I recently started volunteering in a couple of middle schools in Berkeley and Oakland doing beat making and hip hop therapy with the youth. Sometimes they make their own beats and sometimes they ask me to make something for them to sing or rap over.

I started putting together this dance tune a few days ago and I thought it would be fun to challenge all of you talented vocalists and musicians to add your piece to it.

The song is far from finished, this is just the outline. The rest of the track needs to be built around the vocals. If you would like any of the sections to be longer or shorter, its no problem. In fact, if you would like anything changed just say the word.

Song Info:

Tempo= 120 BPM

Key= d minor

Chord chart= dm/// C/// G/// dm///

As I'm sure most of you know, joerud is an amazing musician. This track was a lot of fun to work on.

I'm starting to feel grounded as a producer and this track was perfect to exercise my chops on. Joe, if you ever want to collaborate on something, I'm down.

Special thanks to seldelaterre for the challenge.

Enjoy!

Here's the music to accompany saintmaker's poem "The Likey Tree". I set out with the goal of giving it a "sing-songy/quirky/creepy/cute" kind of vibe. Somewhere along the way the song took over itself and became what it wanted to be.

saintmaker, being the talented and prolific writer that he is, wrote a second verse for the song (check out the resources below). I might try to work something up for it, but I would love to see how other artists and musicians envision it. Anyone feeling inspired?

Song Info:

Key= G#

Tempo= 105 BPM, dropping down to 60 BPM toward the end.

Chord Chart:

G#///C#///G#///D#///

G#///C#///G#/D#/e#m///////

G#///C#///G#///D#///

G#/D#/ (tempo slows) e#m///C#///

e#/B#7/C/G/////

(stems and additional info. upon request)

I just came up with this beat recently. Its not done by any means, I'm still experimenting with it. I'm not in love with the guitar sound in the beginning so I think that will be the first thing to change.

I'd love to see what you can do with it. Add vocals, add instruments, remix it, add it to some video, whatever you feel like.

I do all my work in Logic so if you would like the original files of the individual tracks hit me up and I'll send them your way.

I dig this scene that AW Clift animated. It reminds me of a western type of film with the bank robber and the "wanted" criminal poster, so I threw in an old-time sounding piano. The accordion is a sort of tip-of-the-hat to Ennio Morricone.

Song info:

Key= c minor

Tempo is speeding up from 86 to 122. If you would like to know exactly where and by what magnitude it starts ratcheting up I can dig up that info.

This is a rough draft of the soundtrack I came up with for this awesome stop motion video (nice work messyowl).

When I first saw the video my immediate reaction was that this is a carefree girl defining herself according to her own terms. I thought an interesting story might be that there are two young people in love, maybe living in a small town, figuring out their lives together. Suddenly, she is presented with an opportunity to follow her dreams but she has to move across the country to do it. For what ever reason, he is unable to go with her. Fastforward a bit and now their phone conversations are more sporadic and less fulfilling (especially for him). This video is the image he sees of her when he closes his eyes and dreams about her. And this song is the song he feels.

Like I said, this is just a rough draft. The vocals could definitely be improved by somebody that can actually sing. I might re-record the guitar part to be more intimate and less boxy. But I wanted to get a feel for other people's reactions and see what kind of ideas you might have.

Song info:

key= D

tempo= 118 BPM

I used to do habitat restoration work in the National Park lands in the San Francisco bay area. When I got to work one day, my co-workers and I learned that somebody had let their pet turtle loose in the parks and it had been seen eating the endangered frogs we were trying to protect. It was our mission to keep a look out for the turtle and catch it so we could give it a good home somewhere outside of the parks (not eating our frogs). But with thousands of acres for the turtle to hide, it was just like the old needle in the haystack.

I thought we would have better luck if we sang to the turtle so I started singing this little song. When I got home that evening I told my fiance about it and she helped me write the rest of the song.

Oh, and we never did find the turtle...

Lyrics:

Tortuga, tortuga ven aquí

Tortuga, tortuga ven a mí

¿Tortuga, tortuga a dónde fuíste?

Tortuga, tortuga estoy muy triste

Oh turtle, oh turtle please come here

Oh turtle, oh turtle come to me

Oh turtle, oh turtle where have you gone?

Oh turtle, oh turtle I'm very sad

Song info:

Key = D maj.

Chord Chart= D///////////A///////////

Tempo = 176 BPM in 3/4 time

There is a ton of really bad kid's music out there. Something had to be done. This song is about everybody's favorite subject: Poop!

First I want to say a HUGE, HUGE THANK YOU!!! to fractaldust. Not only is she the talent on this song, she also took a big risk. I challenged her to step outside of her comfort zone, which is scary for any artist but is the place (in my opinion) where art begins. She courageously stepped up to the challenge and delivered bold performances that helped to define this song. So big-ups to fractal dust!

Second: The song still needs a 2nd verse! If you want to sing, rap, monologue, etc. over it lets see watcha got!

This track has been a lot of fun to put together. Dance/pop is not an area that I'm very familiar with so I wanted to challenge myself to jump into it. I love exploring new genres and I've picked up a lot of skills that I can use across the board, no matter what I'm working on. Have a listen, I hope you enjoy it!

You can check out the evolution of this song here:

Poem: http://www.hitrecord.org/records/335169

The song is born: http://www.hitrecord.org/records/970260

Rough draft: http://www.hitrecord.org/records/1011801

Thanks for listenting!

(Star trails photo by: Nik Glazar)