Ouch

I’m too old for this shit.

Shoveling, I mean. I felt okay when I first came back inside after shoveling, but now that a few hours have passed… Ouch town, population me, bro. Every inch of me is sore, and despite having two of the best nights sleep I’ve had in ages over the last two nights, I am completely exhausted.

I don’t know if I have the energy to do anything other than sit on the couch for the rest of the night. I think we were already planning on ordering out for dinner tonight. Maybe I’ll be able to crawl to the door to bring the delivery in.* I mean, really… that’s asking a lot.

It is a good thing I managed to put rhythm guitar tracks onto two RPM Challenge songs this morning before I shoveled. I don’t know if I will be able to do any more than that tonight, though I really need to. We’ll see how the pain goes. For now though, it’s just couch time. Much needed couch time, believe me.

Here’s a few guitar pictures to hold us over until next time.

*Obviously I exaggerate. I mean, it’s still laundry day after all.

Finally

Finally… I played guitar today. Just for a little while (and pretty poorly), but I played. I used the new pedal board with the amp sim pedal (TC Combo Deluxe ’65) and for the first time… ever(?) I used a compressor pedal (MXR Dyna Comp mini).

I feel pretty good about the state of the world right now.

Wishes

My wish today is that my band would actually exist. This not having a band after almost having a band again is getting depressing. I floated the idea of a practice next week and it’s fallen on mostly deaf ears.

Crud.

Gibson

Is the hashtag supposed to be #GibsonDay or is it #GibSunday? They both work. Should I just use both of them?

I haven’t played today, but I did get a couple of pics for whichever hashtag is the right one. I am so unhip.

Still Going

The RPM Challenge is over, but I still managed to play some guitar today. I’m up to three new song ideas. I was thinking of trying to do two songs per month for the rest of the year, but I just had to keep going today. I don’t think I am going to do 10 songs in March, but will I? Who knows. It’s just good to play.

Better but Still Bad

I worked on guitars for two songs tonight. Rhythm on one and lead on the other. Just like last night the rhythm went okay but the leads sucked. My sense of timing is all out of whack. I’m just not feeling it. Practice! I need to practice!

I swapped out the Keeley D&M drive for the Wampler Plexi Drive Mini. That pedal wasn’t doing it for me before but I tweaked the settings and finally got it to play nicely with the Klon KTR in front of it. It might stay on the board for a while.

Straight In

I played a little today. Nothing serious. I just plugged straight into an amp and noodled. I did do a small experiment. I am thinking of taking my Vox AC15 to the next Lizardfish practice (whenever that might be) but I have never really pushed the volume. Is it loud enough to compete with the rest of the band? More importantly, if I get it up to band practice volume, is the tone still clean?

I dimed the master volume and then brought the channel volume up a little at a time. I got up to 92 decibels (according to my AppleWatch) and it was still clean as a bell. The band does get louder than that, but my channel volume (I was using the amp’s Normal channel, not the Top Boost) was only on about four, so there is still some room available. I don’t know when that channel starts breaking up, but I wasn’t even close. I think my band practice plans are good to go.

The question then is, do I use the Normal channel or the Top Boost channel? That’s still undecided.

Headache and Finger Pain

Right now on this fine Sunday afternoon I have myself a bit of a headache and my finger tips are hurting. What could it mean?

Well the headache is a common side effect of singing. I can sing, but as far as voice technique is concerned I can’t sing, and the result of attempts at singing are often headaches and scratchy throats and lots of coughing. Note, it is not Covid. Thank you.

The finger tip pain is a common side effect of not being in good guitar playing shape and over doing it. If you don’t play enough you don’t build up tough calluses and playing just starts to hurt. The upside is that playing through some hand pain is how you actually build up those calluses so, you take the good with the bad.

All of this means that today has been a huge musical day for me. I mentioned earlier that I put vocals on three songs. That was this morning. This afternoon I have gone a little bonkers on guitar. I came up with an idea for a song for December and I put all of the rhythm guitars onto that. Then I put rhythm guitars onto a re-recording thing that I started messing with yesterday. The original dates back to February of 2009 (I think) and I think I could play faster and more aggressively back then because this stupid little ditty seriously kicked my ass today. Ouch. After that I put leads on all three songs that got vocals this morning and now my hands and my head and my ears are all nice and sweetly toasted. Ouch, babie. Ouch.

I might try to mix one or two later tonight, but I doubt it. My ears are telling me they are done. I do need to come up with a bass part for the December song as well as lyrics and a melody so that I can add it to the list of car music tunes for tomorrow… assuming I can get my shit together to do car music tomorrow. I now have four songs lined up. One for December, one for quarantine volume five and two for quarantine volume six.

Could I be a bigger nerd?

Guitar pics, because today is #Gibsunday and stuff.