41 days into this… we’re almost at the half way point which means the summer is almost over and that is utterly depressing. Here in New England summer ends on Labor Day and winter starts the next day. Like I said: Depressing.

I mentioned in yesterday’s recap that I expected day 41 to involve mixing and it sure did. I started mixing one song about 15 seconds after I posted yesterday’s recap post… almost like I knew what was coming. I finished that song before work.

After work I should have started mixing another song but instead I added another song to the queue. Song number 37 for those keeping count. When that was done I added song number 38. Both have the fake MIDI bass and drums and the full song structure and are ready for rhythm guitars. After that I started mixing another song, and after that I mixed a third song. My total number of finished songs is now up to 30. The project is 60% complete.

The current state of the project is 30 songs complete (as just mentioned two sentences ago), three songs ready to mix, three songs ready for vocals, and two songs ready for rhythm guitars. Doing the math… yup, that is 38 songs. I’m feeling pretty good about things right now. Obviously anything could happen to derail the whole project, but as of this moment in time? I’m optimistic for success.

After not doing any work on the 50 songs in 90 days challenge on day 38, I went a little nuts on day 39.

My normal daily routine includes 45-50 minutes of exercise first thing in the morning. The discharge paperwork I took home from Monday’s tooth extractions suggested that exercise would be bad because an increase in heart rate and blood pressure could pop the clot out of the now-empty tooth socket. That’s pretty much the last thing I want, so I am skipping exercise for a few days.

In its place? Music. I started with writing some lyrics. I had one song that was already partially written that I needed to finish. I didn’t want to forget about it so I did it first. After that, I put rhythm guitar tracks onto two songs. They were the only things ready for guitars at that point, but after finishing the second song I was in the mood to keep going, so I started a new song idea. Song number 36. In past 50/90 challenges I have allowed myself to do one 12-bar blues riff each month. I did not do one in July, but song number 36 gives me one for August. I recorded the guitars and the MIDI drums (using GarageBand’s Drummer function, which is probably cheating but I really don’t care and I use it for all of these dumb songs). At that point I had to start my work day so I was done with guitars.

I was not done with music progress though. After work I continued to go a little nuts. First, I added a MIDI bass part to song number 36. After that, I figured I had the GarageBand file open and all so why not just stick with it and write a melody and lyrics? Done. I’m not sure, but I think at that point it brought me up to four or five songs that had lyrics and melodies written and were ready for vocals. I also had four or five songs that were still waiting for lyrics and melodies. I probably could have stopped there for the night but my wife was working late and my step daughter was at her dad’s house so I was sitting in the living room alone… and I wrote lyrics and melodies for all of the remaining songs. All of them.

When I finally called it a night the 50 songs in 90 days challenge status report showed 27 songs complete and nine songs ready for vocals.

I am feeling a little dizzy thinking about it all… though really that could just be my blood sugar being really low on account of my few days with a mostly liquid diet. Not sure. I think it is amazement at my musical progress though. I think.

Spoiler alert for day 40: vocal tracking.

Nothing.

I got two teeth pulled in the morning, then went home and slept off the anesthesia for a few hours, then watched the third The Hobbit movie with Jen and Bellana and then went back to sleep for the night.

No musical progress, but about 26 hours post-teeth pulling and I don’t have any toothache issues yet. I will take that as a fair trade. Spoiler alert for tomorrow though, I did record some guitars this morning and I may have added the first 12-bar blues of the project. There should be a nice update for day 39 tomorrow. Fingers crossed that it includes more toothache free news.

Not a lot of progress. I had plans but they fell through when my step son in Vermont needed help with something and I came-a-runnin’ even though the drive to him was three hours in each direction. Suffice to say that by the time I got home from my unexpected journey there wasn’t a lot of time left for music.

Having said that… I added one new song. It is song number 35. It has the full song structure, bass and drums, and a guide MIDI guitar to help me when I record the real guitars. It also has a melody and lyrics. It was sort of inspired by an interview I saw on YouTube with Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins where they discussed the writing of the song Turn it On Again. Mike played it for Phil and Phil commented that it was in 13/8 time. Mike thought it was in 4/4. Sometime later they did a one off reunion benefit concert with Peter Garbriel that included Pete’s Solisbury Hill and the post-Pete Genesis’ Turn it On Again. Peter thought it would be fun to play drums on the one song he had nothing to do with. He also thought it was in 4/4 time and sort of shit bricks when he realized it was in 13/8.

This is all relevant because song number 35 is in 13/8 time. That is a time signature that I strongly suspect I will never use again. For now though, fun.