…or what I’ll just be calling #RCFAChallenge for short.

Musicians, here’s the deal. If something prevented you from completing the RPM Challenge in the specified February timeframe this year – like, say, despite your best “efforts” you honestly couldn’t figure out even the most basic things like even what style of music you’d like to do before 2/25/14, and when you finally decided on it it wasn’t going to be the kind of thing you could reasonably write and record in four days – you can take the RCFA Challenge instead.

The RCFA Challenge is just like the RPM Challenge, except:

1) Instead of requiring a work window of 2/1-28/xx, your RCFA work window will take place entirely within any continuous 28-day interval you’d like… preferably the first 28ish days of March, but whatever.

2) There’s no mailing in a CD somewhere by noon on March 1, etc.

3) There’s no central website for the challenge where your finished product will be posted, somewhere / somehow, and also at which no one will ever find / listen to your finished product in a million billion trillion years. (Actually, if I’m notified, I will give your RCFA albums a shoutout and full review here… and since I actually know of two semi-regular readers of my blog, your chances of getting heard by a single human being here vs. via the absurdly overpopulated RPM site may actually be much better!)

4) Here’s the single biggest difference between RPM and RCFA: Instead of having to start and finish one “album” (min of 10 original songs and/or min of 35 minutes of original music) in 28 days as per stated RPM Challenge standards, you must complete two (edit: see new “rule” below) such “albums” in the same timeframe. They must also be discrete, “separately framed ‘n’ named” albums– absolutely no double “albums” allowed.

This is, after all, an atonement challenge.

edit: Having slept on it, I think one “normal” RPM 10t/35m “album” and one separate EP of min 4 original songs and/or min 12 minutes of original music should be sufficient for atonement, so I’m going to alter the RCFA requirements to that particular combination of completed products. I mean, the Bandcamp kids these days seem to think 4-5 songs amounts to an “album” anyway.

Having failed to find any kind of meaningful inspiration / semi-directed motivation for the RPM Challenge until well into its fourth scheduled week, I started my RCFA Challenge project(s) / 28-day work window on 2/26/14. How about you?