I did a bit of work on the 50 songs in 90 days challenge yesterday. It included some things that are not common for me and sort of break some of my unwritten rules which all combined makes it harder for me to keep track of what happened which makes it a little tiny bit harder to write this silly recap… but here goes.
All together I worked on three songs last night. My wife and I were sitting in the living room watching TV. She was working on her laptop and I was playing on mine. I had started two song ideas on day 67. One had bass and drums and some other keyboard guide tracks. The other had bass and a melody and other keyboard guide tracks but did not have the final drums. I started with that one. I replaced the drum track I had with a GarageBand drummer. More on that later, but suffice to say I gave it a drummer track and then added lyrics. When that was done I went to the other day 67 song and gave it lyrics. Then I replaced the GarageBand drummer.
Back story is that GarageBand has this functionality that will provide a drum track for you based on the other tracks in the song that are available to it when it is created and a bunch of other adjustable parameters. It also lets you pick from a pile of different “drummers” based on the genre of music you’re shooting for. They all have names and little back stories as well as a genre they focus on. I don’t know how many drummers GarageBand offers but I almost always use one. Gavin. He’s supposed to be an Alternative Rock type of drummer but he seems pretty straight ahead to me. For this year’s 50/90 I wanted to mix things up and started using a different drummer. Something punkier. I used that drummer for everything I did in July, then went back to the regular drummer for everything I did in August. I planned on changing to something else during September and picked on to use for the month, something a little more hyper active and heavier rock.
At first I was happy with the choice for September, but now that I am 5-6 songs in… I don’t know. I’m not liking it anymore. Last night when I added a drummer to song number 56 I picked something different with the intent of changing the drummer on all of my September songs. When I worked on number 55 I did change the drummer. I then brought up song number 54 and was going to change the drummer on that file too but… I decided I didn’t really like the new drummer either. I think I am going to go back and re-redo the two songs I redid last night with something else and then change the other four September songs to that drummer too. I might go back to my usual go-to thing, the same one I used for everything in August. I don’t know. I’ll take one (or two) more cracks at something different first, but I might end up scrapping my different-drummer-every-month idea.
Instead of researching drummer styles further, I just started another song. Song number 57 to be precise. I had one eight bar bass riff and was noodling out a second one when I gave up for the night and went to bed. I will use the tiny bit I have for number 57 but I will probably make changes and many additions.
I have a rule for these song writing challenges that pertains to the demo recording process. Once I record something, I use it. I don’t redo anything unless a file on my laptop is corrupted somehow. If I record something it stays, even if I know I can do it better. Don’t waste time redoing things. That’s the rule. This month, when it comes to drum tracks I am taking a big steaming shit all over that personal rule and redoing pretty much everything. So much for personal convictions, eh? Way to stick to your guns, fat boy.
Anyway, that’s what I did on day number 68.
Inside the Red Head's Head 