Category: Music

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 7 & 8/90

The recap of day seven is simple. I didn’t do anything. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Day eight is a little more interesting. I’ve already written about most of it. I put vocals on five songs this morning while Jen was out of the house. The performances are all pretty crappy. Almost as bad as the lyrics and the melodies. The only other thing I accomplished today was coming up with the 12th new song idea. Super simple, but it has the complete song form.

Tomorrow is a work from the office day so there isn’t much chance of making any progress before work, unless I can manage to get out of bed ridiculously early. I won’t have much time after work either. I may be shut out on day nine the same way I was on day seven.

Works in Progress Playlist

I do this every time I do a music project like 50/90. I create a playlist on some music sharing site that is made up of works in progress. Quick rough mixes of whatever I have in the pipeline at any given time.

I start these things and then never update them and never listen to them and never do anything with them… but I still set them up for some unknown reason.

Here’s this summer’s 50/90 works in progress playlist.

Morning Music

Raise your hand if you put vocals onto five songs this morning before work.

*Robert raises his hand*

I didn’t need to hide in the car. I did it at my desk in the cellar. Five songs with vocals. That’s 10% of the 50/90 goal. Not bad, red head.

314/365
314/365

Pick Up the Dumpster, Please

We rented a dumpster for the weekend. I had a ton of crap in the yard that needed to be dumped, and a ton of crap in the cellar that also needed to be dumped. Renting a small dumpster is what we do when we find ourselves in a situation like this.

They delivered it on Friday. I worked off and on filling it up on Friday through Sunday. They are supposed to pick it up today. The window they gave us is 9:00am to 5:00pm. That window is going to close in less than an hour (the clock says it’s 4:13 right now).

What the heck are they waiting for? Come and get the damn dumpster. I want to put our cars back into the driveway. They’ve been parked on the street since Friday morning. I know it’s been raining heavily all day, but should that stop the pickup? I wouldn’t think so. Let’s get this done, shall we?

Subject change

It’s been almost a week since I did a couch to 5k run. I am not sure when I am going to get back to it. I will get back to it, that’s a promise, I just don’t know when. I also think I am going to redo the entire last week. Instead of picking up where I left off, week three, workout two, I am going to start at week two, workout one. I feel like I need to do some rebuilding. I still want to finish this process. I just don’t have a lot of confidence in my ability to get there. We’ll see.

Subject change

I just want to go out and take pictures of stuff. Film, digital, whatever. I want to do it first thing in the morning when the sun is out. For almost the entire month of June and so far in July there have been few if any mornings with sunshine. It’s infuriating and utterly depressing. Why? I can’t remember the last sunny weekend morning. The forecast for this coming weekend is already saying cloudy and rainy. It’s hard to do this shit on a weekday, but even those are always cloudy and rainy. This Spring was the Spring of suck, and the Summer is becoming the Summer of suck. I just want to scream.

At least I can fill the creative void with some music. I just don’t want to. I want to split the difference. Music and photos together, not one or the other. Blah!

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 6/90

I got a lot done today. Not nearly as much as I was hoping to get done, but still a pretty good haul.

I put rhythm guitars onto five songs. I wrote lyrics and melody for the only two of those five songs that didn’t have them already. Then I came up with lyrics and melody for two additional songs. Finally, I came up with a new idea from scratch that includes (you guessed it) lyrics and melody. This last one is in a time signature I’ve never used before. It’s in 9/4.

There are two song writing ideas that I am trying to include this year. One is to use time signatures I’ve never played in before. The other is to try and write pre choruses. I usually just go verse/chorus repeated forever. Sometimes I sneak a bridge in or something. This time I am trying to consistently bridge between the verses and choruses. In other words, a pre chorus. I think. Sounds like a challenge, right?

I haven’t made a works-in-progress playlist yet. Not sure if I am going to, but maybe I will. If I do, I’ll post it here. Probably.

Guitar Tracks

I spent about two hours recording guitars today. I finished five of the 10 songs that are currently in the fifty-songs-in-90-days-challenge pipeline. Including the song that is in 13/8 time, and the song that is in 15/8 time. First time I have ever knowingly played guitar in either of those time signatures. Milestones, babie!

I used direct input into the USB audio interface for all of the tracks, including using two amps at a time. I took the obligatory pictures, but Flickr is being a dick today and won’t let me upload PNG files, or any files for that matter, on the web. I had to dumb these down to JPGs and share them onto my iPhone and upload them from the Flickr app. I am thusly annoyed.

312/365
312/365

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 5/90

It’s not even 8:00pm but I think I’m calling it a musical day. I didn’t play guitar at all today but I did do a lot of work on the project. I had four song ideas that were just a couple of riffs. I worked all four of those ideas into a full song form. I then added two more songs, both with the full song form. One of them is my first attempt at 15/8 time. I am out of control.

I now have 10 songs in the pipeline. They are all still just midi tracks, though three of them have melodies and lyrics. Here’s hoping I get a chance to add a ton of guitar tracks tomorrow, and maybe some vocal tracks on Monday morning.

Oh, and band practice is on for Thursday. We just have to avoid earthquakes or natural disasters, or follow up plagues between now and then.

Not Feeling Great

I don’t feel so hot today. I got up at a decent hour, planning to stick to my daily exercise routine, but my wife wasn’t feeling so hot when we woke up and we went to see a doctor. No problems, all is well. She just has a bug.

When we got home I was feeling kinda run down. Tired and a little foggy headed. It wasn’t too bad so I got to work filling up the dumpster I posted a picture of yesterday. I broke for lunch and felt even more out of it an hour and a half later when I got back to work. Now I am calling it a day. I just don’t feel so good. It’s not bad, but it’s enough. I haven’t done any of my exercise yet today so I am calling that one too. I am going to miss it today. It’s okay, I won’t ruin my life by missing a day.

I am going to have a protein snack in a few minutes and then try to have a late dinner a couple of hours from now. After that? Maybe just go to bed early? Seems like a waste of a Saturday, but it’s okay. I am old. Early to bed is normal for old people.

The good news is that it’s looking like there will be a band practice after work on Thursday. We still need to nail down a few details, and I am going to need to re-learn a bunch of songs!

Oh Please, Let it Happen

There is a discussion underway. One I’ve been hoping would happen for literally years.

The four members of my band have not been in the same room together to play music (or for any other reason) since a few weeks before Covid-19 came to the US.

We are trying to set something up for next week.

Keep your fingers crossed, kids. There might be a band practice in the near future. Oh please, let it happen!

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 4/90

Another less than spectacular day but still seeing some progress. Two new song ideas started. One is just a few noodles, the other is a full song form with a swing groove. Scary.

I’m up to eight ideas in progress now. Still no real instruments recorded, just MIDI tracks. Hoping for more substantial noise making tomorrow. Fingers crossed.