Hey Alan,

that sounded great. The same thing happens to me where I’m just fooling around, and I come up with something I really like, but when I sit down, and try to intentionally write a song, I have the hardest time. I’m glad you posted the first video. It’s cool to see the evolution of it starting of as a short riff and then turning into a full song. I’ve thought about posting progress videos of my songs. Maybe I’ll do it next time.

Alan,

Really liked that one. I don’t know what it is about you songs but I always get images when I listen to them. Here in Canada we have something called May Day, which is basically a celebration and a parade and kids dancing the May Pole dance (hard to explain but if you look it up you’ll see it) anyways….. I had images of that day when I was a child. Thanks for the trip down memory lane….

also, love the shirt.

-Jonathan

That’s funny that you mention may day. I just went to my nephew’s may day. It’s pretty much like Alan describes except the elementary school on Kauai only goes to the 5th grade, so the 5th graders represent the court, and they dance too. For my 4th grade class, I got to blow the conch shell, and for my 5th grade I was on the court. I can’t even remember what Island I represented, but I remember spending a lot of time learning to dance. It wasn’t always fun (especially sitting in the sun and waiting for your grade to dance), but it’s usually held about a week before school ends, and most of the kids go home after the celebration, so it is a pretty fun half day. I can definitely imagine Alan’s songs being used for may day. Most of the songs that the kids dance to are contemporary Hawaiian songs, so they usually have some slack key elements.

Hey Alan, if you like motifs and seeing the process behind songwriting, you should check out this video if you haven’t already:

I also got the idea of the Thursday Songwriting challenge from Andrew Huang’s 4 producer videos too, so it’s cool to see what actual composers can do when they get a set of guidelines. I was thinking about suggesting a bonus where we need to incorporate a simple melody for the next challenge. I’ll try to post my process for the next challenge, but we’ll see how it goes. This last one, I was writing the night before.

Alan!!! That is beautiful!!!!

Still finding it a little hard to find time for ukulele with the new born, but here is what I’ve been noodling around with for this challenge!

However I did have to find time to work on the old time family banjo band with Kaipo:

Hey Kawai,

great song. I liked that you ended on that G7. It just had me itching for the resolution on C. Also awesome extra vid too. I can’t imagine how busy you must be, but it’s so cool that you still participate in the challenges.

Thanks all!

I wasn’t able to make it to the Thursday live lesson, but I’m checking it out now. I really enjoy these song writing challenges!

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in changing the formula in an upcoming challenge. I think it would be interesting to take a known song and give us all the super basic info on how to play it. Maybe provide the chord progression or the melody notes, then the challenge would be to interpret the song in our own way. Add some flourishes or change the key its in or perform the song in a different style.

Hey Kawai,

we actually talked about doing something like that for a Live Lesson Challenge. Since we already set the guidelines for the next challenge, maybe we can do that idea for the next next challenge. I think it will be cool. I always like seeing how people will remix and reinterpret the same song.

sixsixty,

Great video with your daughter! Looks like you’re creating some great musical memories with her. Thanks for the motivation. I have been very busy with work and haven’t had much free time……I thought that was a valid excuse…… not anymore….. you have a new child, and you still were able to post a video! Good on ya! Thanks for the motivation.