Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is the RPM Challenge?

The RPM is an annual creative challenge to anyone to record original music during the month of February. You set your own length goal, and we give you a deadline of March 1 to complete your project. We host a massive online listening party to celebrate, where we bring participants together and listen to one track from each project. And all completed projects are displayed on our celebrated annual RPM Challenge winners list.

Tens of thousands of albums and close to a hundred thousand tracks have been made as part of the Challenge since it was founded in 2006, with submissions having come from every single continent on Earth.

It’s a non-competitive challenge, meant to inspire creative courage and to encourage everyone to explore their own creativity.

What are the RPM Challenge rules?

Since the RPM is a creative challenge, not a contest, the rules are pretty simple:


• All recordings must be original* and unreleased.

• All recordings must be produced in the month of February.

• To 'win' you have to complete your project and mark it complete before March 1, 2024 at 11:59pm.

(* Avoid covers or remixes please)

Some more details and advice:

• Above all, this is a challenge to motivate you to finish something.

• You can use the RPM to complete work you started before February.

• To celebrate, in early March we host a global online listening party where we play one track or excerpt from each of the completed projects.

• Have fun!


How long does this record need to be?

You can sign up to create a single (1-4 tracks), an EP (at least 5 tracks or 20 minutes), an album (at least 10 tracks or 35 minutes) or boxed set. The album goal of 10 songs or 35 minutes is the original RPM Challenge, and it’s the one we recommend to aim for.

Do I need to submit my record at the end of the challenge?

The RPM is a personal creative challenge with a worldwide community, and what you make is your own, so it’s all up to you what you choose to do with it at the end of February. At the end of the month we always encourage you to mark your project complete and submit music for the online listening party and for the site, but that step is optional.

How do I submit?

You have until the last minute of March 1 on Earth (11:59pm UTC-12) to mark your record complete.

Before you can complete the form on our site, you’ll need to do a few things:

  1. Please put your RPM Challenge record online using a service like Alonetone, Bandcamp, Audiomack, or Soundcloud, then copy that public link.

  2. Select one track from your record. This is your “preferred track”. Have an MP3 file of that track (10MB or less) ready. We will use this for the listening party, the radio stream, and archive it on our site. Please keep it under 7 minutes or so.

  3. Have your cover art ready to upload. This image file should also be 10MB or less.

  4. Once you have all that, you can complete our submission form here. It’s similar to the sign up form. We don’t have an account system on the site, so we’ll ask you questions about you and your project again.

Why a flexible length goal?

The original length goal for the RPM Challenge was the album length — 10 songs or 35 minutes. Since the RPM is a creative challenge for everybody, and we know that many people have barriers preventing them from finishing a full album, we added a flexible length goal temporarily in 2021, and it stuck. We want as many people as possible to experience the joy of starting and finishing their own original work!

I didn’t meet my original goal! What do I do? 

You can at a different level than what you set out for in the beginning. Just mark your project complete at the appropriate level. If you completed one track, pick that. If you set out to do a boxed set but ended up recording an album, pick that.

Who runs the RPM Challenge?

After 15 years running the RPM Challenge around the world, the founders Dave Karlotski and Karen Marzloff in Portsmouth, New Hampshire officially passed the torch to Unpossible NL to run the international creative challenge starting in 2021. Unpossible NL is a small volunteer-run arts organization based in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and the present coordinator is Elling Lien. We exist to coordinate educational and non-competitive projects which foster creative courage, and which encourage community, equity and diversity. You can read more about Unpossible here.

How did the RPM Challenge start?

Way back in 2006 The Wire magazine created the RPM Challenge for their hometown of Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 2006, and everyone had so much fun they threw a big party and opened it up to the whole world. The rest is history.

Does my record need to be good? I’m not sure I can make anything good.

You know what? It doesn’t need to be good! Go ahead and make something intentionally terrible!

You will totally fail and accidentally make something good because you will have so much fun doing it.

Does it have to be music?

No! We try to keep the rules flexible to allow for people to record any audio they want, including comedy records, field recordings, poetry readings, or audiobooks. 

Who owns the rights to recording I make?

You do! You own all of your work! We lay no claim to it.

At the end of the month we do request you send us a single track for the listening party and for archiving on our site, but you can ask to have this removed at any time.

What does RPM stand for?

It stands for “Record Production Month”.

Who made the cool logo illustration this year?

This year’s logo and poster was made by Newfoundland and Labrador artist José González. He’s one of the folks behind Toporama, the screen printing shop and design studio based in rural Newfoundland that does our printing. You can see more of José’s awesome work at http://www.elmundodejl.com/

I’ve never recorded music before. Is this just for experienced musicians? 

The RPM Challenge is for everybody! Any age, any skill level. It’s a great chance to try making music at the same time as thousands of other people around the world. The only expectations on quality are set by you!

I’m an experienced musician. Is this just for beginners?

Lots of experienced musicians use the RPM Challenge as a way to work on new material, try out a new genre, make a new band, or just have fun making something different.

We also tell professional musicians that they’re welcome to submit under a pseudonym or different band name! We won’t tell anyone.

Can I take part anonymously?

Of course! Lots of people do. It can really help overcome any anxiety about whether people will like the music or not. Strangely enough, making a record under a pseudonym might even help you make music that sounds more like yourself.

To sign up we do require a real email address, but we will always keep that to ourselves and will only ever use it for telling you about RPM-related stuff. 

February has already started! Is it too late to sign up?

No, of course it isn't! So you've lost a couple of minutes, a handful of hours, a few days, that's no reason not to come on board. There's still the better part of February in front of you, plenty of time to write and record new music.

Are there prizes or awards?

The RPM Challenge is a challenge, not a contest, so there are no tangible prizes or awards.

But! By completing the challenge you will have made a record of your own music at the end of February, and that’s a huge reward you will have given yourself. Isn’t that nice?

Can I donate to the RPM Challenge?

You can! You can make an online donation to Unpossible NL, the coordinators of the RPM Challenge, using this form. We are a registered nonprofit and you can be sure that any donation you give us will help with our RPM Challenge website fees, help with events and workshops, and help us keep running this beautiful, magical thing. We don’t have charitable tax status so we can’t issue charitable receipts.

Why does the site look different?

Our former Joomla-based community site served us well for many years, and it was put together with real love. It was also, admittedly, pretty confusing for new users and would inevitably crash hard every year when people submitted their records in March. So it needed some love. When early in 2020 we got a notification from our web host saying we were too big for the plan we were on (500GB! Good work everybody!) we had some real thinking to do. Since we were moving from our New Hampshire base to Newfoundland, we decided to take the opportunity to try a new approach with the goal of things being robust, friendly to new users, and recreating core elements that worked well on the old site. To do all of that we’re using a few tools that are proven to work for large communities like ours online: Our discussion forum has been relocated to a server on Discord where people can communicate, post demos and discuss their recordings, and our signup system is a simple form based around projects and not individual user accounts. Also, while we’ll still be asking people to send us their music for playing at the listening parties and on the YouTube stream, we’ll be suggesting people use musician-friendly hosting services like Bandcamp or Alonetone for hosting their work this year instead of running our own music hosting service. These changes will help avoid the technical headaches we’ve been dealing with for years and help us focus on celebrating your work and building the community. 

I’m a representative of an organization and would like to bring the RPM Challenge to my community. What can I do?

Excellent! We’re always looking for organizations to partner with to act as local hubs for the RPM in their area. The RPM is an excellent international event, but it also really works well as a regional community-builder. RPM Hubs are partner organizations who help add fun real-world elements to RPM Challenge festivities in their area, and the best fits are community radio stations, nonprofit organizations, student organizations, and music festivals. What that means in terms of work for local organizers is very flexible. As a DIY community event, much of that work is focused on celebrating the work that people in your area have made, and helping get the stories behind the music out there. The three big things these hubs do are A) encourage people to take the Challenge, B) secure a public drop-off spot for physical submissions, and C) host local listening parties and other events. Due to the pandemic this year, most of those events will be online. If you’re curious to find out more, please send an email to elling@rpmchallenge.com to get in touch.

I’m not a representative of an organization but would like to help encourage more people in my area to take part! What can I do?

One of the biggest things you can do to help is to spread the word by telling your friends, posting on social media, and telling local media outlets about it.

❤️