Tag: 50/90

Even More Car Music

Car music was a success today. Well, 80% success at least. I had five songs ready to go and I did four of them. The last time I did this I was really struggling to find pitches and get the melodies right. Today was the opposite. Lots of first takes. So many that I added harmony parts everywhere. Way more that I was planning. I probably could have gotten through the fifth song too. It wasn’t the clock that was the problem today, it was my bladder. When you gotta go…

Sundays at the movie theater parking lot are nice. Very few people out for jogs. Lots of cars driving up and down the road though. No one stopped. Sort of. There was one car that was driving around and wouldn’t leave. I’m 99.9% sure it was a parent teaching a kid to drive. They didn’t come very close.

Looking through the Trello board for the 50/90 project, there are now only four songs left without vocals. Three of them still need lyrics. I don’t want to say that I’m almost done, but finishing the 50th vocal would feel pretty good.

Still Going

50/90, still going.. I mixed a song last night and another this morning. I’m up to 38 songs complete.

38 down, 12 more to go. I should note that saying 12 to go doesn’t mean those 12 songs aren’t already in progress. In fact, this next song… is the 50th song started.

Number One is Back

I’ve only played one guitar, my Gibson ES-335 Pro, since May. That changed tonight. Tonight, the #1 came back. The Gibson Les Paul Custom. It actually felt strange and took a little while getting into the groove. I put leads on three songs. Kinda weak. Pretty repetitive. Oh well.

The good thing is, the Les Paul and the new Black Lives Matter pedal got to play together a little. Also, it was the first time the Les Paul and the AC15 played together too. They all sounded happy. They all got along. More to come.

Car Vocals

I took today off from work so I could drive my father to a doctors appointment. I wanted to get up early and crank out some car music. I kinda failed. I actually got up a little late but I still did some singing. I put voices onto three songs. I usually shoot for five, but I didn’t want to be late to get dad.

Current 50/90 status:
Six have vocals and are ready for guitar leads.
Three have lyrics and are ready for vocals.
Six have all of the rhythm tracks done and are ready for lyrics.

I’m hoping I’ll do some leads tonight. Maybe a mix. Maybe another lyric or two, and then more car vocals tomorrow morning. That’s how we’re going to get this puppy done on time.

50/90 – 35 Down, 15 to Go

I uploaded song #35 today. There are only 15 more to go.

Four have vocals and are ready for guitar leads.
Five have lyrics and are ready for vocals. (Tomorrow morning in the car?)
Six have all of the rhythm tracks done and are ready for lyrics.

That’s all that’s left. Only 16 days left in September. I can do it, he said with confidence he didn’t really feel.

I was going to put a song file onto this post, but all of the songs I’ve been finishing lately are pretty lame so maybe next time. Instead, watch this video of The Great Tony Levin demonstrating the Chapman Stick.

50/90: Time Running Out

There are 17 days left in the 50/90 Challenge. There are 17 days left in September. I’m running out of time. How did that happen? Where did the time go?

Two ready to mix, four ready for lead guitar, and and a whopping 11 ready for lyrics. Yikes!

If I live to see October without my hands completely turning traitor I’m going to alter my monthly writing/recording game. Instead of writing 10 new songs I’m going to go back to The Great Re-Recording Project of 2015 and do another batch of tunes. If I have time I’ll try to add a few new songs to the list, but that won’t be the priority. Quarantine Tunes Vol. II will happen.

In the meantime, we’re going to watch that Princess Bride script read over Zoom (I think) tonight. That should be fun, I’m looking forward to it. I don’t have a link though, so you’re going to have to Google it for more info. Sorry.

Guitar Like Crazy

I feel a little less mentally defective now. I spent an hour and a half or so playing the guitar. I recorded five songs worth of rhythm guitars and two songs worth of leads. My fingers are sore, my ears are sore, I’m covered with sweat.

I feel better.

Not Today, Maybe Tomorrow

I fully intended to get up early today and do car vocals. I actually did get up early but… As I mentioned last night… that last song I worked on… the lyrics were so bad. It just took the umph out of the situation, you know? I need to rewrite.

So… fasting. What’s up with that? Give yourself an eight hour window each day where you can eat to your heart’s (stomach’s?) content, then the other 16 hours you don’t eat. In my 56 seconds worth of Google “research” it looks like most people set their eating window at 1pm-9pm. Outside of breakfast, that works okay for me. I want to cut down on between meal sowing. Something like this could gimmick me into cutting back some. Also, my 56 seconds showed me that zero calorie drinks (water, diet soda) are allowed during the fasting times.

I found an app I wanted to try to use to help. I thought you’d plug in times and it would tell you when to eat. It doesn’t. You turn it on when you’re fasting starts (9pm) and it tells you when it’s over. Okay… I guess I’ll start this fad tonight at 9pm. consider today’s breakfast my breakie swan song. What the hell, it’s quarantine. Let’s jump on this (a/any) stupid bus.

After my horrid performance trying to predict the winners of the second round of the NHL playoffs, I went into the third round with a tiny bit of optimism. Then on Sunday night the West series started and my pick lost game one. That’s okay, I guess. It’s just putting my pick into a statistical hole that is too big for the majority of teams to crawl out of but that’s okay, right? Ugh. I had this bad feeling that when the East series started up last night there would be another crushing loss. I checked the score just before bed. Would Tampa crush my heart again? Nope. They were up 7-2. I checked the final score today. They won 8-2. I feel a tiny bit better now.

Television. Season two of The Boys is out. I forgot that Amazon released shows weekly. Crap. At least they put out three on the first day. They are good so far, but now I have to wait for Friday for episode four. On top of that, Jen and I started watching Cobra Kai. We plowed through the first season. It is so much better than I thought it would be. I expected it to be goofy and silly and a bit of a farce. It was, sort of. Not a lot though. It was just good. Yeah we saw the series finale coming miles away, but it didn’t lessen the effect. I’m looking forward to season two, and season three is supposed to be on the way. I’m paused on The Watchmen for the moment, but I’ll get back to it. Same with Breaking Bad. Eventually I’ll get to Lovecraft Country too. For now though… I’m up to season four episode 15 of Agents of Shield. The rewatch continues.

For now though. Let’s have a good work day on this, the first work day after Labor Day. The first work day after the symbolic last day of Summer. Today is probably in my top three least favorite days of the year.

Ugh.

Day Off

Is everyone in the USA enjoying their Labor Day holiday?

My to do list today is clean the bathroom, change the litter box, and work on 50/90. Also, do some of that exercise shit. I went for a five minute walk already today, similar to what I was doing last week… just walking in place. By the end of the five minutes I could barely lift my feet off the floor. Being criminally out of shape sucks.

50/90 update. 31 songs done, 10 ready for lyrics, three ready for rhythm guitars, and one that’s just a bass riff. 45 songs total. I was hoping to be at 40 before August ended. I missed it by three. That makes September a little harder than I expected.

It’s been about an hour since my five minute walk…

I think I’ll do another one now.

Yikes.