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.

I did a little bit of work on day 27 (yesterday) but not as much as I had hoped. Spoiler alert, day 28 is way more productive.

Anyway, what did I do? I wrote lyrics and melodies (and harmonies) for two songs. That leaves me with two songs ready for vocals, three songs ready to mix, and one song that doesn’t have anything other than a couple of bass riffs. Oh yeah, and 15 songs are already done.

That’s it for day 27. Like I said, day 28 is way better. You have to wait until tomorrow to read about that though.

With all the traveling home from New York that was going on yesterday I expected a second day in a row with no 50 songs in 90 days challenge progress. I was wrong though. Just before bed, while I was about 93% asleep, I brought up GarageBand on my iPad and noodled out a couple of very simple bass riffs. I filed them as song number 21 and then fell asleep.

Better than nothing, even if it is just barely.

Day 24 was light on progress. I mixed one song. That’s all.

I had a dentist appointment that I was hoping would go a long way toward putting an end to this fucking toothache that’s been killing me for about a week. Wouldn’t you know it that as I was pulling out of the driveway they called to reschedule. The dentist called in sick. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Now I have to wait three more days.

I don’t expect any progress from day 25 (today) or probably tomorrow (day 26). We’re leaving for New York in a couple of hours to go and see Rush at Madison Square Garden. We’re coming home tomorrow but regardless, it’s going to be a full couple of days.

What’s a good word to describe day 23… hmmm… let’s think about this.

Productive.

Successful.

Crazy.

So I am up to 20 songs. The goal, as implied by the title of the post, is 50 songs. To still be this early in the challenge and already be up to 20 songs in the works is just nuts. Of those 20 songs, 12 were already finished. Six of the remaining songs had lyrics written and the rhythm section recorded and were ready for vocals. The remaining two songs just had basic tracks, (MIDI) bass and drums. They were ready for rhythm guitar tracks.

Of those eight songs, how many of them did I work on during day 23 (yesterday)?

All of them.

First I grabbed my MacBook and hopped into the car and drove to an empty parking lot so that I could record vocals without bothering everyone in my house. Normally when I do this I shoot for working on 4-5 songs. That’s usually all I have before my voice gets really tired (I am most definitely NOT a singer) or I have to pee or something. Yesterday I made it through all six songs. Every line of lyrics that I had written was sung and recorded. Many of them twice because I sang in two part harmony. I felt really good when I packed up and drove home. I could have stopped there and called the day a success. I did not, however, stop there.

Once I was home I took some time to help my wife with some chores around the house. Eventually, before lunch, I had some free time and was able to head down cellar to my music nook and start recording guitars. I started with one of the songs that needed rhythm guitars. I figured that would be a good warm up. I am absurdly out of playing shape these days and figured I’d be smart about things. Once that was done I moved over to leads and cranked out three songs. In my current state of sucky guitar playing, recording leads wears me out quick so I planned to take a break and record the rhythm guitars on the other song that still needed them. I was going to try to follow that with the other three leads but my wife needed help with another chore and I needed lunch and also needed to go to the grocery store to get something for dinner, so I took a much longer break.

After I returned home from Market Basket with the fixin’s for dinner and a big bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol (because the toothache is still kicking my sorry ass), I was able to head back to the cellar music nook and finish off the lead guitars on those three remaining songs. So over the course of the day I put guitar tracks onto all eight remaining songs.

But wait, there’s more!

After dinner we were just hanging out in the living room watching the tube and I slipped on some headphones and mixed this song and then mixed this song. The first one is my second attempt at 5/8 time for the month. It’s okay. The second one is rare for me in that I kinda don’t hate it. It feels weird.

And that, my friends and neighbors and readers and only friends, is that. Six vocals, six lead guitars, two rhythm guitars, and two mixes. My brain was definitely ready for bed.

What’s in store for today, day 24? A Dentist appointment. Likely that will be all for the day. I don’t handle Dental visits well. I expect to be thoroughly traumatized. WOOHOO!

I had some good progress on day 22. The first thing I did was add a new song. Song number 20, to be precise. It’s in 9/8 time and it is going to suck trying to put guitars on it, but odd time signatures make me happy so… yeah. Next I took song number 19, which was just a couple of riffs, and worked out the structure and finished the fake/software/MIDI instruments (bass and drums). After that it was all about lyrics and melodies. I think I had three songs that needed lyrics and I finished them all.

That was it for day 22. That left me with six songs ready for vocals and two songs ready for rhythm guitars. On to day 23!

This post is recapping day 21, which was yesterday, but today is day 22 and I really should be in the car recording vocals but I’m just overcome with laziness right now. I’ll do it tomorrow, I promise.

Not a lot of progress on day 21. I had a lot of stuff to do before work in the morning and I had a lot of stuff to do after work too. I didn’t have dinner until after 8:30. Fortunately I was able to sneak in some work after that. I wrote the lyrics and the melody for one song (song #18). I now have three ready for vocals. I also, just before falling asleep last night, came up with a couple of bass riffs that I have labeled as song #19.

That’s all for day 21. As mentioned, I should be doing some vocal recording today on day 22 but… nah. I’ll do that tomorrow. Today I hope to write some more lyrics and write some more melodies and figure out the structure for song 19 and maybe add another new song idea (or two?) and maybe record some rhythm guitars. I think it’s time to switch from my Gibson SG to my 1978 Les Paul Custom. Yeah, it is time for a guitar swap. Having said all that, I am feeling kinda lazy right now (I’m on vacation after all) so maybe I won’t do squat today.

I’ll let you know how it goes when I recap day 22 tomorrow.

20 days down, 70 to go. It feels like it should be a big deal, but this year it really isn’t. Maybe I am ahead of my usual pace, but this time around I am not feeling day 20 stress. Weird.

I put rhythm guitars on song number 18. That was the only song that was ready for a guitar part. Everything else in the pipeline already had the rhythm guitars. I could have done more, but there was nothing left to do.

Other than that, I mixed two songs. I’m up to 12 songs finished now. I mixed this one and this one. Neither of them are terribly good (just like everything else I’ve ever written in my entire life) but they exist now and that’s the important part of this little game.

The state of the project after 20 days is:

• 12 songs finished.
• Two songs have lyrics written and are ready for me to record vocals
• Four songs have the rhythm section finished and are ready for me to write lyrics

I have songs ready to mix but I didn’t mix anything yesterday. Why not? What’s wrong with me?

Nothing.

Instead I put rhythm guitars onto two songs, wrote lyrics and melodies for two other songs, and programmed the bass and drums for a new song. I’m up to 18 now.

So I didn’t mix anything, but I still did okay for a work day. I’ll take it.

Day 18’s progress was exactly the same as day 17. I started a new song and got it far enough along that it is ready for rhythm guitars. It is the 17th song started and it is another in a lifelong series of attempt to write something in 3/4 time that is worthy of head banging. It’s probably going to suck, but I’ll have fun with it while it lasts.

Other than that, I mixed a song. Of the 17 songs in the pipeline, 10 are now finished with a reasonably not-terrible mix of a demo. If my math is correct, 10 songs complete out of a the goal of 50 puts me at 20% done with this year’s project. Given that 90 days is approximately three months, I need to be at about 33.3% complete by the end of July. How many songs is that? Doing the math again, 50/3=16.67. Round up you get to 17. Huh. If about one third of the project is 17 songs… how many songs did I say I had in progress? Heh heh.