Tag: Fiftyninety Challenge

Planning for Tomorrow

I did some 50/90 work tonight. I wrote lyrics to a couple of songs and generally tried to set myself up for some car singing tomorrow. I have three songs that are ready for vocals, meaning they have rhythm guitars tracked and melodies and lyrics written. There are three other songs that don’t have rhythm guitars but do have melodies and lyrics. I added some awful sounding midi guitar tracks to use as guides so I can add vocals out of order.

Now I just have to wake up early tomorrow morning and do it… and it’s 11:33 right now so with each passing moment the chances of getting up early tomorrow get slimmer and slimmer.

So why am I typing this?

20 Songs Down, 30 to Go

20 songs down. 40% of the project is complete.

I told you I was going to mix a song tonight.

Here it is:

I still have five minutes of “exercise” to do, and then maybe I’ll try to sleep. It’s 11:06 and all is quiet on the parental front. Fingers crossed.

Song Number 17

Today’s 50/90 progress was impressive (to no one on Earth but me). Four vocals, one rhythm guitar, five lead guitars, and one mix…

Today was the listening party for the RPM Challenge’s Record Every Month thing. I forgot to submit a song back in June, and I forgot again for July. Sorry. This song here was written and recorded entirely in August so that means I am still up to date on R.E.M. even though I haven’t submitted a couple of times. I have written and recorded at least one song each month since the challenge started in March.

As for 50/90, 17 songs down and 33 to go.

Ninety

I spent a solid 90 minutes tracking guitars today and I feel a tiny bit better about the state of the world right now. Granted a tiny bit better than OH MY GOD WE’RE TOTALLY DOOMED AND NOTHING WILL EVER BE RIGHT AGAIN is… well… relative, dig?

I put rhythm guitars onto one song as a bit of a warm up and then went nuts doing leads. Five songs. The four that got vocals this morning and one more that was left over from last time I did leads.

My finger tips are killing me right now. I really need the band to get back together so I can get my fingers into regular shape again.

Song Number 16

Here’s another new song. This one is better than most if not all of the others. At least I think so right now. I’ll likely change my mind later.

Both of my parents are asleep. They both fell asleep with a TV on. Dad is in the living room. I need to sleep in the living room. I can’t find the remote. I think he might be laying on it. I can’t sleep with headphones on. Insert the sigh of frustration here. At least he got up and walked around on his own, including a trip to the bathroom. No assistance from me was needed at all. That is huge. Super huge. What a relief.

Granted, he fell asleep with the news on, and this network ran the same 30 minute news program at 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00. I think I am going to hear the same things maybe five times before the talk shows come on. Gross.

Late Music

I put rhythm guitar on two songs and leads on two more. Not bad considering I didn’t even have a musical thought until 9:00pm. The leads came easy tonight, which is nice. The rhythm tracks came harder than they should have given how easy the parts were, but it is okay. My shiny new Les Paul could probably benefit from new strings though. Weekend plans.

50/90 Update as July Ends

Harry is out of the house right now. I’m exhausted like you wouldn’t believe but I really want to be awake when he gets in so I am trying to do stuff to keep my brain functioning.

July is going to end in 90 minutes. That seems like a good time to give a quick summary of the 50/90 project. Today is day 27. How am I doing?

I have 13 songs finished and listed on my account page. There are another 12 songs in progress. Three are ready for vocal tracking, and I am hoping to do some car music in the morning. Of the other nine, the only recording that has been done so far is bass and drums, which are done on the computer. Based on that you could make the argument that no actual recording has been done at all. Whatever. Six of those nine songs do have lyrics and a melody already written out. I usually don’t start working on that until the rhythm guitars are down, but with all of the trips to my parents house, I haven’t had as much guitar time as I would like and I have had to do things out of the normal order.

50/3=16.66666667. Fifty songs, three calendar months, that means 16 and 2/3 songs per month, right? I like to break it down to 16 in July (because the challenge starts on July 4th so it misses out on three days and is therefore shorter than the other two months), 17 in August, and 17 in September. I’m at 25 right now. I would say that I am ahead of the pace.

Not bad, Robert. Not bad at all. The question is, can I keep it up? We shall see, Robert. We shall see.

Car music in the morning. It’s a moral imperative.

Better

It took a while but things are a little better now. She’s in her room but I don’t think she’s actually gotten into bed. I checked a few minutes ago and she was still sitting up, but she was dozing off. Here’s hoping when I check after I post this that she’s in bed and done for the night.

While I get up to check on the situation, you can enjoy this terrible song that is not as bad as I usually write. There’s a gimmick in the lyrics. Each section (stanza?) of the song is a haiku. Does that make me the lamest of all lame lames?

Probably.