Community Challenge 23 | Write something sparse (Patreon)

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Hi Everyone,
Every week I assign my Patrons a little writing challenge. There are two reasons I do this:

1. People (and teachers!) often forget that the best way to get music theory concepts stuck in your head is to use those concepts to actually MAKE MUSIC.

2. I want my Patrons to have a weekly reminder to create something - anything.

Writing music doesn't have to be serious, intense, or tedious. It can be fun, simple, relaxing, AND and end in itself. You're not a failure if a writing session doesn't not result in a full song. In fact, writing little half sections and weird one-off ideas is not only normal, but completely necessary to your growth as a musician. Think of your participation in these community challenges as a way to keep a little notebook of sketches that you can look back on and say "wow. I've learned a lot since that one."

You're welcome to participate in whatever capacity you feel comfortable, wether thats an 8 second voice memo recorded to your phone, a half finished verse and chorus idea, or a full blown song recorded on your DAW. All experience levels and all technology levels are welcome.

This week's challenge is: Write something sparse

Sometimes I write a challenge involving a specific music theory concept and sometimes I write a more vague challenge. This one is in the second camp.

The dictionary definition of sparse is "having widely spaced intervals" but that might seem too specific to music so lets define sparse this way:

Sparse music:
1. gives room for empty space
2. favors utility and simplicity over ornamentation and "extra" notes

Ways to approach this challenge (you could focus on one or two or all of these things)

Tonal sparseness:
In tonality, sparseness could mean vagueness. Like, you could barely provide enough information to figure out what key you're in. For example, the guitar could play just roots, or roots and thirds. Or if you're playing bass on your track, the bass could play roots and the guitar could just play fifths or thirds and fifths. If you're sticking to just guitar, you could think of spread out chords and only playing the minimum number of strings possible.

Rhythmic sparseness:
Instead of strumming the entire time, you could try strumming once at the beginning of the measure. Or doing something like ::root strum root root root:: where you're keeping rhythm with just the root note and occasionally (maybe once a measure?) revealing the chord. This might be a fun opportunity to mess with a pedal tone (keeping the same bass note going with different chords over the top) as well, since it keeps things sparse too.

Aesthetic Sparseness:
You are welcome to explore your own ways of being sparse, wether thats a guitar tone that feels sparse, lyrical content that feels sparse, or some other part of the song that feels sparse. If you've got other ideas, go for it!

My only request is this: When you post your creation, include an explanation of your mindset - how you tried to achieve the sparse concept. 

There are no wrong answers here! The idea is just to set out with an intention and see what happens. Explore. Have fun. Enjoy!

Post your creations here on the community forum.