Tag: iphoneography

A Covid-19 Lock Down First

I’ve worked on various monthly music goofiness before starting work many, many, many times since the Covid shut down started back in March. Today was the first time I worked on a monthly music goofy by recording guitar parts. I was playing guitar by 8:20am. I could deal with more of that.

My wife is off work today and the kids are at their dad’s until later tonight so I was in the clear as far as not annoying someone who is working or schooling or sleeping. I only had time to put leads onto two songs, but one of them has guitarmonies. I wasn’t planning on it, I just did it. Noice. I also brought out my recently acquired Bluesbreaker clone and paired it up with my Klon KTR. It sounds good, but it just doesn’t have the balls that the OCD clone has. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it on the board.

Oxygen is Important

Today was the third straight car vocals day for me. Four songs on Sunday, four songs on Monday, which left two for Tuesday. I drove to the big, empty movie theater parking lot and started singing very poorly. I had to move the car as the sun was bright and killing me. Why wouldn’t we have had clear skies last night? Once again, the universe punches me in the nards.

When the last December song was finished I had plenty of time before I had to stop so I pulled up a song from re-recording round four. It wasn’t really ready for vocals, but the bass and drums were done and there was still a scratch guitar that I could sing over. What the hell.

The song is important for two reasons. First, it contains the greatest lyric writing moment of my pathetic history. A brilliant couplet that rhymes putz and clutz. Clearly my finest lyrical hour. Second, it’s just an absolute bitch to sing. Talk about a punch in the nards. I wrote it in… 2009? Maybe? 2010? Something like that. Some pre-GarageBand date. I’ve recorded it a couple of times, and because the words were written first (which is super rare for me) and without a melody, when it was eventually put to music there was one little snag.

There was no place to breathe.

Breathing… it’s kinda important. When I recorded it before I used two tracks and they each sang alternating lines. It was a cheat. I was willing to do it again, but I thought I might try to fix it. I sped up the tempo a bit so I could get through each section in less time, and I changed a couple of quarter notes to an eighth note rest/eight note combo. Basically I put in space for really quick breaths. It worked. Except that now I feel like I am going to die. The end of the song goes verse/chorus/chorus and there are no spaces between, and the vocal from each section runs straight into the next. I had to do a 24 bar phrase with only teeny tiny little gaps for breath.

Oxygen deprivation is a thing. My head hurts. What a putz*.

*See what I did there? I said putz after previously saying putz was my finest lyrical moment? Damn, I write good and stuff.