Author: dan

5in5 | day 1 | 2014

Welcome to the 2014 Edition of 5in5. If you didn’t sign up yet, it’s not too late. You can join very simply. Write a song today and when you’re done post here at dnlwht.com. Simple right? 

Well maybe not, which is why we host this challenge only once a year. Here are a few more details about 5in5 to help get you started:

1) you must start and finish 1 song every day for 5 days.
the goal is not to write 5 amazing songs it’s simply to start and finish a song to stretch your creativity and discipline as a writer.

2) old material cannot be used.
you can’t brush off the dust from an old song, or one that was started a while ago. it must be a brand new song. phrases & words from old journals can be used, but old songs or uncompleted songs cannot be used.

3) co-writing with a person might save your sanity.
this has really helped me write better songs these last 3 years of 5in5 and is something we highly encourage you to try at least once during the week.

4) post the song in some public forum – use #5in5songs
most people post their songs on a blog, youtube, facebook, soundcloud, etc. part of the beauty of 5in5 is forcing yourself to be vulnerable with your writing by putting it out there. plus, it feels like we’re all in this together.

5) post your link at dnlwht.com each day.
this helps us find each other’s songs and leave encouraging comments for one another.

Please use the form (below) to add your links – thanks!

5in5 Returns?

Hey everyone! After doing a little work to get the blog set up it seems now would be a good time to talk about our annual 5in5 songwriting challenge.

For anyone who might not be familiar with what I’m talking about, you can click here – 5IN5 – to read a few of the rules and get the general idea of what it is.

Due to all the changes that are going on in our lives (more about these in another post) we are not going to be able to do 5in5….

Continue reading 5in5 Returns?

the june songwriting challenge

During this next week you should start seeing this post becoming more and more populated with new songs (see below). We are continuing our 5in5 challenge by writing one song per month for the next 7 months so by the end of the year we will have 12 brand new songs.

This month’s challenge was very specific. The basic outline of our assignment was to write an upbeat praise song in a good “range” for a woman-worship leader’s voice. So be on the lookout for more and more songs throughout this week. I can’t wait to see what will be written!

And, if you would like to stay up-to-date with these songs & more… sign up for my newsletter (using the blue box on the right hand side of this page) and I will be sure to let you know what events will be happening next.

SONGWRITERS: If you are part of this month’s assignment, please use the form (below) to add your links for this month’s challenge- thanks!

your 5in5 bonus round


write to play

As promised, when we started talking about 5in5 this year, I mentioned that I had some bonuses planned for you. To better understand them, let me first tell a quick backstory…

When we began 5in5 I originally wanted to call it 5in5in5 which meant (in my mind) 5 songs in 5 days in the 5th month (May). But the title seemed too confusing – even to me. So I shortened it to 5in5 and that seemed much better; however, I still sometimes think about it being 5in5in5. This year when thinking about that old title (5in5in5) I realized a cool little math thing which I will now try to explain plainly.

By the end of our 5 days of 5in5 songwriting we end up with 5 songs. 5 songs is as many songs as there have been months this year = 5. Everyone still with me? Not trying to turn this into a difficult math problem, but to recap: we have had 5 months so far in 2013 and we now have 5 songs that we have written. This is no small feat, but I think you have even more in you…

Continue reading your 5in5 bonus round