Category: Guitar

A Little More Progress – #RPM2022

I had a pretty busy day today. There was a lot going on at work and around the house and that didn’t leave a lot of time for music. I did manage to write lyrics and record vocals for three songs. Any day I get through a few vocal tracks without dying of embarrassment and shame is a productive day in my book.

12 songs have all of their vocal tracks down. Only one of those 12 has lead guitars and is ready to mix. Another one of the 12 might require some new rhythm guitar tracks. The more I work on the song the less I like what I have. I think I might do them again, but only if I have time.

There is only one song left that doesn’t have vocals. I’m at 13 total but I really want to add more. 20 is a nice number. 20 songs counts as two completed RPM albums and that’s always fun to do. At least it was fun the one time I did it. There was another time I had more than 20 songs, but a bunch of them were recorded twice so they don’t count.

Not sure what I will have time for tomorrow, but I’ll try to get through something. I need to add more songs to the pile. I don’t have any 12-bars yet. Maybe I should add a 12-bar.

The Guitar Was Played Tonight – #RPM2022

Oh glorious glory, the electric guitar was played tonight. Only for about an hour. Maybe an hour and 15 minutes. Progress on the RPM Challenge was made though.

I had three songs that needed rhythm guitar tracks. I got them all down. I had nine songs that needed lead guitar tracks. I got one of them.

There are 13 songs in progress. I would like to get to 20, but I’ll take 15. I need 10 for the final challenge submission and I want to have some options for which 10 to use. The more options the better because none of these songs are terribly good, even by my abysmally low standards.

Still, regardless of the final outcome at the end of the month, there was rock rolled tonight.

I used a clip on tuner in the bedroom setup (though not the band setup). You wanna make something of it?
That’s a B minor 7th if you’re playing along at home.

Gear Acquisition Syndrome Twist

I am not giving in to the Gear Acquisition Syndrome that I suffer from. I did take a tiny step toward the dark side though.

I want to get my grubby mitts on a Gibson Les Paul Junior. The plan is to try and trade my 2000 Fender Stratocaster for one. I figure I will do it at a store or something. Earlier today though I heard a podcast where a drummer said he set up craigslist alerts to let him know when a certain piece of gear was available for sale.

That sounds like an interesting move, right? I looked into how to set that up and it is easy as can be. So now I have a craigslist account that is looking for Gibson Les Paul Juniors for sale in the Merrimack Valley. I only saw a single listing while I was there setting it up, but it was a Custom Shop model and the asking price was over three grand. Nope, that’s not the one for me.

Let’s see if this finds any decent deals. Curiosity and all that.

Volume

I’m watching a YouTubes video where folks are talking about how happy they are to be going to concerts again post-Covid. Now we can debate whether or not we are actually post-Covid (we clearly are not) but that’s sort of beside the point. One of the things they are enjoying is the volume level. I have to admit that I miss that. I miss standing in front of my amplifier, slamming an Emin7 chord, and being able to feel the air moving around my legs. It’s a pretty magical thing.

Lizardfish doesn’t really play that loud, whether it’s rehearsals or gigs. We just don’t. We play loud, but not loud enough to quite “feel” it. The main reason for that is the drums. Whichever amp I choose to use on a given day can do it. Mike’s bass amp can do it. Greg’s PA system can do it. Kevin’s drums can’t. In most of the bands I’ve been in it’s been the opposite. The drums were so loud we had to crank the amps to compete. Now we have to keep them somewhat low. I don’t know if it’s because Kevin doesn’t play that loud or if his drums don’t project that well.

What I do know is that the first time we get back together will be the first time I will play through my Fender Deluxe Reverb since February 1, 2020 and I am going to want to run that little bastard as hot and as loud and as crunchy as local noise ordinances will allow. The drums as we know them would not be able to keep up with that. However, after the 2/1/20 gig but before the start of the lock down, Kevin bought new drums. He hasn’t had a chance to play them. If the volume limiter was his actual drums, then what if the new drums project out like crazy and he is suddenly 10 times louder than we’re used to.

That would be awesome. I seriously hope that happens because I am going to want to be stupid loud.

Hopefully the day is coming soon. Please, Covid, let us have our band back.

Friday at Last

I couldn’t figure out why this week seemed to be so long. This week has been endless, why?

Then I realized, it was the first time in something like four weeks that I didn’t have at least a half day off. A 40 hour week? What the hell is that?

I need to put a big push on music this weekend. I need to write a shit load of lyrics, I need to do a shit load of car music, I need to play a shit load of guitar, and I need to start finishing off songs. This is the way. I have spoken.

It’s going to be a busy day at work. The weekend is Eight hours and 39 minutes away. Let’s get to it!

Backwards

I just kicked off song number 10 for RPM. I made it the simplest, easiest thing imaginable. Rhythm guitars, bass, and drums are all done. I made it simple because I had a gimmick. A sick, doofus, goofy gimmick.

The guitars are backwards in every other measure. It’s not clean. I recorded the whole song in a couple of sections and then edited the track so I could swap the direction of every other bar. In almost every measure I came in a teeny tiny bit early so there’s just barely the sound of the pick touching the low E string that gets moved from the end of each bar to the beginning, so there’s noise at the start of each backward bar where it should be quiet.

I don’t care. It’s a gimmick and it was fun to do.

More importantly, it let me make some progress today without actually having to write any lyrics.

I Have Run Out of Songs (for Today)

I started the day with eight songs, only three of which had guitar parts recorded. I am now up to nine songs, all of which have guitar parts recorded. I have literally (temporarily) run out of songs! I guess it’s time to both add more songs and write some lyrics. Yikes!

I did the two different guitars thing on the first few songs today, but got tired of switching so I just stuck with the Les Paul for the last few.

Slept Late

My 18 year old self laughs at me when I say that we slept late today and got up at 8:00am. However, we slept late and got up at 8:00am. I slept okay after my second fully caffeine free day. I woke up a few times but my numbers looked good. The heart rate dip was really good and the restful sleep percentage was the same as the first day. I feel okay today.

Not a lot on the agenda today. Hopefully lots of guitar playing. Jen’s working on a project so I want to stay out of her way. I have five songs that need rhythm guitars. I should see if I can add to that list too. I would like to get to it, but I find myself distracted by a video on YouTube where Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick shows off some highlights from his massively gigantic guitar collection. It’s only an hour and eighteen minutes. I wonder if they’ll do a video like this with Steve Howe.