Community Challenge 37 | Focus on Dynamics (Patreon)

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Hi Everyone,

Every week I post a Community Challenge. This is an opportunity for my Patrons to explore writing music. Sometimes it's about applying some specific music theory concept. Sometimes it's about a specific technique. Sometimes it's an exercise in limiting yourself to some really specific parameters. Other times it's about writing from a very open ended writing prompt.

The goal is to practice being creative and actually use the music theory you've been learning here on my Patreon. In my opinion, the whole point of learning guitar is to express yourself musically. Keep in mind: You don't have to make anything fancy, this is just a practice exercise. Wether you end up doing a full professional recording, or a 5 second cell phone voice memo, you're more than welcome to participate.

This week's challenge is: Focus on Dynamics

We've already covered this concept in Community Challenge 08, when I asked you to write something with extreme dynamics. I don't need extreme dynamics this time, I just need you to write with dynamics in mind.

The word "dynamics" basically refers to the sheer volume you're putting out. In classical music, you'll see dynamic markings like "p" for "piano" which translates to "quiet" or you'll see "forte" for "loud." There is a lot of variety in sheet music for this kind of thing. Sometimes you'll see "pppp" which would mean "play really really soft" or "ffff" which means "play really really loud" or even "mp" which stands for "mezzo-piano" or "moderately quiet."

What I need from you for this challenge:
1. Think about wether you want to focus on one louder section and one soft section, or if you want to play louder than usual for the whole song, or quieter than usual. The emphasis here is for you to observe
A) what is your personal middle-of-the-road volume/intensity/effort and how would you go about deliberately playing significantly quieter or louder than that?
B) how can you write some music that makes you think about playing quieter and/or louder than you usually do.

2. When you submit your creation to the community forum, give an explanation of the dynamic flow of your creation. It could be "In this 8 second voice memo, I was trying to play softly on X, Y, and Z chords, then I tried to gradually increase the intensity and volume until I reached this H, I, J section where I dug in deeper to make it feel much more intense."

Here are a few things to consider: volume and intensity are relative. Something might be "louder" but not played very intensely. For example, you could turn the volume up on your amp and be WAY louder, but physically strum the strings at the same intensity. In my opinion, the goal of dynamics is to increase or decrease emotional intensity. Ideally, your body language should match the intensity you want your audience to feel. So strumming or picking softly will feel relaxing and gentle and strumming really hard or picking really hard will FEEL intense. Basically, "volume" is a nice quick way to think of dynamics, but if you think of dynamics as "physical effort," it is easier to imagine how dynamics actually translate to guitar.

Post your creations to the community forum! And have fun.

Check out the Lesson Archive for more Community Challenges - you’re welcome to participate on any past Challenge at any time!

Other helpful links:
Scott's Recommended Lesson Plan
Searchable Lesson Archive
How to Join the Community Forum
Scott's Jam Tracks
SPJ Live YouTube Channel
Scott's Main YouTube Channel