Tag: Garageband

Music and Pain

I’m sure after a month of constant RPM posts you are all going to be thrilled to hear this…

I have set up an official recording to-do,list for the near future. I still have four unfinished songs from 2007. One has gotten as far as having the rhythm guitars finished. The other three have bass and drums done. There are three unfinished songs from 2008 that I haven’t touched since then. They are on the agenda too. In the last week I have started recording two mid-90’s songs and am ready to start recording the vocals. There is one remaining song from this past November’s NaSoAlMo that is also ready for vocals. There is a song that was meant to be a songfight.org submission but was never finished. There is a little dueling acoustic guitar thing that it did off the top of my head one day a few months ago. That one might actually be finished. Finally there are two songs that go way, way back, one as far as 1987, that I put on the agenda last year but never touched. Those are what I plan to record over the coming months.

There is talk on the RPM forum of doing a mini-project over the summer. I hope to do that as well. I want to keep recording and playing and writing. I don’t want to find myself looking at a fast approaching February 2014 without having done anything over the prior months. I want to get better, not stay stagnant.

Of course, playing guitar is easier when you can use your left arm. Last fall, when I raked the yard for the first time I had major pain in my left arm for a week afterward. I could barely lift my arm at all. When I raked the second time, same thing. This winter I had the same reaction to shoveling the first time. Friday I did some shoveling. Not a lot, but some. I was fine all day Saturday and figured I’d gotten off lucky. Then today I tried to get something off a high shelf. Holy crap did it hurt. I can barely lift my left arm at all, and when I try the pain is huge. I am wondering if I slept on it last night to make it worse. I did play the guitar a little today without any trouble, so I’m not worried, but damn does it hurt!

We will see how it feels tomorrow.

RPM Day 26

I know it’s late for this, but I’ve had a busy day.  Deal, okay?

I added the final lead guitar parts to four of the remaining six songs.  I haven’t made a final mix of any of them yet.  I might do that tonight, or I might wait until tomorrow.  I’m so close to finishing that I can almost taste it.  I should probably start thinking of a cover, and maybe a title.  What do you think of Rock Music for Old People?

RPM Day 25

My head is pounding.  I have a five alarm headache to say the least.  Why?  From all the yelling, that’s why.  I wrote and recorded vocal parts for seven songs today, and completed recording the vocals for two others.  That’s it, kids, all of the RPM/FAWM vocalizin’ is done with.  Nothing but lead guitars left to record.

I even finished the big 10 minute piece of prog rock crap today.  That makes six songs complete.  Eight more to go to finish FAWM, four more to go to finish RPM.

RPM Day 24

Holy crap!  It’s the 24th already??

I finished two more songs today.  Aren’t you pleased?  I bet you all can’t wait for March 1st, right?

This song was declared finished, then yesterday was declared unfinished, and then after a remix today is again declared finished.  I was going to redo the vocals, but I decided I probably couldn’t do any better on the next attempt so I just fixed some things that I didn’t like about the previous mix.

This next one is actually one that is finished for the first and last time.  Please don’t be scared off by the very long fade in.  Sometimes the prog nerd in me takes over when I least expect it.  There is a song there somewhere, I promise.  Also, I told myself that I was going to keep this as a guitar/bass/drums/vocal project with the occasional keyboard part thrown in as an exception.  Well, this one sort of centers on an electric piano (although it sort of gets pushed around by the bass on the right side and the rhythm guitar on the left) and it has a sax solo.  Yup, I was listening to this on the way to the grocery store this morning and I sort of sighed reluctantly when I realized that I had to put some sax on this one.  My days of being a competent sax player are long, long past me.  The pitch is a little suspect, but what are you going to do?

I might try to sneak in more lead guitar tonight.  I have two more songs that are ready for it.  We’ll see what the day brings.  My fingers aren’t feeling all that great right now and I need a break.

RPM Day 23

It’s almost 8:00pm here and I haven’t done my stupid daily update that is boring all of you to tears.  Never fear.  In the words of the Yardbirds, Here’s ‘Tis.

Earlier this week I had announced that this particular song:

was complete and done and finished.  Today I changed my mind.  I remixed it.  It’s not much different, just a little more care was taken with it.  Oh, and I put some seriously retarded goofiness into it as well.  Gotta love idiots who put flangers onto drums, right?  Am I right?

This little song:

Was not finished, but now it is.  I used a fuzz box.  How have I made it this far into life without owning a real fuzz box?  Fuzz boxes and Phasers are the big overused stomp box gimmicks for this year’s project.

This particular little ditty:

Was also not finished, but now it is.  This holds the distinction of being the only song in the batch of 14 that did not have any work done on an iOS device.  This was all done on the full GarageBand on my MacBook Pro.  I think you can hear the difference.  I am a little sad that I didn’t do the whole thing on a computer now.  The iPad and the iPhone are just so damn convenient   I mean it would have been tough to have written a song in the car in a parking lot waiting for a take out order to be ready if I had to do it all on an actual computer, right?  Am I right?

So that’s three songs that are finished, finished, finished.  There is one other that used to be finished but I have decided it will get a new vocal take on Monday.  There are two other songs that have vocals that I want to re-record, at least in part, that still need lead guitar parts.  Then there are seven (7) more that don’t have any vocals yet.  RPM requires 10 songs.  FAWM requires 14.  I have 14 in progress, I could call FAWM done now but I won’t.  Finishing the vocals for a total of 10 songs on Monday is definitely doable.  Getting up to a total of 14?  That’s a little more difficult.

We shall see.

RPM Day 20

February 20th and the heat is on.

I have two songs completed, or as completed as they are going to get.  The first one really needs to have the vocals re-recorded.  If I get a chance before the 28th I’ll do it.  It also needs to be mixed a little better.  I don’t consider what I am doing here to be anything more than demos, so I am not going to freak out if the lead guitar is a little too loud (I am a lead guitarist, so the lead guitar is ALWAYS going to be a little too loud, but I digress) but in the case of the first song I think it might be a little too, too loud.  Oh well.

This morning I took 25 minutes before leaving for work to come up with a chorus and two verses worth of bad lyrics for another song.  I recorded them quickly and I think they sound okay, but they don’t really fit the gloomy mood of the music.  That’s kind of a normal problem with the rush job that is RPM.  I had that song’s master file up in GarageBand, and I had a couple of lines worth of lyrics in my head, so the lyrics went with the music regardless of how well they actually go together.  If I were not on a deadline I might have found a better fit, but as it is I just don’t care.

I may have a little time for more lyrics/vocals this evening, but I said that last night too and it didn’t happen.  I telecommute tomorrow, so maybe I can squeeze in more than one song with the extra time I will have before work.

Thinking positive, but also looking at the calendar and starting to worry a little.

RPM Day 19

Is it really February 19th? How the hell did that happen? It was Christmas just a couple of days ago, wasn’t it? I guess the older you get the faster the calendar moves, and those calendar pages seem to be flipping pretty quickly for me these days.

Anyway…

I mentioned yesterday that I wrapped up the last section of the last (14th) song and sketched out an arrangement. I also recorded the last of the rhythm guitar parts. I completed the first vocal yesterday morning while my wife was briefly out of the house and threw on some lead guitars and declared it my first sort of (I guess) finished song. I think I want to do the vocal again, and the leads are kinda lazy. Who knows.

This morning I managed to not oversleep, and not procrastinate through my morning routine. I ended up being ready to go to work 40 minutes early and that was enough time to write and record another vocal part. If I get a chance tonight I’ll add some leads and that will be two songs finished. My wife might have to work late tonight. If that happens (I really hope it doesn’t) I might try to sneak another vocal. I find that the only way I can ever come up with lyrics is to have the mic on in front of me and the clock ticking. That might explain why my lyrics suck so badly, but I don’t care. I consider anything I write to be temporary until some mythical future day comes when I am in a band with an actual real live lyricist who will replace the crappy place holders I write today.

I’ve got 12 more lyrics to write and vocals to record and I’ve only got nine days to do it. >gulp<

Still thinking positive (or trying to at least).