Scott Paul Johnson

Community Challenge 106 | Write a Bass/Rhythm Combo

Added 2025-07-29 17:00:03 +0000 UTC

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Hi Everyone,
Each week I post a community challenge and if you've been around for a while, you might have noticed I'm trying to match them to the Monday lesson.

This challenge - "write a bass/rhythm combo" - is inspired by yesterdays Ear Training & Song Analysis lesson about Elliott Smiths "Between the Bars."

But what is a Community Challenge? It's a weekly reminder to practice doing the single most important thing for your music education: write something.

In guitar culture, writing music is the quickest way to make music theory stick in your head and become usable in your hands. It's the best way to make the guitar make sense to you. It's the best way to really understand whats going on. And it's really fun!

All you have to do is follow the prompt based on your skill level - no need to go all out and write a masterpiece - just write something! I like to think of Community Challenges as mostly napkin sketches. Doodles.

Why? Because writing music takes practice, and while practice MAKES perfect, it doesn't mean practice is supposed to BE perfect. The practice of writing something once or twice a week builds skills you didn't know you needed. It's awesome. Try it out for yourself.

Share what you write with my Patreon community here.

As usual, you can participate in and previous Community Challenge at any time.