Tag: 50/90 challenge

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 7 & 8/90

The recap of day seven is simple. I didn’t do anything. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

Day eight is a little more interesting. I’ve already written about most of it. I put vocals on five songs this morning while Jen was out of the house. The performances are all pretty crappy. Almost as bad as the lyrics and the melodies. The only other thing I accomplished today was coming up with the 12th new song idea. Super simple, but it has the complete song form.

Tomorrow is a work from the office day so there isn’t much chance of making any progress before work, unless I can manage to get out of bed ridiculously early. I won’t have much time after work either. I may be shut out on day nine the same way I was on day seven.

Works in Progress Playlist

I do this every time I do a music project like 50/90. I create a playlist on some music sharing site that is made up of works in progress. Quick rough mixes of whatever I have in the pipeline at any given time.

I start these things and then never update them and never listen to them and never do anything with them… but I still set them up for some unknown reason.

Here’s this summer’s 50/90 works in progress playlist.

Morning Music

Raise your hand if you put vocals onto five songs this morning before work.

*Robert raises his hand*

I didn’t need to hide in the car. I did it at my desk in the cellar. Five songs with vocals. That’s 10% of the 50/90 goal. Not bad, red head.

314/365
314/365

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 6/90

I got a lot done today. Not nearly as much as I was hoping to get done, but still a pretty good haul.

I put rhythm guitars onto five songs. I wrote lyrics and melody for the only two of those five songs that didn’t have them already. Then I came up with lyrics and melody for two additional songs. Finally, I came up with a new idea from scratch that includes (you guessed it) lyrics and melody. This last one is in a time signature I’ve never used before. It’s in 9/4.

There are two song writing ideas that I am trying to include this year. One is to use time signatures I’ve never played in before. The other is to try and write pre choruses. I usually just go verse/chorus repeated forever. Sometimes I sneak a bridge in or something. This time I am trying to consistently bridge between the verses and choruses. In other words, a pre chorus. I think. Sounds like a challenge, right?

I haven’t made a works-in-progress playlist yet. Not sure if I am going to, but maybe I will. If I do, I’ll post it here. Probably.

Guitar Tracks

I spent about two hours recording guitars today. I finished five of the 10 songs that are currently in the fifty-songs-in-90-days-challenge pipeline. Including the song that is in 13/8 time, and the song that is in 15/8 time. First time I have ever knowingly played guitar in either of those time signatures. Milestones, babie!

I used direct input into the USB audio interface for all of the tracks, including using two amps at a time. I took the obligatory pictures, but Flickr is being a dick today and won’t let me upload PNG files, or any files for that matter, on the web. I had to dumb these down to JPGs and share them onto my iPhone and upload them from the Flickr app. I am thusly annoyed.

312/365
312/365

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 5/90

It’s not even 8:00pm but I think I’m calling it a musical day. I didn’t play guitar at all today but I did do a lot of work on the project. I had four song ideas that were just a couple of riffs. I worked all four of those ideas into a full song form. I then added two more songs, both with the full song form. One of them is my first attempt at 15/8 time. I am out of control.

I now have 10 songs in the pipeline. They are all still just midi tracks, though three of them have melodies and lyrics. Here’s hoping I get a chance to add a ton of guitar tracks tomorrow, and maybe some vocal tracks on Monday morning.

Oh, and band practice is on for Thursday. We just have to avoid earthquakes or natural disasters, or follow up plagues between now and then.

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 4/90

Another less than spectacular day but still seeing some progress. Two new song ideas started. One is just a few noodles, the other is a full song form with a swing groove. Scary.

I’m up to eight ideas in progress now. Still no real instruments recorded, just MIDI tracks. Hoping for more substantial noise making tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Guitar Rig

Okay folks, the guitar gear is setup and ready to record some new music.

I put the new Analog Man King of Tone overdrive pedal onto my stay-at-home pedal board and plugged the whole thing in. I have three amps setup. The Fender Deluxe Reverb will be used when I can make oodles of noise and want to record with a microphone. The other two amps are the Fender Bassbreaker 15 and the cute little Vox MV50. They are both connected to the ABY switch so that I can run them both at the same time, and they are also both plugged directly into the USB audio interface so that I can run direct at times when I cannot make any noise.

Now I just have to actually play. Any minute now, right?

309/365

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 2/90

As expected, working in the office meant I was in the car commuting when I normally would be trying to make a little music so there wasn’t a lot of progress made on the current musical challenge.

I did come up with three little eight bar noodles that may be worked into a song somehow. Better that than nothing, right?