November is InterNational Tune-a-Day Month!
Based on the popular National Novel Writing Month now in its ninth year, InterNational Tune-a-Day Month (InterTuna) challenges wanna-be composers to write twenty five tunes in the month of November. Quality is not important as criticism kills creativity. For more information on attitude, read “What is NaNoWriMo” at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano.
What is a tune? For the purposes of InterNational Tune-a-Day Month, a tune is 16 measures of melody or an 8 measure A part repeated twice and an 8 measure B part repeated twice for a total tune of 32 measures. You are encouraged to write for the instrument of your choice. Lyrics are optional.
Why does InterNational Tune-a-Day Month only require twenty-five tunes? I thought November had thirty days? Twenty-five tunes are plenty. There’s a major American election in November of 2008. The creator of InterNational Tune-a-Day has to celebrate a “big” birthday in November and create another Thanksgiving feast at the end of the month. Anyway, feel free to write thirty tunes or more if you are inspired.
How does InterNational Tune-a-Day work? Starting November 1, write a tune a day anyway you want. Document your tune by writing it down or recording it and keep a tally of tunes written. You do not need to write harmony or accompaniment, unless you want.
How are we going to stay inspired for a whole month? Prepare mentally for at least a month. Write down titles of tunes you’d like to write and keep a list of things and situations that inspire you. Send messages and challenges to your tune-a-day buddies to see what they are planning to do. Tell many people about your crazy idea and recruit others to join you so you will feel obligated to complete all twenty-five tunes. Perhaps you should add a signature line to all your e-mails in November:
InterNational Tune-a-Day Month participant – compose 25 tunes in November
Current Tally: 7/25
What is an InterNational Tune-a-day Buddy? Other participants are your buddies! You report your progress to your buddies, daily if possible, and respond to others’ progress reports with encouragements.
What if I can’t complete twenty-five tunes? Don’t worry. It’s just for fun anyway. Maybe you’ll do it next year, but don’t give up too early either. Remember if you drop out, you can always be a cheerleader and encourage others to finish.
What are challenges? Challenges are fun dares to spur creativity. For instance, I could challenge everyone to write a tune named “Three Orbs” or someone else could challenge us to write a tune based on D mixolydian. All challenges are optional.
How much time does it take to write a tune a day? When I did NaNoWriMo, it took me about two hours a day to write 2,000 words of prose. I’m guessing that it might take less time to write a tune and notate or record it. Some days might take longer. Remember you have five “free” days in November when you don’t have to produce a tune at all. You can also double up and compose more than one tune per day if you want.
What genre should the tunes be? Anything you want! I personally intend to mix Celtic with Classical tunes during the month – some days a reel or jig and sometimes a minuet, gavotte, or air.
How do we share tunes? Maybe you don’t want to share them all, only the best of the best. You could always notate the tune and scan and e-mail it or post it somewhere or you can record the tune, convert it to an mp3, and post it somewhere where we can all access it.
What are pep talks? Pep talks are inspirational messages by “real” composers to prod and push InterTuna participants to continue. I will solicit these paragraph pep talks from various sources and share them with you. If you have living composers or creative types that you admire, please feel free to get them to share a message with us too.
What should I do with the tunes? Since many are probably crap (but not all!), you might want to put them away for a while and evaluate them later when your mind has cleared.
What do we do at the end of the month? At the end of the month, you celebrate your sense of accomplishment, resume your normal life, and think about what we should do next year to make InterTuna more enjoyable and how to get more participants involved.
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