Tag: album in a month

Brain Droppings

Random stuff coming……….

I am very pleased that I was able to cast my ballot in the presidential election early and safely. My state and my city have seriously come through for me in these unhealthy, uncertain times. I am proud of what we the people have accomplished in this regard and I am proud that as an American I was able to have my opinion heard.

However…

The downside of voting early is that November 3rd, election day, is kinda irrelevant to me now. Maybe not irrelevant, but more like unimportant. At least until the returns start coming in. I go on social media and have a thousand people asking thousands of other people, what are your voting plans, or how are you going to vote, or are you excited to vote, or everyone get out the vote, etc, etc, and my response is… been there, done that. I took election day off, just in case. I should have taken the day after so I could stay up all night watching returns. On second thought, that would probably be a bad idea. I tend to get a little… animated when fascism is taking over my country and I don’t want to put any added stress on my ticker, or wake up the neighbors, or anything like that.

Basically though… I’m done, there isn’t much excitement about the process left.

Counting today, there are nine days left in October. At the start of the month I decided I wasn’t going to do an album in a month. A few days ago I changed my mind. I’ve got 10 songs in the pipeline. They are all short. They are all weird. They are all simple things based around little poly-rhythmic tricks, or guitarmonies. I haven’t written any lyrics or melodies yet. None of the songs will be instrumentals, but they will all be mostly instrumentals. There aren’t going to be any hooks. Vocal tracks will be short and simple and lyrics will probably just be a line or two. The point of it all is to hear a guitar playing in 4/4 in your left ear, and a guitar playing almost the same thing in 7/8 in your right ear, and how they occasionally line up with each other. Or, songs where the “melody” is just three guitars with tons of fuzz playing in harmony.

In other words, October Music is Robbie’s “I’ve been listening to King Crimson” month.

I still can’t believe that Massachusetts had 1,000 new Covid-19 cases yesterday. The last time we’d had 1,000 cases was in May. All of the progress we made has been flushed down the toilet. How are we as a society capable of landing a space ship on an asteroid 300 million kilometers away and bring it home with a sample of asteroid rocks, but not able to stay in our houses so we don’t get sick. Why are we incapable of just wearing friggin masks and washing our friggin hands?

I thought I was going to have more this morning, but I’m letting myself get distracted. In closing, let me paraphrase my favorite line from this week’s episode of Archer.

I’m your rampage sherpa.

Talk to you all later. Happy Friday.

Three Songs

0.5x lens:

1x lens:

2x lens:

I recorded lead guitars and mixed three songs tonight. That puts me at 11 out of the goal of 50. Why the rush? I mean, my laptop battery is down to 9%. Surely I could have pushed one song off to tomorrow.

February, March, April, May, June… all have a complete album in a month project. Also, they all were completed on the 29th day of the month.

Today is the 29th of July, and I now have a complete album in a month project for this month, even though that is not technically the challenge I’m playing with at the moment. I still did it, and I still did it by the 29th. Cool.

This one isn’t very good:

This one is okay, I guess:

This one is also okay, I guess:

And now to celebrate my goofy milestone, here are some tintype photos because it’s 1850 or so.

Musical Baby Steps

Just like yesterday, I only had enough time for baby steps today. I wrote another song’s worth of lyrics and melody but I didn’t have time to record a proper take.

There are only five songs left needing work but I am doubtful I will get it all finished by June 1st.
One song is ready to mix.
One song still needs lead guitar.
Two songs have lyrics and melody but still need vocals and lead guitar.
One song still needs lyrics, melody, vocals, and lead guitar.

Considering that I will be on vacation next week and not in any sort of a recording mood, those five unfinished songs are starting to look like a mountain.

I’m not quite sure what I want to do in June. 50/90 starts in July but I don’t want to take the month off. I want to keep in the musical frame of mind, but I don’t want to run out of gas either. Maybe I’ll stick to songs that are already written. Maybe I’ll work on new songs but set the goal at five instead of 10. Maybe I’ll keep the goal at 10, but only work on one at a time instead of work on all 10 in bits and pieces.

I don’t know. We’ll see.

Where the Music Projects Stand

I haven’t been pushing the recording very much so far this month. I have one full week left to get stuff done before I take a week off from work. When I take that week off, I’m not going to want to do anything but relax.

There are a total of 20 songs. All of the basic tracks (drums, bass, rhythm guitar) are finished. What’s left?

Three songs still need lyrics, vocals, melody, and lead guitar. They are all from March.
Three more songs have vocals but still need lead guitars. Two from March and one from April.
Two more songs are fully recorded, but still need to be mixed. Both are from April.
The remaining 12 songs are all completely finished. Five from March and seven from April.

And that, dear friends, is where it stands. I suspect it will probably trickle into June. I still haven’t decided if June will get it’s own music month project. July won’t, as 50/90 starts on July 4th and I am planning on failing that one once again.

April Ends Tomorrow?

What’s this? The last day of April is tomorrow? So much for finishing the April music thingie on time, eh?

I have already decided that I wasn’t going to do one of these idiotic things in May. There’s a holiday, there are two birthdays, there is a certain fifth anniversary to celebrate, and my wife and I are planning to go off the grid for a few days. It was going to be a short month as far as music time goes, so I am just not doing an album in a month next month.

I will, however, still bore you to bloody tears of boredom by posting more music. Now that April won’t be finished before May 1st, I will first be finishing April. There are still seven songs to go. Once that is done, I will finish off the leftovers from March. There are still 10 songs to finish there.

That is the musical plan. Somewhere in there I will also be watching lots and lots of hockey, as the Bruins continue their march to the Stanley Cup.

February Music

January 23, 2013. We are eight days and a wake up away from the start of album in a month month. Otherwise known as FAWM and the RPM Challenge. I don’t feel mentally prepared. I felt the same last year when February arrived and yet managed to finish both projects on time for the first time ever. Maybe not being ready is a good thing.

If that’s the case, then maybe it’s a good thing that the 2013 version of both websites still hasn’t launched. Looks like I’m not the only one who is unprepared.

I plan on giving both challenges a shot, as always, but after finishing both on time last year the drive is lessened by quite a large amount.

We shall see.