Now that I have a bunch of songs with vocal tracks, it’s time to start adding lead guitar tracks.
I worked on four songs and boy are my finger tips killing me! The more you play, the less it hurts… so what does that tell you about how often I play?
For the second day in a row I packed my laptop, a microphone, some headphones, and a little USB audio interface into the car, drove off to a mostly empty parking lot in a not-yet-opened-for-the-day movie theater and sang my brains out.
Now… if only I didn’t suck so badly as a singer. Oh well.
I had five songs ready for vocals tracking and I picked them all off. I now have 10 songs with vocals complete. Only 40 more to go. Thanks to the 50 songs in 90 days challenge, of course. What a mess.
Here is the view from my state of the art recording studio. Fascinating.
And here is the almost but not quite obligatory photo of the clock downtown.
Again, fascinating.
I had big plans for day 10, and I did make some important progress, but I failed to do half of what I wanted to do.
When I woke up I had seven songs ready for vocals. I recorded five of them. That’s a pretty big deal for me as anything related to the vocals tends to be a big of a hang up for me. I wanted to put lead guitars onto those five songs but I didn’t get the chance.
Just before bed I managed to write lyrics and melodies for three more songs, so once again I have five that are ready for vocals. I am hoping that stating that is actually foreshadowing for tomorrow’s update post. We will see.
When was the last time I drove to an empty parking lot to record myself singing for one of my dumb songwriting project demos? February? Maybe?
Well, we’re back. I did it this morning. I had an annoying interruption, but I still managed to record very bad, terrible even, vocals onto five songs.
I started here:
Oh, did I mention it was pouring rain? As I was finishing up the first song a truck pulled up near me. It looked like a landscaper. Then a security truck pulled up. Then another car. Everyone got out and just stood around looking at each other. Then another car. Then another car. What the hell?
I moved. I just drove to the other side of the parking lot.
From there I finished up four more songs. I could have maybe done one or two more (the battery on my MacBook Pro is legendary) but I had to pee so incredibly bad that I had to drive home. Oh well. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some more tomorrow.
Another decent day’s worth of progress, but probably not as much as I had hoped. I worked on four songs in total. First, I put rhythm guitars onto the only two songs I had left that didn’t have rhythm guitars. Those were songs number 12 and 13. Next I added two new songs, numbers 14 and 15, which have MIDI bass and drums and now also have rhythm guitars.
That’s it. Not a bad day’s worth of work, but I had to spend a lot of time running errands, and my wife and I decided to go for a drive in the evening so there wasn’t time for anything more.
I went out and got my hair cut, I got an inspection sticker for the Kia, and I stopped at the sugar free bakery to get a treat for myself to celebrate my 20th work-aversary. Then I went home, made myself some lunch, noodled out a couple of new song ideas, and played my guitar again. Technically it was a different guitar, but it is still mine so I guess saying “I played again” still counts.
Now I am going to start thinking about cooking dinner on the grill for me and my beloved bride, the love of my life, Jen.
20 years ago today I started a new job. I am still with that company. I have a different position now thanks to a promotion, but I’m still with the company.
How did I spend my 20th hire-aversary?
Well, so far I have played my guitar. I am also thinking about getting a haircut and maybe getting one of the cars inspected. A super fun day!
I got a lot done yesterday but maybe not quite as much as I had hoped. I don’t know. It felt like a good haul at the time.
First, I put rhythm guitars onto three songs. Next, I wrote the lyrics and a melody for three songs, two of which were from the day’s batch of guitar tracked songs. Finally, I added two new song ideas. Both of them have the full song form and MIDI guitar guide tracks. One of them already has lyrics and melody too.
Not bad for a Thursday vacation day. I probably could have done more, but I think I did okay.
I had another crummy night’s sleep last night, but today is looking okay so far.
One week down. How did I do on day seven?
I only worked on two things. I started a new song, the 11th so far, that is just bass and drums and a full song form. I also put lyrics and melody onto another song, song number three.
That’s it.
So after one week, let’s sum up the state of the challenge.
There are 11 songs in the pipeline. According to my Trello board the assembly line looks like this:
Three songs are in the bass and drums with song form bucket. Five songs are in the rhythm guitars are done bucket. Three songs are in the lyrics are written and we’re ready for vocals bucket. Here’s hoping for a long weekend worth of serious musical motivation.
Inside the Red Head's Head 