Another day with no real instruments being played, but decent progress none the less.
I added three new song ideas. All three have a song form worked out. They are just MIDI bass and drums though two of them also have MIDI guitar guide tracks.
The pipeline now has five songs. All with song form and just MIDI instruments.
On to day three.
The annual goofiness is underway.
Yesterday I worked on two new ideas. I ended up with a full song form for both of them. The MIDI bass and drums are done, and they both have a MIDI guitar guide track.
That’s all. Not as much as I had hoped, but still a good start.
It is weird, you know? Now that I’ve run out of daily writing prompts and have kicked the habit (so to speak) I feel like I’ve lost my blogging mojo somewhat. Like… now what do I do? You know what I mean, jelly bean?
Today is the 4th of July. That is meaningless now that the united states supreme court has declared that the president is above the law. We the people, except for the president, right? Fuck it, I don’t care. My country is dead. Nothing to do now except vote for the guy who won’t abuse his new dictatorial powers. Whatever.
The holiday no longer has any meaning except that it’s now 50 songs in 90 days challenge season. From today through October 1st I am going to try to write a shite load of shitty songs. Be warned, I am going to write about that a lot. It’s only 8:18am and I already have one riff written. There will be tons more to come, I think. Unless I wuss out and lose motivation and stop working… like last year… and almost every year that I’ve tried this dumb thing.
The holiday is meaningless now but it’s still a day off during the summer. The plan is to have a cookout. Burgers on the grill for lunch. Chicken on the grill for dinner. Of course climate change has turned New England into New Seattle and it rains here almost every day. The forecast calls for thunderstorms right around dinner time. Hoo-fucking-ray, am I right?
What else… binge TV watching. What are we checking out these days? The Acolyte is excellent. It was good through three episodes, then ramped up big time starting with episode four. There are six episodes out and two left to go. Really looking forward to seeing how it ends. The Boys has a new episode out today. I haven’t watched it yet. House of the Dragon is just as spectacular as you hoped it would be. Over on Netflix I am trying to get back into The Witcher. I watched each of the first two seasons when they came out. They were okay. I started the third season when it first came out but lost track of it. I’ve watched a couple more episodes this week and am having a hard time remembering who everyone is and what they are trying to do. I’ll power through. I started watching Dark. I think I am three episodes into the first season. It’s okay. It’s a little tough to follow given that multiple actors are playing each character. Also, it’s a German show and I’m having a hard time taking some of the hairstyles seriously. I mean… wow. Not that that sort of thing catches my eye at all, but really… wow. There is also Torchwood on Max. It’s good. It’s not great. I’ll power through it, for completeness sake.
I’m sitting at my desk in the cellar right now. I just saw a spider. That’s not unusual. Our cellar is kind of the Spider Kingdom. I am not one who is afraid of spiders or weirded out by spiders or anything like that. I usually just ignore them and let them eat the other bugs. This guy though… it was big. Like… it’s going to haunt my nightmares big. I tried to terminate it with extreme prejudice using a fly swatter but I missed. I can’t find it now. I fear that it is going to come hunting for me to get revenge. I mean… it was big enough that if we still have mice hiding out down here then they might be in trouble. It was that big.
Yeah… see what I mean about me being directionless, bloggily speaking?
I talked it over with my boss and I am not going into the office this week. For the second week in a row Covid is making me work from home for the full week. Even if I test negative I am still working from home this week. Wednesday is the in the office day, and the rest of my staff (with the exception of the guy who is on vacation) is going in, but I am staying home. We’re all in agreement that it’s just not worth the risk and we’re all more comfortable with me staying away, even though the CDC tells me I am not contagious.
So that’s good.
What about music? I’m feeling better so I should get back to that, right? The 50 songs in 90 days challenge ended on October 1st, two days ago, and I was very far from finished. I have a bunch of unfinished songs in the works that I plan on finishing, but I am sort of thinking that 50/90 should become 66/121 this year and I should just keep going through October. Either that or I will just add a 10 songs or 35 minutes of music album in a month on top of finishing off what’s still in the works from 50/90. Something like that. I just watched a bunch of Mahavishnu Orchestra concert videos on YouTube and watching John McLaughlin tear a 12-string guitar a new asshole (figuratively speaking) is making me want to put the focus on any October songs onto my acoustic 12-string… which really would be as far removed from anything McLaughlin did on his electric 12-string as humanly possible, but really the idea of me and John McLaughlin being mentioned in the same paragraph is utterly absurd given that he is possibly the most talented guitarist in history and I am a complete and utter hack. Whatever.
I’m on season 16 of the original Doctor Who. That binge watch continues at a break neck pace. There is also a concurrent binge watch of Good Omens 2, Futurama, Archer, Daryl Dixon, and Ahsoka (which is going to be over before I sleep tonight) with binges of Severance, Silo, and Foundation all being finished within the last few days. There is so much TV out there that needs to be watched. Also, Jen and I are about to finish 90210, which is amazing given how many thousands of episodes of that show there are. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime Video’s license of the show is dreadfully incomplete and nearly half of the episodes of the last few seasons, including the series finale, are missing. Something to do with not being able to secure the music rights? I don’t know. All I know for sure is that the writers and actors strikes are going to push all new shows back for a long time which means we have to enjoy what we have while we have it. Oh yeah, and Loki season 2 kicks off later this week, so that’s yet another show to add to the list. There is so much TV!
Okay, time to hit publish and watch the last episode of Ahsoka. I bet I am going to love it. How can I not love an episode of a Star Wars show?
Right then, see you tomorrow while I work from home and dig my 12-string out of the cellar closet. Good night, friends and neighbors and kind readers.
I have mixed three songs today. I’m hoping to do a couple more but I think I am out of energy thanks to Covid and possibly because a migraine is coming. Not sure on the migraine yet, but I think it might be happening. I am going to try and make some lunch and see how it goes.
The first of the three songs I’ve finished would have been one of the album in a day things if not for the aforementioned Covid. The song isn’t very good but I don’t care.
The second song was started earlier in September and also isn’t very good.
The third song was started in August and finished in September and also isn’t very good.
You thought I forgot about the music project, didn’t ya? Well, I have been a little preoccupied the last week or so.
This would have been the first song for the album in a day challenge thing I was going to work on during our first full day home after the Disney World fail. That project, along with the larger 50 songs in 90 days challenge that enveloped it came to a pretty clear fail that same day when the covid symptoms started. I felt up to trying to mix something after lunch today, thinking that maybe I could get one song in before I was completely worn out. I was right. I got one mix in and now I am completely worn out.
I like this song. I don’t like the performance or the mix or the recording and the vocals are utterly atrocious even by my non-existent standards. Like I said though, the song itself is okay.
I think I have zero chance of pulling off an album in a day today. I might be able to pull off an album in two days, or maybe even an album in a day and a half. I have two songs finished apart from a mix down and two songs that will be finished this afternoon. I don’t know the full running time but I think it’s about 16-17 minutes.
I wrote three songs last night including MIDI guide tracks and melodies and lyrics. I did a car music this morning and recorded the vocals for all four. Since then I have put lead and rhythm guitars onto two of them and came up with a chord change for a fifth song.
Obligatory Hipstamatic pictures……
I’m still thinking about an album in a day challenge for tomorrow. I started working on the first song idea at 9:45 this evening. That means I have until 9:45 tomorrow night to finish about half an hour worth of music. It’s already feeling like a failure. I started too late to have enough ready to go for a car music in the morning. that means I’ll probably have to do a late morning car music and maybe an afternoon as well. That doesn’t seem likely.
Another roadblock was having to watch tonight’s new episode of The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon show. Did anyone else notice that the woman who played the nun who sets Daryl on his mission is the same woman who played Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter movies? I guess there are only so many French actresses around but still, she fought the Death Eaters so I bet she can take out zombies with the best of them.
Another impediment to the album in a day thing is the Doctor Who binge watch. I started season 12 tonight. That means I have finally reached the Tom Baker 4th Doctor era. He’s the Doctor I used to see on reruns on PBS back in the 80’s. He’s more or less the reason I wanted to binge watch the original show in the first place.
So I probably won’t finish a full album in a day, but I will add a lot of new stuff for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. So it’s all good.
Last night, just before I fell asleep, I added a new song idea to the 50 songs in 90 days thing. It is song number 47 and I made it all that way before I worked on a 12-bar blues. Usually the first 12-bar pops up way earlier in the project than this.
This morning I got up early and added guitar tracks to three songs, including the shiny new 12-bar. If I don’t start cranking out lyrics like a lyric writing factory, then this whole challenge is going to seriously crash and burn. I still have a mountain of stuff to do and not a lot of time left to do it in.
For now though, Hipstamatic guitar pics. Shake to Shuffle.
Do as I say, not as I do (or in this case don’t do what I didn’t do). Back up your files. Always back up your damn files.
Yeah, you know that car music I did yesterday? The one where I put vocals on four songs? Yeah, I just accidentally deleted the vocal track from one of those songs. I didn’t notice until after I was past the point where undo could bring it back. Also, with all the travelin’ fun yesterday I never got around to backing up the work I did in the car and now that vocal take is gone forever and I have to do it again.
On the up side though, I did manage to put rhythm guitars onto four songs today and lead guitars onto three. It should have been leads on four, but one of them needs to have the vocals redone because I am a friggin’ idiot.
Back up your files. Always.
Note: Today’s work has already been backed up. That doesn’t fix what I didn’t back up yesterday though. Moron.
Inside the Red Head's Head 