My guitar instructor gave me the exercise of putting together some short phrases using a fixed box. I just started tonight. The box is rooted on C and uses a minor shape. He wanted me to link several phrases together, each with some related musical concept or theme. I'm supposed to play each phrase, then play it again an octave below.

Here is a recording I did practicing a few phrases, but only at the low octave:

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/carn "Sad Cowboy In a Box"

This is a really fun exercise. I haven't ever done song writing before.

I struck upon one of the phrases here randomly while trying to figure out what to do. I decided it sounded like a sad cowboy song, so I tried to find three or four other phrases that carried that through as a theme.

I'm not sure what chords would sound good backing this. I want to experiment and figure that out as well.