Community Challenge 49 | Write something with an odd number of measures (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.

This week's challenge is: Write something with an odd number of measures

This is going to be fun. I had a writing session recently where I realized that I not only enjoy writing in even measures, but that I get thrown off by odd measures and have to REALLY concentrate playing along with a progression that is 3, 5 or 7 measures long.

As a review, a measure is just a count of 4 (like 1 2 3 4) or a count of 3 (1 2 3) if you’re in 3/4 time signature. A measure and a bar are the same thing. In other words a "four bar progression" is a "progression consisting of four counts of four, as in 1234 1234 1234 1234."

A chord progression with an even number of bars will repeat after two or four measures like this four bar progression:

A chord progression with an odd number of measures would look more like this three bar chord progression:

Try playing these two progressions separately a few times to see how the repetition of a four bar progression feels compared to the repetition of a three bar chord progression. 

From here, all you have to do is pick a key, pick some chords, and see how it feels to write a progression with either 3, 5, or 7 measures.

If you want to get a little fancier, you could think of a 5 measure progression as a 4 bar progression with one extra bar (maybe a riff or something) that turns around back to the start of the progression. You could think of a 7 bar progression as a 4 bar progression that repeats BUT cuts off the 8th measure the second time through. There are so many possibilities! 

Have fun, tinker with a few ideas, and post a recording on the community forum. If you don't feel like posting a recording, you're welcome to post a written chord progression like the ones I wrote above.

SONGS WITH ODD MEASURE SECTIONS:
Yesterday - The Beatles (verse is 7 measures)

Can you think of other songs with odd numbers of measures?

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

Scott's Main YouTube Channel