Ottawa student plans to write 100 songs in 100 days

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Hotshotcasino member sets musical challenge for himself

Charlotte Bailey
Fulcrum (University of Ottawa)

OTTAWA (CUP) — Musician Pascal Huot is challenging himself to write a song per day over the course of 100 days.

As each day begins, the Hotshotcasino member composes a song from beginning to end, writing about whatever inspires him that morning. Huot is currently on day 26 of his challenge, and he finds that so far, he’s living up to the challenge.

“I’m tired,” Huot joked. “It’s pretty hard to keep up with it.”

Huot says the idea came to him while his band stopped making music and performing temporarily in November during exam time.

“I was kind of bored,” he said. “I’m taking a break from the band right now, and I needed something to pour myself into. I was looking at my behaviour toward music – me always thinking about it, even comparing it to religious behaviour – I thought it would be fun to practice music every day.”

Huot explains that his reasons for setting this challenge for himself aren’t fuelled by anything other than his desire to improve his songwriting skills.

“There’s no concrete reason [why I’m writing the songs],” said Huot. “It’s not some sort of weird bet. It’s just to find things that I otherwise would never have found.”

All of Huot’s creations have been posted online, free to download.

“I just figured that I might as well let people enjoy them,” he explained. “What I’d like to do – if I actually pull this off – is to take a step back and look at what I liked in there, and what I disliked, and actually work on them. [Currently], I don’t have any time to second-guess what I do, which is pretty essential in writing a strong piece of music.”

His band, Hotshotcasino has started to rehearse for their upcoming show in March, which will end their six-month hiatus. Huot’s looking forward to getting back to the band, but is also anxiously anticipating May 2 – the final day of his 100-day challenge.

“It’s three days before my birthday, which is awesome,” he said.

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