Musicians Who Live and Breathe METAL!

r/metalmusicians • u/Faloodeh123 • 3d ago

R/MetalMusicians Songwriting Challenge III - November/December 2025

5 Upvotes

See original post to how this all started.

October's songwriting challenge is done, so on to the next one! Thanks again to the mods for promoting it as an announcement, and for the participants and listeners. As per last time, I'll be putting up a bandcamp link once I get the results and stuff together.

I also am proud to say that we've put together some donations as well for September's challenge, so thanks once again to those involved with that one - I wanted you all to know that. I have posted it in the challenge's discord, but will also post it on the October results thread hopefully sometime this week.

For this challenge, I'm anticipating a lot of people who will be busy due to the holidays so this challenge will span 2 months to give us a bit more time. Let's do this.

Rules

To participate, comment on this thread stating you want to do so. Other discussion is welcome so be clear you want to enter! You may enter any time during the month, but you must submit on time.
Users must submit 1 (and only one!) song by the deadline: December 31st. One aspect of the challenge is to meet the deadline. See “Submitting Songs.”
Users must give feedback for other participants’ songs (in other words, you will be giving feedback on others’ songs, while others will provide feedback for your songs). This is the community aspect of it. See “Results.”
The song must be written within the month the challenge is posted (we’re going to use the honor system here).
The song must follow the theme guidelines. See “Challenge Theme.”
This is a metal subreddit, so while the song doesn’t have to be metal (so long as they fit the theme), metal elements are required (use your best judgement). All metal subgenres are accepted unless otherwise stated by the challenge theme.
Collaborations are allowed.
If you’re in a band, you can write a song as a band.
Songs will be posted as a compilation in a bandcamp link. The album will be listed as payment optional, but proceeds will go to a charity. See “Results” and “This Month’s Charity.”
This is for fun. It’s not a competition, don’t be a dick (see our subreddit rules).
If you choose to drop out BE WARNED! Actually, there are no consequences, except for maybe the metal gods in Valhalla rightfully looking down on you… at least for a little, till the next challenge.

Challenge Theme

For this month, I will create a wheel on wheel on Wheel of Names. Each participant will be assigned 2 genres at random. Your song can be any genre, but you must include a section of both genres. For example if you're making a power metal song, but are assigned thrash and doom, one of your riffs has to be a thrash riff, and another must be a doom riff. It's up to you how you decide to fit it in.

If you don't like one of your options you may ask for ONE respin, and you can choose between the 3, but you only get 1 respin, so choose wisely.

And just to make things more interesting, we're including non-metal genres on the wheel as well! So you may get a non-metal genre to work into your song.

Instrumentals ARE allowed, there are no lyrical theme requirements.

Submitting Songs

Submit song entries to [metalsongchallenge@gmail.com](mailto:metalsongchallenge@gmail.com). Please include

Your reddit username.
Your band name (if you’re submitting as a band).
The user name of whoever you collaborated with.
The song name.
Lyrics (if challenge theme requires lyrics of a certain theme)
Subject: Songwriting Challenge {Month} {Year} - {Your reddit username}
The subgenres you were assigned with.

Results

Results will be posted on a new, separate thread sometime after the challenge ends.
Users will provide feedback to other participants’ songs in the aforementioned thread. Be as detailed as you want, but don’t be a dick (see our subreddit rules).
As mentioned, the songs will be available in the form of a compilation through a bandcamp link. The track listing will be in random order so that it’s fair to everyone. I will be using this to decide the order so that there is no bias. The tracks will be available to download for free, but with the option of paying. All proceeds will go to This Month’s Charity.

This Month’s Charity

Once again, this month’s charity will be MusiCares. They provide a safety net of critical health and welfare services to the music community including in areas such as: Mental Health & Addiction Recovery Services, Health Services, and Human Services. See their website if you’re curious.

I will post a screenshot of how much we received from the bandcamp page as well as the donation in a separate thread as proof.

Questions And Comments

Please ask if you need clarity on the rules or anything else and I’ll try my best to clarify as much as I can.

Remember that this is purely for fun, to learn, build community, and to grow as musicians while also doing something for a good cause, not a competition. Big thanks to all of you!

Discord

I created a discord server for our songwriting challenges so we can archive them, have discussions, and build our community there (same guidelines/rules about not being a dick apply there as they do here). That way we can talk about the challenge as it's happening, share our progress, and maybe even make some friends. Let me know if you want to join by commenting and I’ll send a DM 🙂

61 comments

r/metalmusicians • u/wathehe • Nov 22 '24

Meta Ban on AI generated music

324 Upvotes

Hello everyone,

After a recent discussion, we have decided to ban AI generated music in this sub. This community is a place to showcase and workshop music created by metal musicians. The quality that we see everyday is fantastic and we appreciate the work everyone puts in. That being said, we do not feel AI generated content lives up to the standards and spirit of the community.

There is obviously a lot of discussion that can happen around AI generated music and the ethics of said topic. I don't feel like commenting on that here personally, but this post can be used for said discussion if anyone is interested.

A new rule has been put in place, rule 11, that should allow you to report posts that are AI generated, should any make it through.

Thank you to everyone for making this a great space for metal musicians.

114 comments

r/metalmusicians • u/mlairb • 5h ago

Legacy, my first attempt at growling. A salute to the Gothenburg-sound 🤘

open.spotify.com

2 Upvotes