I played my ES-335 today with it’s new frets and it felt good. I still don’t have any calluses on the finger tips on my left hand so it was still painful as can be, but other than that it felt good. I put rhythm guitars onto the final two songs for the RPM Challenge and then I put leads on three songs. The third song was bad as I was reaching the point where the pain and rust were too much to get around. I hope to sneak in some more playing later today. I took a vacation day so I should be able to find some time. We’ll see.
One RPM Challenge song down, somewhere between nine and 19 still to go.
I am in the mood for a really wet, reverby mix tonight. I’m guessing I will not be in the same mood tomorrow and will end up remixing this turd.
I hate to admit this publicly, but I suspect this waste of time and energy is going to end up being the best song of the whole bunch this year. That’s pretty depressing, but the point is to turn off the internal censors and just see what happens… and this is what happened.
It’s a work in the office day today so my morning is all messed up.
I did manage to get caught up on Star Wars: The Bad Batch though. Sigh of relief, kiddos.
I also have a photo-a-day pic, but only because I know I’m not likely to make any progress on the RPM Challenge today.
Working in the office tends to mangle my plans for the full day, not just the morning. Worse? Starting next week I’ll be in the office twice a week instead of once. Insert the sigh of frustration here.
Today is February 20th. For me, personally, in RPM Challenge terms, the 20th is officially the day that I start to panic. Enjoy!
The 20th is the day where the end suddenly feels very close. We get an extra day this year, thank you leap year, so it’s not quite as bad as usual, but I definitely feel a sudden need to get off my ass and get shit done. I have nine days left after today. I need to get busy.
I put rhythm guitars onto one song and lead guitars onto another this morning before work. My playing was terrible. Absolutely awful. I am so rusty it’s silly, and what playing I have done in the last couple of weeks has not been enough to shake off any of that rust. I feel like I am getting worse… probably because I am.
Where do we stand with the album in a month project as a whole? There are 20 songs in the pipeline. I have not mixed anything yet, so no songs are 100% finished. Six have been completely recorded and are ready to mix. Five have their vocals done and are ready for lead guitars. Two have lyrics and melodies written and are ready for vocals. Five have rhythm guitars done and are ready for lyrics and melodies. Finally, two have their song forms worked out and are ready for rhythm guitars. In addition, the song that I put the rhythm guitar tracks on this morning needs to have the bass guitar (MIDI) rewritten because the bass and the guitar don’t really work well together. I need to change something so they lock in. That sort of goes against the RPM Challenge ethos (is that the right word?) as I don’t like going back and redoing anything. It takes time that I don’t have. In this case though, it sounds worse than dog shit so I have to change the bass.
There you have it. The state of the RPM Challenge project at this point in time. The minimum goal is 10 songs or 35 minutes of music. I am shooting for 20 songs, and then I’ll pick the 10 best and use them as the album I “submit” to the RPM website. Just as a heads up for the future, I really don’t think there are any good songs this year. The best of the best is very much meh. This is not going to be a good album. It’s feeling like my worst ever. Blah, indeed.
Logically I think I am an a good place to finish everything off by midnight on March 1st. Logic does not really apply here though, so my feeling is that I am currently buried under an avalanche of things still to finish. Oh good.
Anyway, here are a few pics that I took as I was listening to a playback of a terrible sounding guitar solo this morning. Ugh.
I’ve used my Les Paul Custom for every note of guitar that I have recorded this month. There’s a good chance that everything I put down after I get home from the guitar shop tomorrow will be played on my ES-335. We’ll see. I might sneak my Les Paul Standard into a few things too, if I can.
Two days in a row. I’ve played guitar two days in a row. It feels good, except for my very sore, callus-free fingers. Ouch, babie.
I worked on four songs. I put rhythm tracks onto two songs and leads onto two others. All of that plus the four vocals this morning makes it a pretty good day, RPM Challenge wise. I have a lot more that I need to get to today though. With tomorrow being a vacation day for me, I want to do more vocals in the car in the morning. I don’t have any songs that are ready for that yet, so I want to try and write lyrics for 3-4 songs before bed.
In closing, the obligatory pics. This time with Hipstamatic and shake-to-shuffle.
How’s your Sunday going? Relaxing? Nice weekend day off? I hope so.
I am finding motivation very hard to come by. I got up a little late, did my exercise, ate my breakfast, wrote my daily writing prompt post, recorded a bunch of songs worth of crappy vocals, made the bed, and…
Apart from making lunch for me and my wife (burgers in a frying pan and french fries in an air fryer) I haven’t been able to push myself to accomplish anything else. I am going to try and play some guitar right now. Maybe for an hour or so. I am going to make dinner later, another Dinnerly meal like last night only hopefully my wife will cook it with me. If she does, she does. If she doesn’t, that’s okay too. I just wish I had a little more pep in me step, so to speak. I slept okay last night. Not great. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep right away. Eventually I did, and then I overslept a little. Funny how that happens on the weekends. Tomorrow is a vacation day (not related to the presidents day holiday which post-trump I will no longer capitalize) and I am wondering if the oversleeping will happen again. Who knows. Who cares.
It’s been an hour since I ate anything which means (by gastric bypass rules) I can drink something now. I think I’ll top off my water bottle with some sugar free Crystal Light lemonade and trek down to the cellar to play some guitar. What do you think? Good plan?
I haven’t played enough guitar lately to rebuild my lost calluses on the tips of the fingers on my left hand. That didn’t stop me from playing today for almost two hours. My finger tips are killing me!
I put rhythm guitars onto three songs for the RPM Challenge, and then I put lead guitars onto three more. Do you know what that means? It means I have three songs that are finished recording and are ready to mix. Finally!
Inside the Red Head's Head 