Success and Failure

The days playing guitar streak has hit seven! One full week, babie! I added a new song idea last night. It was short and super easy. I put rhythm guitars on it this morning after finishing my faux jog (yog) in the cellar. I didn’t plan it that way, it just worked out. I finished the one song with enough time to take a picture and write this post.

That’s the successful part of the morning. What’s the failure? Is it senility in my old age? I say that with a tiny percentage of seriousness after witnessing what my mother went through over her last decade.

Last night I put up a to do list for this morning. It included taking the trash out to the street. Today is Wednesday. Our trash pick up is Tuesday. How did I get that wrong? How did I screw up the days like that? I was already worried that our outside barrel was too full, now it has to go a whole second week. Shit. Also, today is recycling pick up. That means the recycling has to go a whole two extra weeks. What the fuck, Robert?

Okay. Time to pack up the lunch for work and get showered and dressed. I don’t think I can fuck those two things up. At least I played a little. Focus on that, you moron.

Six Days and Counting

The consecutive days of guitar playing streak is up to six days. I didn’t get any playing in last Wednesday as it was a commuting day and I didn’t get up early enough. The following six days, including this morning, I played at least a little bit. I used my SG to put leads on two songs from May. I played especially poorly. I don’t think it was rust this time, I think it was physical impairment. Specifically, my finger tips didn’t work correctly, in part because the calluses are gone but the pre-callus blisters are coming in. Ouch. When I took a shower after I finished my crappy playing the hot water hitting my fingers stung like a mutha.

Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get up early enough to get a little playing in tomorrow, given that it is another commute day. It would be nice to have the streak hit the full week mark.

The playing was bad today and so were the obligatory pointless pictures. I had to take a second batch because the first batch was crap.

New Song for June

The Record Every Month Challenge: June Edition is a success! May was an epic fail, but June is a win.

Here’s the first of what will hopefully be a whole big bunch of new songs this month. Just in case you were wondering what my Les Paul Standard into an Analog Man King of Tone pedal into a Vox MV50 Nutube amp’s direct output with cabinet simulation sounds like. It sounds half decent to me, I guess. Not as good as it would sound through an actual speaker, or through my Fender Deluxe Reverb at about 100 decibels. This works though.

The Streak is Alive

I should go back through the blog and figure out how many days in a row I have played guitar now. I think it’s five. Maybe four. Probably five. I don’t know.

I put lead guitar parts onto two songs this morning. Both are pretty bad, but not too bad… if you know what I mean.

The Musical Weekend Continues

I stuck to my guns and played some guitar today. Again. That is like four days in a row or something like that. My playing isn’t improving, but that’s okay, right? I put lead guitars onto one song and rhythm guitars onto another. That means I have one song completely tracked. There will be a song submitted for Record Every Month this month. Pat yourself on the back, Robert.

Sunday Car Music

I over slept by quite a bit this morning, but I still managed to sneak out for some singing in the car. I had two songs ready to go, both from May. I was thinking of writing the melody and lyrics for a June song while on mic, the way I always used to do it back in the old days, but when the time came I just decided to go home.

Here’s the view from my “mobile studio” today. Same as yesterday. Literally. I was in the same parking spot.

Also, a couple of random pics from the drive home.

More Music

I only had a little bit of time to play guitar today, and my hands felt pretty dead. Not sure what’s up with that, but it’s probably just down to me playing more than I’ve been accustomed to and I am WAY out of playing shape. Just a couple of tired hands is all. I put rhythm guitars on one song. Now I just need to write some more lyrics and do another car vocals tomorrow morning. Sounds like a plan-ish.

I didn’t go direct today. I played through my Deluxe Reverb and it was happiness.

Car Music

Car music was sort of successful. I put vocals on three songs. All of them are June songs. I’m prioritizing June songs over May songs because reasons, or something. I probably could have done a forth song but my voice got tired quickly, my water bottle was almost empty, and my bladder was beginning to ask for attention.

My goal today is to clean the kitchen, catch that friggin’ mouse, record some more guitars, write some more lyrics, and get myself ready for more car music tomorrow.

Here’s my studio view:

That laptop on the lap thing there? I couldn’t do that before the gastric bypass surgery. Crazy new world, eh?

Still On Plan

Last night I said I wanted to put guitars on a couple of songs today. I did it. Last night I also added a new song idea. That’s one of the songs I played guitar on this morning and boy was it sloppy and bad. Today is going to go down in history as one of the sloppiest playing days I’ve ever suffered through. I don’t care. I also added a new riff idea this morning. We’ll see if it becomes a song. I hope so.

Next on the agenda is writing lyrics and melodies. I have five songs that are ready for them. Let’s see how many I can get to today.

I played my SG yesterday and I didn’t put it away. As I was working out the new song structure last night I did it with the Les Paul in mind. Today, with the SG sitting on the stand I decided to start with a different song and use the SG as a warm up. When that song was done I swapped them. You’d think that playing something else first would have warmed me up for the new song. Nope. I sucked equally on both of them.

Musical Plans for the Next Few Days

Tomorrow is Friday. The weekend is almost upon us once more. I want to make a musical plan for the next few days and then actually try to stick to it. As if.

I currently have 13 songs in progress. 10 started in May, and three in June. Two songs have rhythm guitars along with a melody and lyrics. Three more have rhythm guitars only. Tomorrow, before work, I want to add rhythm guitars to at least one or two more songs. If I can add a new song or two as well, that would be nice, but I don’t want that to distract me.

After work I want to focus on adding melody and lyrics to songs that have guitars. I want to have a nice batch that are ready for vocals. Saturday morning I want to have a good car music session where I add vocals to as many songs as I can. Anything I don’t get to on Saturday I hope to do on Sunday. If possible, I want to add lead guitars to at least some songs by the time the weekend is over.

If I can get through all of that before punching in to work on Monday morning, I will consider it a musically successful weekend.

Challenge accepted.

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