The record every month challenge is a success for March. One month down.
Category: Song Writing
Record Every Month – Tracking Complete
I got up a little early-ish. Not as early as I’d planned, but early enough to get the trash out to the street, close my exercise ring for the day, have some protein supplement breakfast, and watch an episode and a half of The X-Files before 7:30am. That gave me enough time to record lead guitar tracks for the two songs I’m working on for Record Every Month this month. Tracking is done for both songs. Boom. I just have to mix them, and I have 3+ days left to do it. Nice.
My playing was rusty so I kept my leads simple. Nothing special. I did have some timing issues at the end of one solo, but not enough to redo it when the rest of the solo sounded pretty good. Part of me wants to push myself to do more than two songs next month. I don’t know if that would be 10 songs or five songs or three songs or what, but I’ll probably just do two… or one.
Here are a couple of pictures…
Overslept
I set my alarm for 5:00am and didn’t get out of bed until about 6:40. Oh well, after a rough few days I think I needed it. I still do, I am feeling super tired still.
I was planning on getting my exercise in for the day, then getting ready for work, then (assuming Jen was awake and not in an early meeting) I was going to add the final guitar parts to the two songs I’ve been working on. Nope. It’s after 8:00 now and I just closed my exercise ring and had a protein supplement breakfast. My stomach is okay so far, though not really 100%. I’m still feeling a little beat up after the rough week, but yesterday was 99% fine and I am hoping for a trend. I’ll use the stop watch at lunch and dinner and see if it keeps me on track. It doesn’t always work, there are other ways to fuck up apart from just going too fast, but it worked for me all day yesterday. I still don’t know what went wrong with the late night pudding cup snack last night. I was really shocked at how that one turned out.
I am planning to go food shopping after dinner tonight. Once I get home I will try to add the last guitar parts to the two songs so that I can start mixing and get them in before the end of the month.
We did a lot of planning for Bellana’s college graduation weekend last night. Once we get through all of the logistics I am going to start obsessing over the photography options. I’m hyper focusing on lens options (yes, the pun was intended… focusing… get it?). I was thinking about trying to get a long zoom so that I could get close up shots of the stage from our cheap seats. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think I might want to go for something super wide so that I can get the whole scene when the family is all together. Like, what if we go to dinner to celebrate afterwards. If I have a 40mm lens on the digital camera and a 50mm lens on the film I’m not going to be able to get multiple people into a shot unless I stand up and walk away. Maybe I want to look into getting a 28mm, or even an 18mm lens so that I can grab nice wide group shots.
Oh to be able to actually know what I’m doing. Heh heh.
Okay, time to go get showered and dressed and get ready for work. Happy Monday, he said with biting, dripping sarcasm.
Car Music for March
Musical progress, folks! The Record Every Month Challenge is still happening for March 2023! I went to my favorite singing-in-the-car parking lot this morning and put really terrible vocal tracks onto two songs. The challenge is to record a song each month. I am upping the ante to recording two songs every month because I am insane.
The view out my “studio” window, complete with my rubber duck assistant audio engineer:
Weight loss surgery has changed a lot for me in terms of singing. My lung capacity is WAY down, which seems odd but maybe not that surprising. There is a new finding that I just came across today. Car music workflow had me putting the laptop on the passenger seat and leaning over to read the lyrics off of the notepad. Today it occurred to me that without my huge stomach I can do this instead:
Finally, in closing, I drove through the center of town. I actually brought Dad’s film camera with me, fully intending to stop somewhere and snap a few pics. When the time came though, I just drove home… like I always do. I did almost get hit by a guy running a stop sign, and then get hit again when he decided to change lanes without looking while I was literally right next to him. 9:00am and already driving drunk. Dude’s gonna have a banger of a day, methinks.
Doctor’s Appointment and More Stomach Fun
Nothing much came of the doctors appointment. I have to make a couple of follow ups and I’ll be getting an MRI at some point. I’ve been crazy busy at work so I haven’t had a chance to make any of the calls I need to make.
I got home with a few minutes to spare before punching into work, but as soon as I did things got crazy busy. I tried to sneak in some lunch and I ate too fast and my stomach rebelled in a big way. It took two hours to calm down but I did get through my lunch. Granted, lunch stretched out almost all the way to dinner time but what can you do.
I’m drastically behind on both my water and protein goals right now. I’ll make it for both today, but I’m annoyed with myself, especially after I had such a good start this morning before going to see the doctor.
Change of subject: I need to do car music. We’re running out of days in March and I have to finish Record Every Month. I have three songs in the pipeline but I’ll probably only get to two. I am planning to do another album in a month this spring, but it depends on guitar gear. I’ve mentioned that I am about to come to the end of the Analog Man King of Tone waiting list. The first full month after I get my mitts on one of those suckers I will do an album in a month using it on every guitar track. That’s the plan at least. Will it be April? Will it be May? Kinda hope it will be April, but that seems highly unlikely.
What else… Star Trek Picard was good today. The whole gang is back on the show. All we need now is Tasha. Good stuff. The show has been fantastic this season. I really need it to keep up the good work and stick the landing. On the other side of the Trek/Wars coin, I started re-watching The Bad Batch over the weekend. I’m still not sure why, but I will finish the first season tonight (I think) and the second season is going to end next Wednesday, I think. Am I right about that? There are two episodes left but they will both be released next week? I head that somewhere.
I’m tired. I’ve had such a stressful week health wise. Between multiple stomach issues and yet another migraine… I need a nap. A long, comfy nap.
Six minutes left until quittin’ time. I’ll make dinner after I finish work, but I will probably be too full from lunch to eat it right away. We’ll see. 16 ounces of liquid left to go. A whopping 37 grams of protein left to go. I’ll make it to both goals, and then some. It’s just going to take some extra time tonight, I think.
Okay. Signing off. I’ll likely post again later. Yesterday was the lowest page view day I’ve had on this page in over four years. I blame the migraines, but I’ll try to write something interesting that will bring the folks by… or not. Probably not.
Still Going
The RPM Challenge is over, but I still managed to play some guitar today. I’m up to three new song ideas. I was thinking of trying to do two songs per month for the rest of the year, but I just had to keep going today. I don’t think I am going to do 10 songs in March, but will I? Who knows. It’s just good to play.
Winner
I still have two songs to mix, but neither of those two songs are good enough to use on the final record… so I submitted it. I threw together a somewhat logical running order, created a playlist on alonetone.com, and sent it off to the RPM Headquarters.
Done and done.
There I am on the list of winners. I filtered it by people in Massachusetts so I’d be easier to find.
Now I just need to finish those last two songs and I’ll be done with everything for this month. I am pretty surprised I made it through. I’m happy I made it, even if I am not happy with the results.
11 Songs Down, Three to Go
This is song #11 out of 14. I think it’s the only song I’ve done this year that’s in 7/8 time. That’s sad.
At least two of the remaining three will be dropped from the final album. One of them is still on the fence but definitely leaning toward the drop list. I think I have enough time to mix one more before work. Let’s see if I can get ‘er done.
Tracking is Done
I have finished all of the tracking for this year’s RPM Challenge. I added really crappy lead guitar parts to the last two songs and I am done with the recording. Finished, babie!
RPM Challenge: The Last Day
Technically the RPM Challenge rules allow you to work on March 1st, but I prefer to stay within February so today is the last day for me.
Four songs left. Two are ready to mix. Two still need quick lead guitar parts before they’ll be ready to mix. I can do it all today. I also need to come up with a running order and drop anything that’s not up to snuff. This year that’s pretty much everything so lots of weak songs are going to make the cut.
I have a doctor’s appointment at 10:00am so I took sick time for the first half of the work day. That should let me get the guitar tracks in once Jen is out of bed. It’s snowing though. There isn’t much more than a dusting right now but we could get eight inches. I may have to shovel this morning, and I’ll definitely have to shovel after work. I also need to do my exercise this morning and I over slept about an hour so… yeah. Dumb ass.
Okay, Robert. It’s motivation time. Get to it. Get shit done!
Inside the Red Head's Head 