I just don’t get it. Why does Mother Nature hate me so much?
I only telecommute one day each week, and I need the time between Jen and Harry leaving for work and school and me needing to punch into work to work on vocal tracks for RPM. I seriously bank on that time to get through a lot of what I need to get done. It’s really important.
Last week was the first Thursday in February and it snowed. Harry had a snow day. No singing on mic for me. Today is the second Thursday in February and guess what… it snowed again. We didn’t get a whole lot but it was enough for him to get a two hour delay.
What the actual….
It’s Mother Nature screwing with me, isn’t it. This is all about me. Two Thursdays, two snow storms. I hate snow! I really need my Thursday mornings, damn it. Knock it off!
At least today I was able to get a little recording in during lunch. Two more songs done, both of which had been started earlier in the week. I’ve got that going for me at least.
Okay so tonight’s recording-in-my-bedroom session has answered two important questions.
Can I still play the saxophone?
The answer to this question is yes. I can still play the saxophone.
Can I still play the saxophone well?
The answer to this question is an emphatic, hilarious, no. I cannot still play the saxophone well.
I can still improvise on a blues scale in C though. It’s like riding a bike. Totally second nature. It took a little more time to get acclimated to improvising on a blues scale in F, but I blundered my way through that one as well.
I think I may have answered another question too. I mentioned in a previous post today that my computer fell off my desk this morning. I had no idea how that could have happened. Then when I came back to the office after my little recording-in-my-bedroom session tonight I saw this:
Ms Patches sitting pretty, shamelessly right in the middle of the laptop stand. I think Scotland Yard has itself a chief suspect in this case. Elementary, my dear Patches.
Check it out, I have been using the Logic Remote iPad app as a… ya know… remote. I’ve only ever used it as a midi controller to add midi instruments to GarageBand files, but over the last few days I’ve been using it as a remote control while recording guitar parts.
When I put together my workspace I put the computer on one side of the room and the pedal board on the other. I picked up an extension chord for my headphones, which allowed me to step on pedals while the tape was rolling, but it was the remote that let me stand by the pedals the whole time I’ve been working.
Well, most of it. I can’t select regions from the remote (can’t I?) and I can’t set up loops (can’t I?) but it does everything else I need to do. The best part?? It actually works! The midi controller functionality is a mess (though it’s infinitely better than it used to be) but the remote control works!
I picked off a vocal this morning, wrote a new song and recorded guitars for it tonight, and recorded the guitars for the only remaining pre-existing song too. I’m up to 14 songs, all with rhythm guitars done (the new song from tonight still needs a bass guitar part though, don’t forget!), and two of them have vocals too.
I have to have all the tracking done before vacation. Will I pull it off??
I think so but I’m starting to feel the crunch. The vocals are the logjam, I have to keep plugging away at them. Two down, 12 to go!
I did some recording and still managed to leave for work a little early… and the traffic was so bad I was 10 minutes late. In the traffic’s defense, it was almost drizzling. Hoo… ray.
I put the acoustic guitar onto the last two songs that need acoustic guitar, assuming I don’t come up with another one. They are both strummy and loud and boy are my arms tired. My arms are so tired you’d think I just flew in from the coast, har har hardy har har.
I’ve got one more song that needs electric rhythm guitar. That’ll bring the count up to 13. I want to add one more electric song too. Then there’s the Blind Chaos thing.
For the uninitiated, blind chaos was a thing that was started in 2009 and ran, I think, pretty much every year until the forums/site was rebooted. The basic premise is record roughly 36 minutes of something and someone mixes it all together into an RPM Album.
I’ve never done one of these before. This, or something similar, has gone on more or less every year that I’ve been paying attention. If I decide to submit a contribution I would just plug in my guitar, hit record, and make noises for 36 minutes. Those noises can be musical or not, or some combination of both. When I first read that forum post a couple of weeks ago I was pretty intrigued by the idea. What would I do? Noodle? Crank the amp and get as much glorious feedback as possible? Kick on a delay pedal and make as much glorious self oscillation noise as possible? Some combination thereof?
I don’t know what I’d do if I even did it, and I don’t know if I want to do it or not. Maybe if I finish absolutely everything on the musical agenda before we leave for Florida. Not likely, but maybe.
I got quite a lot done over the last two days. Not nearly enough, but quite a good chunk. I can’t go into it now because the birthday girl and I are watching TV like an old married couple.
I’ve had a decent recording day today. I added the rhythm guitar to the last four acoustic songs, and one of the electric songs. I’m bushed. My back hurts, my hands hurt, my head hurts, but I got a lot done.
Les Paul into KTR into Two Bassbreakers… it sounds like overdrive heaven. It’s so sensitive that every little touch rings out. It’s very unforgiving too so every spec of sloppiness comes through, but it just sounds soo damn cool. That file up above (assuming as always that it pulled into the post) will be deleted the next time I work on that song. For now let’s just use it as an example of how groovy this setup sounds. Also, the song is complete shit. I’m only interested in the trashy goodness of the guitar sound.
I’m guessing within five minutes of posting this I’m going to be embarrassed by how shitty it really sounds. Oh well.
I believe it was Ringo Starr who said it best when he said, “I GOT BLISTERS ON ME FINGERS!”
At least I think that was Ringo.
Anyway. I’ve always found playing an acoustic guitar is more of a work out for the arms than playing electric, and boy are my arms getting tired. (No actual blisters yet though)
I’ve mentioned that we’re going on a trip to Disney World soon. I’ve also mentioned that my foot has been all screwed up and painful lately. I may have mentioned that I sometimes have a lot of back pain too.
The foot has been okay of late and the back pain hasn’t been much of an issue, but I get sore and tired pretty quickly and there is going to be miles upon miles of Disney walking so… I started going to the gym. I’ve been three times this week.
Now before you get all pissy, this isn’t going to be one of those lets all get healthy kinda posts. Screw that, this is about music.
When I go to the gym I almost always just walk on the treadmill until my foot or my back start complaining. It doesn’t take long. I’ve been shooting for 15 minutes to start with. Hey, screw you and your in-shape-body, stop laughing at me! Bullies. Anyway, I always bring my phone and my air pods (I used to bring ear buds but let’s embrace modern technology!) and I listen to music. I always hope that I can just let myself focus on whatever I’m listening to and not even think about the amount of time I’ve been treadmillin’. It never happens though.
Until today.
Today I put on that stupid Spotify playlist that I added to the side panel over there —-> yesterday. The plan was to put 8-10 songs that I’ve been in the mood for lately onto said playlist and updated it every so often. So much for that, it’s about 20 hours long now. Sorry. My plan is to shuffle it, but that is redundant since I only have a free account and that means anything on my phone is shuffled. Fine by me.
So there I am, walking along, listening to music, not being distracted from the clock slowly ticking upward toward the goal of 15 minutes. Then it happened. The shuffle brought me to “Still Got the Blues” by Gary Moore and I just got lost in it. That song is perfect, that recording is perfect, that guitar playing is perfect, that song is perfect (I think I said that already). I let it take me to where ever it needed to take me and the next thing I knew I had been walking for 20 minutes.
Thanks, Gary. Rest in Peace, Sir. I don’t know if you were playing Peter Green’s ’59 Les Paul standard on that one or not (the guitar that is affectionately known as Greenie and is currently owned by Kirk Hammett of Metalica) but I am choosing to believe you did and that is part of why the tone is just perfect.
Anyway, here are some Spicket River pictures and one from downtown Methuen because it’s Saturday and that’s what I do on Saturday…
As I mentioned in a couple of posts yesterday, we are celebrating my beloved bride’s birthday this weekend. She asked for two things: One, to stay in her PJ’s all weekend, and two, for me to let her work all weekend. I will make it happen! I have a few chores to do this weekend, and I need to go grocery shopping. The rest of the time is (hopefully) going to be spent on RPM (probably not though, let’s be realistic). In fact, I’m going to go spend a few minutes recording some acoustic guitar right now.
Happy Saturday, everyone and thanks again to Gary Moore.
Inside the Red Head's Head 