Category: Music

Snow Ruins Everything

I got my fat ass out of bed early this morning so that I could do some singing in the car for RPM and it’s effin’ snowing out. Not a lot, a couple of inches of fluffy crap, but it’s ruined my morning plans. I could still go out do something, but every parking lot in the city is going to have plows all over it. I can’t have a magical, perfect, pristine vocal take ruined by the sound of a plow in the background. Gross. Now that I think of it though, magical, perfect, and pristine never happen so maybe the sound of a plow in the background will be in improvement. No. Even I’m not that desperate.

Looks like the plan for today is to write more lyrics, write more melodies, add more guitar parts where needed, and maybe try to start a new song or two.

On a different note, Jen and I watched the first two episodes of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu and I think I might be a little bit hooked. I must admit there was a tiny bit of culture shock watching two of the Three Amigos be less than cordial to each other. Also there was a bit of culture shock hearing the kid from Wizards of Waverley Place dropping f-bombs. I mean, talk about being out of touch, right?

Back to the weather, we may still go out today. We might possibly brave the snow to do a curbside pickup at a store (gasp in Covid horror). I think I might be ready to start working up the courage to go into stores and businesses again. I have to do it for work and I have to do it for doctors appointments. Any time I start feeling Covid-confident, which is almost never, my mind wanders over to the band. We had a chat going last night and we know it will be a month and a half before we can start thinking about getting together (one band member has major work commitments right now) so maybe… Maybe sometime in March we’ll play again? I should buy a new amp and a new guitar to celebrate.

Okay, Robert. Get to work on that RPM thing. Get some stuff done, you lazy asshole!

Wrote Some Tunes – #RPM2022

I wrote a few melodies today. Not nearly as many as I’d hoped, but enough to get me to the point where I have enough songs ready for vocals to make car music in the morning worthwhile.

I’ve 13 songs in the works right now. Nine have the full rhythm section recorded, and five of those are ready for vocals.

Here’s hoping I get a ton done tomorrow. I have a doctors appointment on Monday so I took the day off. Here’s hoping I get a ton done on Monday too.

RPM progress is happening. It’s slow, but it’s happening.

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!

#RPM2022 Stalled

Over the last few days I’ve been dropping the RPM Challenge ball in a huge way. I have 10 songs but none are even remotely close to being done.

Tonight I did what we are supposed to do when we run out of gas. I forced myself to do something. It resulted in two new songs. I should try to push things a little more but I’m exhausted from the long day.

I’m going to bed, but I plan to keep forcing the issue tomorrow.

Progress, babie.

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.