February Album Writing Month

February Album Writing Month or FAWM is an annual songwriting challenge. The challenge is to compose 14 original songs in the 28 days of February.

History

FAWM began in February 2004 as a personal project of singer-songwriter Burr Settles [ [http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2005/01/26/0501260768.php madison.com ] ] , who was inspired after completing a short novel for NaNoWriMo. He recruited three friends to join him in attempting to compose 14 new songs during the month. Since all four so-called "fawmers" lived in different time zones, they used a blog to track their progress and encourage one another. Each of them met or surpassed the 14-song goal, with 66 songs total.

Due to expressed interest from songwriters who stumbled upon the [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~bsettles/fawm2004/ FAWM 2004 archive] , the challenge was opened up to the public in February 2005 at [http://www.fawm.org FAWM.ORG] , where the challenge has remained. Registered users and may post demo recordings of their new songs to keep track of their progress and elicit feedback. Participation and song output has roughly doubled annually:

2005 - 513 songs, 25 Completed the Challenge
2006 - 1,372 songs, 71 Completed
2007 - 2,706 songs, 128 Completed *
2008 - 5,710 songs, 522 active members, 280 Completed *
(*some completed more than the 14 songs)

In 2008, because of a Leap Year (29 Days), the ante was upped to 14½ songs — the extra half-song being a songwriting collaboration.

The project also produces a compilation CD series, entitled "14 Songs In 28 Days". Each album documents the corresponding year's FAWM event, and previous releases have been met with critical praise from indie-music magazines such as Wonkavision and PopMatters.

Many so-called "fawmers" are professional musicians who have also released FAWM-penned songs on their own albums. A notable example is a three-way collaboration between [http://www.jeffpitcher.com/ Jefferson Pitcher] , [http://www.christiankiefer.com/ Christian Kiefer] , and Matthew Gerken ( [http://www.nicemonstermusic.com/ Nice Monster] ), who each wrote songs about 14 U.S. presidencies for FAWM 2006 (for a total of 42, saving the current President Bush for a later collaboration). The result, tentatively titled "Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs About 43 U.S. Presidencies" [ [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/47385-califone-sparhawk-kozelek-help-do-presidential-songs Pitchfork: Califone, Sparhawk, Kozelek Help Do Presidential Songs ] ] , will be released in 2008 by Standard Recording Company.

FAWMers keep in touch with each other throughout the year at a companion website, [http://www.fawmers.com www.fawmers.com]

Genres

Fawmers compose music of all genres and styles, though most predominate are folk, indie rock, and singer-songwiter. In order to spur creativity and work outside of ruts, fawmers periodically create new "genres" and challenges, such as:
* Strangle Disco - Dance music usually involving classical music samples
* Crucio - A songwriting game similar to tag

Related Projects

The FAWM Challenge is popular among participants in other timed artistic challenges, such as NaNoWriMo, Songfight, and Album-a-Day. FAWM was also the model inspiration for the RPM Challenge, which encourages its participants to record a 10-song album [ [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/14712-column-get-that-out-of-your-mouth-23 Pitchfork Feature: Column: Get That Out of Your Mouth #23 ] ] .

See also

* List of timed artistic contests

References

External links

* [http://www.fawm.org FAWM.ORG Official Website]
* [http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/31841/various-artists-14-songs-in-28-days/ CD Review of "14 Songs In 28 Days (Vol. 2)"] — PopMatters
* [http://www.fawmers.com Fawmers - website for songwriters to discuss FAWM during the offseason (when fawm.org is offline)]