trying to impress and outdo each other. Most of our challenges ended up being instrumentals, which ended up teaching us both how to make instrumentals sound interesting and complete, rather than making them just sound like a big jam session.

Here are some examples of some of the guidelines we used:

-Super Hero Theme Song

We had to imagine ourselves as being a Superhero, determine what type of hero we’d be, and then create theme music for that hero… something that might be played in the background of a TV show or movie when the hero appeared on screen.

-”Remember The Bridge Part”

We had a clip that we took from the beginning of a demo recording session for our band Solidify. Our singer Andrea had said into the microphone “Remember the bridge part”. We had to take that clip and use it in a song.

-8 Pack Challenge

For this challenge we went to www.acidplanet.com and downloaded the free 8 pack of sounds and loops for the week (if you don’t know, the site gives out a new 8 pack every week. They call it an 8 pack, but it’ll often have up to 10 or 12 loops and sounds in it. Usually the pack has a theme, and they give a sample song, too, assuming you have a version of ACID to listen to it on. The loops work with any program, though. You don’t need ACID to use the sounds). We had to create an original song that couldn’t sound anything like the free sample song using every loop that came in the pack. If I remember right (it’s been a long time), we also had a minimum and maximum number of tracks we could add to it besides the tracks for the loops.

-Sounds of Nature track

For this one we had to make our own version of one of those “Sounds of Nature” songs. We had to find or create some light soothing music, then surround it with sounds from nature, like animals, birds, flowing water, etc.

-Commercial

This one was a lot of fun. We had to create a 30 second commercial for a made up product, company, or event. It wasn’t really a “music” challenge so much (although we both had music in the commercial), but it really stretched our creativity in a lot of ways.

-Non Instrument Music

This was probably the most challenging one we did, but another one that was a lot of fun. We had to create a song using sounds that came from things that weren’t really musical instruments. Some of the things that got used… typing on a keyboard, a barking dog, tapping on a fast food cup, a drill, shuffling cards, pots and pans… it really forced us to think outside the box.

We’ve also since taken the idea of Audio Challenges to the next level by creating Audio Challenge albums. The idea behind the albums is that it’s a collection of rules that we have to use not only to make a song, but to make a whole CD of songs that fit together and flow like an album should. We’ve done two of those so far, and those two albums have pushed me farther musically than any other project I’ve ever worked on.

I really just wanted to introduce the idea of Audio Challenges at this point. Soon I’ll start breaking individual challenges down a little more and give examples of the songs that came from them. I’ll even see if Jim will write some of his thoughts about the challenges.

If you end up doing something similar after reading this blog, I’d love to hear about it and I’d love to hear what kind of music you ended up with. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading this post the day I wrote it, or years later… send me your own challenges! My email address is jason@creative-music.org

In the last post, I talked about my current songwriting team BHP, but in that post I mentioned that I have done lots of oddball little projects with James Blair (the B in BHP).  When just the two of us do things together, we work under a project name of “Surviving Myself”.

Last year when Casey’s other obligations were keeping him from working regularly with us, Jim and I decided to we wanted to make an album.  We decided to make a holiday album, but since EVERYBODY does Christmas albums these days (everybody… Jim bought me a Twisted Sister Christmas album last year) we decided to do a Halloween album instead.

We found out quick that doing a Halloween album was the perfect avenue for stretching your legs creatively.  It was tons of fun.

We did an album that tells a story of a young couple who’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.  They go looking for help, and they (of course) stumble across a haunted house.  Inside there is a scientist who is doing some creepy things (of course), so the young couple runs for their lives.

Simple, cheesy story… tons of fun to do in music form.

Check it out by going here… Surviving Myself – Halloween Night

Listen to the songs in order so that you get the feel.  The entire album is only 28 minutes long.

So now, to you people reading this… start thinking… is there a holiday album you can start writing that is out of the ordinary?

I tend to get myself involved in a lot of musical projects.  My plate is always full when it comes to music… perhaps too full sometimes… but I would never have it any other way.  I’ve been in several bands over the years, and I’ll probably talk about them at some point since I really learned very different stuff about writing music from each one.  I’ve also done a lot of temporary projects… recording with friends, helping to write a song here and there, being my dad’s studio band for songs he’s written,  arranging and performing songs for my church, as well as the countless things I’ve gotten into by myself over the years.  Musically I am all over the place, and because of that I’ll probably use a lot of my stuff as examples in this blog.

Today, though, I just wanted to mention my current songwriting team:  Blair-Hannah-Payne, or BHP as we tend to call ourselves more often.

I don’t really call us a “band”, because we don’t perform, and there are only three of us (who all take on multiple roles).  BHP is made up of James Blair, me (Jason Hannah), and Casey J. Payne.  The three of us were in a band together called Force That Binds from the very end of 1999 until September of 2001.  During that time, the three of us were the songwriting core of the band.  We wrote a total of about 20 songs during that time.  Although I had dreams of being a “rock star”, songwriting was really what drove the three of us.  We would often get together outside of band practice just to trade our new ideas.

After those days together, Jim and I stayed in bands together for another couple of years.  Even after our bands folded, though, we kept writing together, doing things called “Audio Challenges” to keep us being creative.  (Audio Challenges will eventually be a part of this blog, once the number of readers gets high enough).  Audio Challenges were when we would set up a set of rules for a song, give each other a time limit, and we’d each try to be as creative as possible while we made a song that followed those rules.

After a while, though, we ended up getting back into contact with Casey.  The three of us decided to do some writing together, and as of February of 2009 we decided to make it a permanent group.

Our first complete project together was the 2009 RPM Challenge.  Just a side note:  To anyone reading this that is interested in pushing themselves musically, take part in the next RPM Challenge this coming February.  You are supposed to write and record an album from scratch, and all the work (ideas and everything) have to happen in February.  It’s not a contest, and you won’t win anything, but if you complete it, you’ll have something you can be proud of.

After the RPM, we decided to keep pushing forward with our writing, and have since completed another album as well as a 3 song EP.

BHP, a lot like me personally, is all over the place musically.  We don’t really define ourselves within a genre, which is easy for us since we’re not trying to be a performing band, and we don’t really have to consider what an audience would be interested in.

You can check out all the songs we did for the RPM Challenge (the album name was Fallen They Be), as well as our second full length (The Door), and our EP (Gardens of Tomorrow) at AloneTone.  Go to http://alonetone.com/BHP/ to hear all of it.

Then drop me a comment to let me know what you think!