Layla Challenge
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Hey there JamChallengers👋! Spring is here and with the International Women's Day on the 8th, we're celebrating the women who've inspired some of the greatest music ever written.
This month, we'll be covering Eric Clapton's Layla 🌹 - yes, both versions count.
The story behind Eric Clapton's Layla
Eric Clapton wrote Layla in 1970, being completely obsessed with a woman he couldn't be with: Pattie Boyd, who was then married to his friend George Harrison. But the name — and the story — go way deeper than that.
Layla comes from Layla and Majnun, a 12th-century Persian love poem by Nizami Ganjavi. Majnun falls so hard for Layla that he loses his mind (Majnun literally means "driven mad by love"). He wanders the desert writing poems about her. In the meantime, she marries to someone else. It ends badly.
Clapton read the poem, recognized himself in it, and wrote one of the most iconic guitar riffs in rock history.
That's the song we're covering this month. Let's see how the #LaylaChallenge unfolds this month. P.S. The same poem, inspired I Am The Moon, a four-album, 24-song conceptual project by the Tedeschi Trucks Band. There's something about this poem which some say it is better than Romeo & Juliet.
How it works
Pick your version — electric (Derek and the Dominos, 1970 - raw, urgent, iconic riff) or acoustic (MTV Unplugged version, 1992 - slower, moodier, more intimate).
Learn any part of it. Intro, verse, chorus, solo — your call.
Post 5 seconds of you playing it.
Want to push it to the next level? Keep going with 15-20 seconds, but 5 seconds is enough to get you started.
How to join
Record your take - audio only is totally fine. Video if you want, but it's not required.
Post it on our Discord, on the appropriate channel for your instrument or level (beginner, intermediate, advanced).
We encourage you to start small:
Learn at least 5 seconds of the song
Record it.
Post on Discord.
Learn a bit more. Record again. Post again.
Repeat until you're happy with where you're at.
That's it! Each post is a checkpoint you'll actually build to see your progress in real time: that's the whole point!
You can also post on your social media using #LaylaChallenge and tag us. We'll link your submission in our Discord challenge thread for you.
What's in it for you
A structured reason to actually practice this month.
A clear, low-pressure way to see your own progress over 28 days.
Your best submissions get featured on our socials and spotlighted on jamchallenged.com for the whole month.
Level up your music skill.
About sounding "good enough"
Sounding "rough" is not an issue. This is the literally the point! Nobody's first 5 seconds of a new song sound polished and nobody here expects it to. Our challenges exist precisely for the messy, in-progress, "I'm figuring things out" stage. This is where the actual practicing happens and where progress is made obvious!
Post more rough stuff. That's what we're here for: progress, not perfection.
Post your first 5 seconds from your #LaylaChallenge today.
New musical challenges every month. See challenges from previous months.
