What you make doesn’t even need to have a beat in the original sense. All forms of musical expression are welcome.

… Care to elaborate?

Ethical and environmental concerns aside, this is an exercise in developing creative skills, not in producing something that sounds good devoid of any artistry.

Some AI tools are a productivity booster and are a net benefit (such as Logic’s mastering assistant and session musicians) but those are supplementing human creativity, not replacing it. If your interest is in simply cranking out music without the ability to control the fundamental process of its creation and design, look elsewhere.

(And no, it is not “classist” or “ableist” to take this stance.)

Here’s some free or cheap software that you can use to get started:

• LMMS: A free, open-source music DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Want to go oldschool? Check out a tracker like Schism or Furnace
• You can also make music without installing anything using a web-based tracker like Beepbox
• A lot of musicians (including professionals!) use Reaper, which is inexpensive, and comes with an extremely generous free trial period
• Every Mac and iPhone/iPad now comes with a free copy of GarageBand, so if you already have an Apple device you probably have that!
• If you’re a bit more code-oriented (or want to learn programing), check out some live-coding music environments such as Strudel REPL

Otherwise there is no centralized community forum or discussion area, but several people do discuss using the #novembeat hashtag on social media, and discussions pop up on songwriting forums all over the Internet.

• Use Bandcrash to upload the album to itch.io
• Put an album on Bandcamp (if you do this, mark it as a “preview” while you work on it so that you can do a proper release when you’re done!)
• Find a Funkwhale instance to join (or host one yourself, if you’re able!)
• Convert your music into a video and add it to a playlist on YouTube, PeerTube, or some other video-sharing platform (as long as it’s a playlist you can add to, rather than a single video)
• Self-host your files and provide player interface via MusicFolderPlayer or jPlayer or the like (just as long as I can embed it with an <iframe>)

I am of course happy to hear about any other approaches!

16 bars is a pretty good starting point (especially if you’re new to this), but it can be shorter, and you can also make it a lot longer if you want.

Do note, however, that #notevember is also used by people who are writing daily notes (as in the words/letters kind), so that causes some confusion.

Here’s some other regular music challenges to consider:

• Song Fight!, a weekly-ish songwriting challenge where you’re given a title to write a song for (possibly the earliest and definitely the longest-running Internet songwriting challenge, since 2000!)
• In January there’s Jamuary, which in turn came from Fun-A-Day
• February has FAWM, which also hosts the Fifty-Ninety challenge from July through October
• Weekly Beats is a year-long challenge to make one beat every week

• Use the entry submission page
• Post a link to it as an issue
• Email me
• Message me on Mastodon or Discord
• Carrier pigeon

Include the following information:

• The name you’d like to be known as
• A link to your website, if any
• Link(s) to your music in the form of an embeddable playlist (e.g. YouTube, Funkwhale, Bandcamp album, etc.)

Please note that I maintain this website more or less by hand (there’s no Algorithm or Discovery) so it might take a while for things to show up, and I’m not going to update it every time you post a new track (so, please use something that can update on its own after being embedded).

And of course, if you release an album with your Novembeat output, absolutely let me know!

#novembeat starts today!

🎼UP TO 16 bars of music
🎹Every day in November
🎤Posted wherever you want
🔊Tagged #novembeat

NOW MAKE SOME NOISE

— Paul Starr (@pts), November 1, 2016

Since 2017 the initiative has mostly been run by fluffy, who also runs this website. For more of fluffy’s music, check out Sockpuppet and itch.io.

If you’re doing this to produce an album, also consider joining NaSoAlMo, a similar community that’s been going for a bit longer than Novembeat!

1. Record something
2. Post it on your social media or audio/video sharing platform of choice (Mastodon, Funkwhale, YouTube, your blog, etc.) tagged #novembeat
3. Repeat