Category: Music

Car Music 2021

Today was my first car music of the new year. Crazy.

It was awful. Just totally and utterly awful. I worked on six songs and I think I have to redo four of them an possibly rewrite one of them. Crud.

#RPM2021 Day 15

When I woke up there was one song that had not been worked into a full song form yet. I took care of that today including sketching out an idea for a guitar part in midi, and adding a melody and lyrics. I also added melody and lyrics to two other songs as well.

I didn’t record anything, but I am pretty well set up for a good day tomorrow, starting with some car vocals in the morning. Fingers crossed.

#RPM2021 Day 14

Hello and welcome to the half way point. 14 days down, 14 days to go.

I did a lot today. I also kind of lost track of what I did.

  • I wrote lyrics for two songs.
  • I finished the song form for one of the two remaining songs that were just a single phrase or two. I also wrote the melody and lyrics for that one.
  • I added rhythm guitars to three songs.

I think that was everything.

I haven’t updated my works in progress playlist with any of today’s changes. I might do that in the morning. I thought about doing some early morning car vocals tomorrow but my step son’s car is blocking my car in the driveway so that will wait until Tuesday.

So where do the 14 songs stand at this time?

  • Six songs have rhythm guitar, melody, and lyrics and are ready for vocals.
  • Two songs have rhythm guitars but no lyrics or melody yet.
  • Five songs are ready for rhythm guitars. Of those five, three have melody and lyrics, and one has just melody.
  • One song is still just a pair of eight bar bass/drum phrases without a song form.

That’s 14 songs and 14 songs is enough for a complete RPM Challenge album and a complete FAWM project. I’m hoping that within the next couple of days the rhythm guitars and a good chunk of the vocals will be done. If time permits I might try to finish some of the leftover January songs that I never got around to. I would have to redo the bass and drum parts in order to qualify for RPM, and they wouldn’t qualify for FAWM at all, so I won’t even look at them until the 14 in the pipe now are done.

And there you have it, the state of RPM at the midway point.

Chick Corea

We’ve lost another giant. Chick Corea passed away a couple of days ago. Cancer. Again.

That’s Chelsea, MA native Chick Corea to be clear.

I’ve always been ashamed of myself for never being enough of a jazz guy. I played sax and went to music school for crying out loud, I should have been more of a jazz guy. I guess rock and roll and blues were just too much fun for me to pull my attention away for too long.

I did have a thing for Fusion though. It’s hard to be a Prog Rock fan and not at least dip your toes into the Fusion world. As a guitar player, my connection to Chick Corea came via Al Di Meola. Al was a teenager when he joined Chick’s Fusion band, Return to Forever, and the handful of records they made together were spectacular. Chick played on some early Di Meola solo records too.

Ironically (maybe?) the first thing I think of when I think of Chick Corea is the title track from Return To Forever’s Romantic Warrior. Ironically because Fusion is meant to be an electric genre, but that song is acoustic and it is brilliant beyond measure.

I am honoring this legend’s memory right now by giving the Romantic Warrior album a spin. I suggest you do the same. If you like your music played at a level of virtuosity that makes mortal humans’ heads explode then this is the record for you. Chick’s playing on that record is the kind of thing where you can imagine The God of Keyboard Players listening to it and thinking, damn that guy is awesome.

Rest in Peace, Chick Corea. The music world has lost another hero, but we still have all of the music to listen back to when we want to remember just how good we had it when you were around.

#RPM2021 Day 9

I didn’t get a lot of playing done, but I did play some. Three of the 12 songs have all of their rhythm guitars, though one of those three might need a rewrite. I also wrote lyrics for two of the songs. Not terrible progress. Hopefully we’ll get on a roll or something. Probably not.