February is album writing month. You know that right? We’ve covered the insanity of February album writing before and there is a lot of buzz among songwriters and musicians alike in 2012.

The most popular projects are:

FAWM.ORG

Each February, this website forges a collaborative community of thousands of musicians worldwide, from all walks and skill levels. We take on the challenge of writing an album’s worth of new music in the shortest month of the year. We fawmers are a motley mix of music professionals, students, homemakers, and folks who work day jobs and rock nightclubs.

FAWM also has “The Daily FAWMCast” – A daily call-in radio show with musical selections from FAWM participants and discussions on songwriting and all things FAWM from late January through early March 2011 during the annual February Album Writing Month challenge on http://www.fawm.org. We showcase songs and songwriters from the challenge, and discuss songwriting, timed songwriting challenges, and all the joys and perils therein.

RPMCHALLENGE.COM

Record an album in February that’s 10 songs or 35 minutes long.

Recording for RPM Challenge can only be done in the month of February – no prerecorded songs.

All material must be previously unreleased, and we encourage you to write the material during February, too.

Send a physical copy, postmarked by noon on March 1st to: The Wire, 10 Vaughan Mall, Suite 201, Portsmouth, NH, 03801. On your profile, enter the date you mailed it to us.

Then, kick back and enjoy that sense of relief.

Why Should You Participate?

• It’s a good way to turn those song fragments you have floating around your head/notebooks/voice recorders into completed songs.
• A community of positive people to encourage and motivate you.
• It’s good practice.

Some Tips

• Remember, you’re not writing an album for a record company, you’re just working on songwriting.
• Don’t overthink it. Let go. (“the hardest thing in the world to do is to let go“ - JJ Grey) You might be surprised how letting go could open up amazing possibilities with your songs.
• If you primarily write country, write a rock album, or pop album (or vice versa). This allows you to stretch your talents.

The principles of these annual events are a big part of why we do this site, and falls right in line with the principles in our brand new songwriting eBook as well.

Are you writing an album this February? Are you doing FAWM or RPMChallenge?

If you do, come back and let us know how it went. We’d love to hear!