Day 59 was the last day of August. After this there is only one month to go.

After the humongous amount of progress over the weekend I had told myself that I was taking Monday off. Then I didn’t. I am definitely a little brain fried, musically speaking, so I wasn’t able to get much done but I did work on one song. I added lyrics and a melody to one of the five remaining songs. That was it. I tried to pick off another song but I just couldn’t get my tiny little brain to function properly and I called it a day.

One month to go and only five songs left before I hit the goal. 50 songs in 90 days and I have 45 songs done and five more partially done and I still have a whole month to go. Cool.

The word of the day is 90%.

I mixed four songs last night. That’s all. It brings my finished song count up to an absurd 45. The goal is 50 songs in 90 days and I’m at 45 in 58 days. If today were a weekend rather than a Monday with a scary dentist appointment scheduled I would finish off the last five songs and have the whole thing done in 60 days instead of 90. That’s just ridiculous, right?

45 songs complete. Five songs still in progress. All five of them have the rhythm section complete and are waiting on lyrics and melodies. We are traveling the second week of September and I would very much like to hit the 50 song goal before we leave. I can do that. There’s a three day weekend coming up. Then the only question is how many extra songs beyond the 50 song goal will I come up with before the end date on October 1st.

This is one of those days where I got so much done that I have probably lost track of it all. When I look at my folder with all of my GarageBand files in it I can see that 10 files were updated yesterday. Oh, just 10? That’s all?

Okay, let’s try to piece it all together. I had six songs ready for vocals when the day began. I also had one song ready to mix and three songs ready for lyrics and three songs ready for rhythm guitars. I think. That sounds right.

The first thing I did was vocals. I finished all six of the songs that were ready. I then took one of the songs that was waiting for rhythm guitars but had a fake MIDI guitar guide track and added lyrics, melody, and vocals. That gave me seven songs in one car music session (that’s when I drive to an empty parking lot and sing badly without bothering anyone in the house). That might be a world record. I probably could have tried another song but I had to pee so… yeah.

When I got home it was time for guitars. When all was said and done, six songs got lead guitars, two songs got rhythm guitars, and one song (the one that got the extra vocals) got both rhythm guitars and lead guitars. I know you’re wanting to ask so yes, my finger tips were killing me. I am so out of playing shape these days.

At this point I didn’t have anything ready for more guitar tracks, I didn’t have anything ready for vocal tracks. I had songs that needed melodies and lyrics, and songs that were ready to mix. I had a choice and I chose mixing. I finished four songs. I now have 41 songs finished. Only nine more to go, and I already have four ready to mix.

I’m so freakin close to being done with this and I still have over a month to go.

I came close to getting shut out on day 56 (yesterday) but at the literal last minute I pulled off the barest of bare minimums and got something done.

Song idea number 49 was three eight bar bass/drum riffs. I took those three riffs and worked them into a song structure about 3-4 minutes long. I did that just before I fell asleep. And just like that I was not shut out.

I did a couple of additional things. Songs 48-50 were started on either my iPhone or my iPad. There’s a bug in the GarageBand Drummer function that pops up when you import an iOS or iPadOS file to MacOS. The drummer function gets converted to a regular, plain old MIDI drum track. It didn’t used to do that. It used to show up on the Mac as a Drummer track that you can edit as normal. Recently that stopped happening. The additional work I did last night was to replace the MIDI drums with Drummers, which are also just MIDI drums but have better editing tools. I should probably call the Drummer function an A.I. type of thing, but A.I. is lame and I don’t wanna.

So that was it for day 56. One song form and three replaced drum tracks. Spoiler alert for tomorrow’s day 58 post… there’s going to be more significant progress. What fun!

No progress on day 55. I spent hours stuck in traffic on a closed highway in the morning and then went to a concert in the evening. I got home early enough that I might have been able to spend a few minutes on musical stuff but my brain was completely fried and it just didn’t wanna.

I might have better luck today (day 56) but I’m not holding my breath. The weekend is almost here though and I’m looking forward to a couple of productive days.

I hit a bit of a milestone yesterday. Day 54 had the potential for being shut out with no progress on the ol’ 50 songs in 90 days challenge thing. Fortunately I was able to get a couple of things done. (Spoiler alert for day 55, today, I have about a 99.999% chance of getting shut out)

Before work I sat in my car in the parking lot outside of my office and squeaked out a few bass/drum riffs. No song form yet, just a few 8-bar phrases. I grouped them together as song idea number 49. I thought that would be it for the day and it almost was.

At bed time last night (similar to day 53) I sat up in bed with my iPad and felt inspired with a new little idea. by 10:20pm I had a whole song form worked out with bass and drums down and two tracks of MIDI guitars to act as guides for when I record the real guitars. If the thing I came up with before work was song idea number 49 then logically this second thing must be song idea number 50, right? Correct. My 50 songs in 90 days pipeline officially has 50 songs in it. Granted, 13 of those songs are in various stages of incomplete ranging from pretty much done to barely started, but there are 50 ideas in total.

I’m trying to remember but I think I have finished this challenged three times. The first time I got exactly 50 songs. The second had 51 and the third had 52. I have to check the old playlists to verify that, but I think that’s how it worked out. Should I stop at 50 this time? Should I stop at 53 to continue the trend? Should I shoot for 60? 70? I still have over a month to go… should we turn this into a how-many-songs-can-I-write-and-record-in-90 days challenge?

I was expecting that day 53 would be another day with no musical progress made at all. I ended up being wrong, but only just barely. Last night at about 10:00pm I was sitting up in bed with my iPad and I had an idea for a sort of drone-esque bass riff. I brought up GarageBand and failed miserably in my attempt to translate the idea into reality, but I did end up with a new song for the 50 songs in 90 days project. It’s just fake MIDI bass and fake MIDI drums with a fake MIDI guitar to act as a guide for when I record the real thing, but the full song structure was worked out. It exists even if it doesn’t really sound like what I was shooting for. That’s fine.

That’s it for day number 53. I filed the song idea as number 48… and there are still 37 days to go. I can’t believe how far along I am at this point. I won’t say I’m almost done (I have finished 37 songs and there is still a long way to go before I finish 50) but I’ve done a ton more than I usually do by day 53. I’m feeling pretty good about the state of things.

Betcha a dollar I just jinxed the whole project.

Yesterday was a light day progress wise. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. Songs number 46 and 47 to be exact. They both already had lyrics so they are now in the ready for vocals bucket.

37 songs complete, one ready to mix, six ready for vocals, and three ready for lyrics and melodies. That’s 47 songs in total… and still over a month to go. It is lucky that I am so far ahead of things right now because I am probably going to get shut out today (day 53). Its looking likely at least.