Time to get rolling, kids! Thanks for participating in the new MM3AM Round. I’m going to warn you in advance - Mitchell is taking this very seriously, and his assignments are much more hardcore than we’re used to. I think this will be a fantastic opportunity for those that take it seriously, but I can already tell that this is NOT going to be an ideal round for those of us who don’t always dig in. If you feel you need to sit this round out, that’s understood. But I, for one, can’t wait to dig in!

As you recall, for this round, we have a guest curator, our own Mitchell Snow, who has sent a general introduction about what he wants to do this round. Mitchell, take it away:

"Howdy all!

I'm very excited to take the reins for a MM3AM round! I just wanted to let everyone know that some of the assignments I have in mind may (or may not, depending on your songwriting methodology) require a bit more work than a typical MM3AM round. I'm by no means going to bog everyone down with a lot of unnecessary work or anything, but I will at times be asking you to, as your 8th Grade Math teacher would've no doubt said, "Show your work."

There will be no competitive element and no assignments such as, "Write a cynical country song about recycling," or, "Let's do a Funk tune for a Popsicle commercial!" Nothing like that. Mostly, it's going to be a back-to-basics approach, examining some methods of known songwriting masters (we'll be looking at Dylan, for example), some traditional and non-traditional writing prompts, and an exploration of writing techniques that may be new to you - all with the hope that it will open up some new ways of thinking and improving your writing. Mostly, the focus will be on the lyrical composition of your work and less on the musical (though not always) so, you need not expect anything requiring you to work in odd time signatures or anything like that. Our focus (for the most part) will be on your words.

I'm going to attempt to say at least a little something about each submission and (no promises) try to pick one or two each week to dive deeper into. If you'd prefer that we discuss your work privately, then please let me know before we begin, otherwise, I'll be posting any critiques, comments, suggestion, and so on on your song link on the MM3AM FB page. I hope we can engage in some useful conversation there and I encourage every one to chime in on those discussions.

I know y'all don't have oceans of time and I'm not going to ask anything too crazy of you, but it's my opinion that if you're serious about doing some serious songwriting, then you may as well be serious enough to put in some serious effort. Don't take that to mean it's gonna be a slog. It won't be. There will be nothing that's too time consuming, but some things will take some time. I'm not trying to put anyone off or anything, but if you're the kind of person who likes to post a song a few hours after the assignment is given, this is probably not the round for you.

Assignment, Week One:
I want you (to) show me the way. . . that you structure your songs.

For Week One, we're going to work on just about the most basic element of songwriting - structure. You may write about anything you wish in any style that you'd like, I just want you to think about how you are writing your lyrics and then show us the work (more on that later). There will also be a round long, daily challenge (more on that later, too).

Here's a few things that you might consider:

- Basic verse, chorus, bridge structure, etc.

- Rhythm and Meter
If you're unfamiliar with this concept, here's an explanation:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpsaX2sWbEo

- Rhyme
A. Scheme
If you're using one at all, are you being consistent?
B. Inner-rhyme/ internal rhyme

- Point of view
Unless you're going for an effect, as in Dylan's "Simple Twist of Fate," then once you've established a P.O.V. (1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person), you should probably stick with it.

- Literary Consonance, Literary Sibilance, Assonance, & Alliteration
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_consonance

This list could go on and on. What I want you to do is explain how you've applied these or any other principals/ concepts to your lyric. You can add annotations to your lyrics in the lyric/ notes section on the bandcamp page, or you can handwrite your song with the annotations, snap a photo of if, and use that as your song's cover art. Either way is fine.

No matter which you chose (and this will apply to every song you submit this round), you'll still need to publish your lyrics. Of course, if you've made the choice to photograph your hand-written lyrics, the published lyrics need not be annotated, but I'd still like to see them typed, so please publish them.

I don't want to give any examples by way of explanation, because I want to see what it is you do and what things you consider. Perhaps you ignore all conventions and structures and just write some words for your music and never even think about any of this stuff. If you do, then why? Are you bucking convention? Are you going full-on stream of consciousness? Cool - explain that to me! If you're ignoring all this stuff because you're ignorant of it, there's nothing wrong with that, but perhaps now is a good time to educate yourself. I in no way mean that as an insult and you shouldn't take it as one. What I do mean is, the more you learn about this sort of stuff, the more it will improve your work - even if you decide to ignore it. After all, the best way to break the rules is to first learn what the rules are. If you're ignoring all this stuff because you're lazy, well then, why bother at all?

Now, as to that round long challenge that I mentioned earlier:
Every day (optimally very early in your day - say while having breakfast or morning coffee), I want you write for 3 to 5 uninterrupted minutes. It does not matter at all what you write during this time. Returning texts, emails, or the like is absolutely NOT what this time is for. Also, this is not the time to work on or even think about a lyric, in fact, you do not (and ultimately should not) go into it with any sort of goal in mind. Just sit down for 3-5 mins and write. You can describe the room you're in, write about the weather (one of my personal favourites), write about your pet, write any random word that pops into your mind and make a world salad, write about a commercial that you vaguely remember from childhood - it absolutely does not matter. What does matter is that you don't think about what you're going to write before you start and that you set a timer for however long you're going to write and when that timer goes off, you stop writing. If you are mid-sentence, stop. If you are mid-word, stop. You stop when the timer stops. Stop, close the notebook, and walk away. The content doesn't matter, nor does the word count; it only matters that you write something. You'll do this every day for the entire round. Of course, there is no way of policing this and you can easily cheat and not do it, but you'll only be cheating yourself. I'm sure at least one of you is wondering why I would ask you to do such a thing, but I'm not really gonna explain it, except to say that it's a useful exercise that tends to improve your writing. Your results may vary, but should you chose to put the work in, I'm betting that the benefits of doing this will become obvious after a while.”