Day 85 included an important milestone. I started the day with only seven as yet unfinished songs. Two were ready to mix but the other five all needed vocals and lead guitars before they would be ready to mix. When I do these kinds of projects, recording the vocals is always the sticking point for me. I’m shy about most things but SUPER shy about singing so I can’t do it when other people are around. I have to drive somewhere where I know I will be all alone and then record the tracks there.

The milestone I reached yesterday was recording the vocals on all five songs. Why is that different than the previous 56 songs that already received vocal tracks? Because I have declared that these five songs will be the last five songs of the project. Realistically I could probably sneak one or two more in over the final five days, but I have decided not to. I will finish these suckers and end with a total of 61. Assuming I don’t hit any snags in the final days.

I also managed to mix one song last night. That brings the total up to 55 finished songs with one more ready to mix and five ready for lead guitars. Guess what’s on the agenda for day 86.

So I was thinking…

The 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge ends on October 1st, less than a week away. I’ve already hit the 50 song goal so there isn’t any last minute stress about “winning” this time around. I’m just down to cleaning up the final few song ideas in the hopes of having everything I started finished before the deadline. It’s all gravy now.

The question though is this: What do I do on October 2nd? What do I do next? I haven’t a clue.

Before I figure that out though I should probably recap day 84. I mixed two songs. That’s all. The completed song count is now at 54. There are still seven songs outstanding. Two are ready to mix and five are ready for vocals.

And that’s the state of the project through day 84. What will today (day 85) bring? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

I had a lot going on yesterday between work and a slightly torturous dentist appointment and wrapping up this month’s roll of film for the Frugal Film Project and watching the new Neil Peart documentary (I’m not crying, you’re crying!) so I didn’t expect to have a lot of time for 50/90 stuff. I was hoping I’d at least be able to mix a song.

My progress for day 83? I mixed one song. The completed song count is now up to 52 which makes the project 104% complete which according to maga math means I’m something like 6000% complete? Something like that? I’m not a moron or a cult member so I’m not sure how to make that math work. Whatever.

Today (day 84) is looking like it will be much the same. I’m hoping for a big push this weekend and maybe… who knows… I might put an end to the whole shebang a few days early. We’ll see.

Yesterday was day 82 and it was a pretty successful day as far as the 50 songs in 90 days challenged is concerned. It was amazing as it was a day after I got a Covid booster shot and I was SICK AS SICK CAN BE. I’m about 95% better today but my immune system is ready should Covid come by for a visit.

Anyway, when the sun rose on day 82 I had 51 songs finished, five songs ready to mix (meaning everything has been written and recorded, I just need to much it all together into a stereo file), and five songs still needing work. Three of those five were waiting for lyrics and two were waiting for rhythm guitars.

Note I used passed tense for all of them.

Prior to the start of the work day I recorded the rhythm guitars for both of the songs. After work, while sitting in the living room watching Dancing with the Stars with my bride, the love of my life, Jen, I wrote lyrics and a melody for all five songs. Well… four of them got melodies because one already had one, but that’s not important. The main point here is that I now have five songs ready to mix and five songs ready to record vocals.

Today is day 83 and I ahven’t done anything yet. Maybe I’ll be able to pick off a mix before I fall asleep tonight. We’ll see.

Yesterday was the first day of Autumn so of course here in New England I am sitting in my home office freezing my rotund ass off. Winter is here, kids. Last week I was dipping in the Pacific Ocean on an 80 degree San Diego, CA day and today I’m sitting here shivering with the heat cranked up. Life is so unfair sometimes.

That’s not what I came here to write about though. I came here to write about the 50 Songs in 90 Days Challenge that has just over a week left. The end is almost in site and I am not stressing out at all because I’ve already finished 50 songs. Everything is gravy now. Can I get to 60 songs?

What did I accomplish on day 81, yesterday? I started the morning with 51 songs complete, five ready to mix, one waiting for me to write lyrics, and two waiting for me to record rhythm guitars. That adds up to 59 songs. The first thing I did was crank out the two songs worth of rhythm guitars. I did that before work. Later, just before bed, I added two more songs. My unofficial goal was to get to 60. I was up to 50 songs in progress on July 31st so I figured 10 songs in August would give me an album-in-a-month by RPM Challenge rules so that would be a nice round 60 songs for this challenge. Adding two more songs last night brings the total number of songs in progress up to 61… I am such a dork. Seriously.

Both songs are a little gimmicky. I figured why not, I’m already over the 50 song goal so there’s no reason not to be a little goofy. One of the newbies is in 7/8 time and the verse and the chorus are the same riff just in different keys. I think I’ll keep the rhythm guitars clean(ish) on the verses and nice and fuzzy on the choruses too. The other song is a 12-bar blues riff in 5/8 time because why not?

So the current to-do list includes five songs ready to mix, three ready for lyrics, and two ready for rhythm guitars. One of those last two has a melody already.

Nine days to go. I am feeling pretty good. I just wish more of the songs were good. I think of the 61 I have, one is good. The rest are somewhere between meh and god awful. That’s a pretty common percentage for me though.

Day 78 had no progress at all. Again.

I did, however, see Rush again and it was glorious, again.

There will be no progress on day 79 either. We were supposed to fly home from Cleveland today but the weather forecast is a tad unsettling. We are going to drive it instead. That is about 10 hours, conservatively. No time for homemade rock and roll for me.

As expected, nothing happened on day 76. I will be driving all day today so I don’t expect anything from day 77 either. Day 78? A Rush concert.