I finished another vocal this morning. That makes four. I took a vacation day tomorrow. The plan is to RPM the crap out of the whole day. Or at least as much as possible.
I wrote this on the RPM website today during my lunch break.
Every year it’s the same thing. February 1st comes along and I start cranking out bass lines and guitar riffs and chord changes like they are going out of style. I get my little power trio rhythm section recorded and then…
Everything grinds to a halt. It’s time to write melodies, it’s time to write lyrics, it’s time to sing.
My melodies are all repetitive, but so is everything else I do so that’s not the issue. I seriously dislike the sound of my voice, but I can sing in tune and I can sing in harmony, and no one is going to listen to any of this shit anyway, so that’s not the problem. My lyrics are garbage. There’s no qualifier there, my lyrics are just garbage. I’ve long ago come to terms with the fact that I am no Dylan or Lennon so that’s not the problem either.
All of those things combined are the problem. I just don’t really feel good when I do any of that. It’s worse that I have this hang up where I can’t sing my own stuff if anyone else is in the house. It’s an embarrassment thing that I just can’t get past. That means time is the fourth element to my annual logjam. This year there has been significantly less time alone than ever before. It’s crazy.
Now that the deadline is looming I have to find a way to power through. Yesterday and today I got up and ready for work early so that when my wife left for work I had a small window of time to sing. I managed to finish vocal parts for four songs. Four wins. I booked a vacation day for tomorrow so hopefully I’ll be able to finish enough to have a chance to complete the challenge. I have 18 songs in progress in total. I was kind of thinking of making this year’s album a double. Now I just want to get six more vocals done. Then it’s lead guitars and mixing and those are things that I actually enjoy so they will proceed quickly.
The logjam is breaking. The confidence level is rising. Let’s hope tomorrow is a good day.
Inside the Red Head's Head 