I had big plans for this weekend but none of them are going to pan out. On day 36 (yesterday) I added one song, number 34 which is in 5/8 time again, and I started adding lyrics to one song but did not finish.

I was hoping day 37 (today) would have some car music but instead I have to drive three hours to Vermont and three hours back. I’m happy to do it, I just have to push off car music for a few days. Vermont and back today and dental surgery tomorrow. Boy am I looking forward to that, he said dripping in sarcasm.

Any day that involves even a little bit of guitar playing is a good day, and day 35 was a good day.

I put rhythm guitars onto three songs, lyrics onto one, and both melody and lyrics to two.

The current state of the project is 27 songs finished, three ready for vocals, and three ready for lyrics. There are 33 songs total at this point.

Right then, yesterday was day 34. I did a few things and have also already done a few things today (day 35) which are out of the scope of this literary masterpiece. Where was I with the write 50 songs in 90 days challenge when I woke up on day 34?

I couldn’t remember so I went back and read yesterdays recap post. I had 27 songs finished and four songs in progress that were ready for rhythm guitars. Now I remember. Before work I started the day by recording guitar tracks. I got through three of the songs. I wanted to get through them all but I ran out of time. Sorry.

That was not the end of things though. After work, and after my appointment with the oral surgeon (read the previous post and share in my irrational yet total mortal fear), I added two more songs into the pipeline. Songs number 32 and 33. I also added a melody to one of the songs that got guitars that morning (song number 28, I think), but that was where I ran out of steam. My wife and I did some rearranging of stuff in the living room after that and then I went to bed.

So the state of the project after 34 days was 27 songs complete, one song with a melody that is ready for lyrics, two songs with rhythm guitars that are ready for a melody and lyrics, and three songs ready for rhythm guitars.

Considering it was a work day with a scary (to me) doctors appointment, day 34 was pretty successful.

Day 33 was a little better than the previous two days. I was able to spend a little time before starting my work day and I added two new sets of bass riffs. I called them idea numbers 30 and 31. After work I was able to take those two ideas and the two from the previous two days and work out the full song structure and finish the MIDI bass and drums. Now I have four songs ready for rhythm guitars.

The musical assembly line is rolling along again!

For the second day in a row I did absolutely nothing until literally minutes before bed. Then I just snuck in a couple of bass riffs. I am up to 29 songs in the project pipeline now, all but two are finished.

That’s two days in a row with the bare minimum. Here’s hoping I start working up some steam again.

As hinted at in day 30’s recap, very little happened on day 31. I fully expected to come up with zero progress but I lucked out and had a few minutes in between punching out of work and leaving for the movies where I was able to noodle a couple of bass riffs in GarageBand on my iPhone. I labeled them as song idea number 28.

That was it. I might get a little more work done today (day 32) but then again I might not. We’ll see.

Day 30. One third of the way through the project. Still so far to go, but at the same time… it feels like it is just flying by now.

Yesterday I wrote about how I started an album in a day thing on day 29. An attempt to write and record at least 20 minutes of music within one 24 hour period. As if the insanity of trying to write 50 songs in 90 days wasn’t insanity enough, right? So where did I leave off when I fell asleep Saturday night? I had four songs underway. None of them had any real instruments, guitars or voices, all four had MIDI bass and drums, a MIDI guitar guide track, and a melody played on a MIDI piano. Three of the four songs also had lyrics.

The album in a day rules that I followed encourage you to not sleep during the 24 hour period. I’m too old for that shit and I went to bed at about 10:30pm. Unfortunately for me, but probably fortunately for the music, I woke up four hours later thanks to this friggin toothache that won’t go away. It was about 2:30am and I was in too much pain to be able to fall asleep so I did what any idiot in my position would do. I sat up, put on some headphones, and started a fifth song in GarageBand on my iPad. Eventually I was able to fall asleep again but not for long. By 5:00am I was awake for good. I started the morning off by kicking off a sixth song in GarageBand on my iPhone.

I was estimating that I had about 20 minutes of music at this point so I went down cellar to my music nook and skipped my daily exercise in favor of recording guitar tracks. I started with song number six and worked backwards from there. First I came up with a song structure and a melody, then I recorded a rhythm guitar track. Normally I double track the rhythm guitars, but in the interest of saving time I only played one take. I’ve also been using two amps for my 50/90 demos this year but for this day’s sub-project I chose to only use one. It’s all about saving time. After I added the rhythm guitar track I immediately added a lead guitar. Normally I like to wait until the vocals are down before I add leads (why? Because, that’s why) but this time I just did the two guitar takes together.

When song six was done I did the same for song five. I worked out the format, added a melody, added a rhythm guitar track, and added a lead guitar track. Now all I had were the four songs from the day before. They already had the structures and the melodies so I just cranked out the rhythm and lead guitars on all four of them and then the guitar tracking was done. Next, I packed up my laptop and my mic and a USB audio interface and drove to the movie theater parking lot for some car music.

All six songs had a melody recorded on a piano track so I had something to follow along with. The first three songs all had lyrics written as well so I started with those. I had originally told myself I wasn’t going to add harmony parts. It was just going to be one vocal track per song and that was it. Of course I recorded a harmony part on the piano for song number one, immediately breaking my rule. I eventually added harmony parts to most of the songs (I can’t remember if they all had vocal harmonies but I don’t think so. I think at least one song stuck to the one track rule). When the first three songs were done I was out of lyrics so I had to write them as I went. For the second batch of three songs I would write the lyrics to a verse and then immediately record it, then write another verse and record it, then the chorus, and so on until the song was done.

When all six songs had their vocals finished I drove home and started mixing. I would mix the song in GarageBand on my MacBook Pro, bounce it as an uncompressed audio file to the Apple Music app formerly known as iTunes, convert it to mp3, and upload it to alonetone where I officially declare my demos finished. Song number one is actually okay. Song number two is probably almost okay. Songs number three, four, and five, are garbage and I’ve already forgotten all about them. Song number six might almost be okay too but probably isn’t. In the end I think I had about 22 minutes of music finished with about an hour to spare. Not an album’s worth at all, but enough to satisfy the results of this particular little internet challenge. What’s more, the six new songs brought my 50/90 total up to 27 finished songs. One third of the way through the 90 day project and I have 54% of the songs complete. That’s nuts.

And that, my dearest readers and only friends, is the recap of day 30. I am writing this on day 31 and I have yet to do a single musical thing today. Given that my whole family is going to see the new Spider-Man tonight and that we are leaving as soon as I punch out of work, I suspect that there won’t be a single note written or recorded today… and that’s okay. I’m pretty far ahead of things right now. I can manage to skip another day.

Day 29 (yesterday) was a Saturday. I’m still on vacation until Monday and we didn’t really have anything on the agenda for the weekend beyond some chores and a little home improvement tasks. Lots of free time had me thinking about the 50 songs in 90 days challenge and how I could spend a good chunk of time on it. In fact…

What if I rolled an Album in a Day project into the larger 50/90 thing?

There are a few places online where you can find challenges to write and record an album in a day. I always find myself on this page. I did one years ago following those rules and there have been many, many times when I’ve thought about doing it again, but I don’t think I’ve ever considered doing one while I was already working on another writing/recording thing. Then I finished the month of July with all of the song ideas I started completely finished and I had a totally clean slate as far as 50/90 was concerned. August 1st being a Saturday when I don’t have a lot going on for the weekend meant…

Sure, let’s do an album in a day. The rules define an album as 20 minutes of music. That’s way too short. That’s an EP, not an LP. I don’t make the rules though, so off we go.

I started at 3:30pm on Saturday so I needed to write and record 20 minutes of new original music by 3:30pm on Sunday. The rules encourage you not to sleep during the 24 hours but I am old so that definitely wasn’t happening. By the time I went to bed last night I had four songs with MIDI bass and drums done, a MIDI guitar guide for when I record the actual guitars (or if I had to record the vocals before the real guitars), a MIDI piano playing what would eventually be the vocal melody, and for all but one of the songs, lyrics. I didn’t record any actual guitars or vocals and I think I had 12-13 minutes of music so… yeah, it was a pretty piss poor showing I think. I wanted to have a lot more done before sleep. I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t be successful in this little sub-project (spoiler alert for tomorrow’s post, I was totally successful).

Come back tomorrow to find out how the last 15.5 hours of the 24 hour day went.

I went a little nuts on day 28.

When I woke up yesterday I looked at my Trello board (the place where I keep track of all of this music stuff) and saw that I had three songs ready to mix, two songs ready for vocals, and one song that was just a couple of bass riffs. It was July 31st. I wondered to myself, could I finish all of these todays and then start August with a clean slate?

Interesting…

First I went to the song that wasn’t a song yet. It was just three eight bar phrases consisting of just a MIDI bass and MIDI drums. The drums weren’t good and needed to be replaced, but we’ll deal with that later. I added a MIDI guitar to act as a guide and then added a little melody to each of the three sections. After that I packed up the laptop and a mic and headed to the movie theater.

Car music. That’s what I call it when I go to the empty movie theater parking lot to record vocals without annoying the hell out of everyone in the house and also without feeling soul crushing embarrassment over my lack of singing skill. I added the vocals tracks to the two songs that were ready. Then I wrote lyrics to fit the melodies for the thing I’d noodled out earlier and recorded those vocals as well. At that point every song still in progress had vocal tracks.

When I got home I took the un-structured thingie and worked out a song form and redid all of the MIDI drums. It was now ready for rhythm guitars. The other two songs were ready for lead guitars. I then went down cellar to my music nook and plugged in my Les Paul Custom and added the rhythm tracks. Since the vocals were already done I was able to then immediately add the leads too. Next I put the leads onto the other two songs from the car music experience and at that point it brought me up to six songs ready to mix. Look at me being all out of control and shit.

I next went upstairs to the comfy chair in my bedroom, put on a good pair of headphones and started mixing. It took hours, but I managed to crank out all six songs. Done. So as July came to an end I had 21 songs and they were all finished. There is nothing in progress right now. 21 songs in 28 days. How the hell did that happen?

So now that July is over and the 50 songs in 90 days challenge moves on to month two, what do I do next? I’m thinking about this. Write and record an album in one day? I’ve done that once. I came up with one half decent song and 5-6 utterly forgettable pieces of crap that I never thought about again. I promise I am not going to do 24 hours without sleep. I’m 55 years old. My days of all nighters are over. I’m thinking about starting at around 3-4:00pm today and seeing if I can get 20-30 minutes of new stuff to the point where it is all ready for vocals. Then wake up early tomorrow morning and go do some car music, then spend the rest of the morning finishing the tracking and doing quick and dirty mixes. That could be fun.

We’ll see how it goes.