Day 11 (yesterday) was as close to a complete bust as one can come without being 100% progress-free.
I noodled a couple of bass riffs into GarageBand on my iPhone. I made it to work a little early and brought up the app while sitting in the car in the parking lot at the office. Better than nothing though, right?
That’s all.
After cranking out a ton of work on days eight and nine I considered blowing off day 10 entirely but in the end I didn’t. I noodled out a couple of songs worth of bass riffs just before I fell asleep. Not a lot, but enough to say I’m up to 11 songs in progress now. One of the ideas from last night is in 5/8 time because having one previous song in 5/8 wasn’t mental torture enough.
First, a little back story. The 50/90 Challenge used to be run by the same folks who run the February Album Writing Month challenge (fawm.org). That’s the one that dares you to write 14 songs in 28 days in February. I do that every year without really thinking about it. I do the RPM Challenge, record 10 songs or 35 minutes of original music in February, and I always just make sure I write at least 14 new songs. When I do that I complete both challenges. Hooray.
50/90 didn’t originate with fawm. They took it over at some point and spun off a website all its own. Then last year they shut down the 50/90 website and stopped playing along. I decided to just do it on my own and failed miserably. This year I decided to try it on my own again and we’re on day 10 now. Also this year, in place of 50/90 (which is HUGE), they have started a new thing which is sort of a mini-50/90. Write five new songs in nine days. They kicked it off on July 4th, just like they used to do with 50/90, and yesterday was the ninth and final day.
Was I successful in this new challenge?
Oh yeah, I was.
Did it take a huge rush at the finish line to get it all done in time? Yes. Did I actually over do it and end up with more than five songs? Why yes, yes I did.
So back to the main topic at hand. What did I do yesterday to get it all done on time? When I woke up yesterday morning I had four songs ready to mix. I needed one more but I didn’t have anything close to done yet. I had two songs with rhythm guitars recorded, two songs with just fake bass and drums, and one song that was just a few bass riffs. Notably, that one that just had the bass riffs also had a fake guitar that was meant to be a guide for when I recorded the real guitars.
So what did I do? I just got busy. I drove out to the parking lot I go to when I want to record vocals (so no one in the house can hear me yellin’ at the microphone) and I wrote the melody and the lyrics to the two songs that had guitars while I was recording the vocals. Then I got weird and took the idea that wasn’t really a song form yet but had the guide guitars and just wrote lyrics and a melody and recorded the vocal over each of the three riffs. Sure I would end up using the same recording any time that riff was repeated but so what. It’s my song, I can do whatever the hell I want with it.
When I got home the first thing that I did was make a quick and dirty mix of two of the songs that were ready to go. Then I went down cellar where my guitar nook lives and put lead guitars on the two songs that just got vocals, worked out a rather repetitive song form for the idea that had vocals but no song yet (funny, eh?), then put down the rhythm and lead guitars. Now I had two songs done and five more ready to mix.
Over the course of the rest of the day/evening/night, I mixed ’em all.
So where does that leave me? The five songs in nine days thingie is a resounding success. The 50/90 Challenge is in a state that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Nine songs in the production pipeline. Seven of them are complete and two are just a song form with MIDI bass and drums. That’s everything.
Now the question is, do I take day 10 off because my brain is still fuzzy after cramming so much in over the last two days, or do I start another five songs in nine days mini-challenge and see if I can crank it out again? I guess I’ll let you know when I post day 10’s recap tomorrow.
The Great Decline
Don’t Be Gentle
Go Far
Full Scale
Regression
See Right Through
Cling
I got a lot of work on the project done yesterday, day eight, and I’ve done a ton more work today, day nine, and now I can’t remember which day everything actually happened. How do I recap day eight without slipping in stuff from day nine? Why does it matter to me?
I think I started the day by writing lyrics for one of the songs. That brought me up to three songs that were ready to record vocals so I took my laptop and a mic and a little USB audio interface and drove to an empty parking lot and recorded vocals. When I finished the third song I brought up a fourth song and wrote the melody and lyrics on mic and cranked out a bonus vocal.
Later that day, in the afternoon, I recorded the lead guitar parts for all four of those songs. Did I do anything else? I think I might have put rhythm guitars on one song too. I was hoping to set myself up for more vocals in the car the next day (today, actually). I really didn’t get enough done for that. I wanted lyrics written for 2-3 songs and when the day ended I hadn’t written anything.
I think that’s it for day eight. When I write up the events of day nine it’s going to have a lot of info. After the last two days I am sort of feeling that if I don’t get anything done on day 10 (tomorrow) I won’t be too upset with myself.
I’m writing up day seven at 11:23pm on day eight, which is 37 minutes away from being day nine. I’m so confused.
What did I do? I started song number nine. Just a couple of riffs. I then wrote lyrics and a melody to one song.
That’s all she wrote, folks. Bring on day eight… and nine… ugh.
Today is day seven so I need to write up yesterday’s progress. Day six. Unfortunately the days are sort of running together. What the hell did I do yesterday?
When I got up yesterday morning I had a riff buzzing in my head. It was in an awkward sort of time. I think it was trying to be in 10/8. I picked up my iPhone and played it into GarageBand for iOS in 4/4 with an absurdly fast tempo. The program doesn’t give you the ability to work in wacky time signatures so that was the best I could do. There wasn’t much to it, but let’s call it song number eight.
About an hour or so later there was this:
I put rhythm guitars on the simple little thing I had come up with the night before, song number seven, and onto song number two. That’s all I had time for. I had a meeting at 9:00am and it was getting a little late. Not too late though, I finished my morning routine and logged in to work on time.
Later still, while sitting up in bed shortly before falling asleep for the night, I added some new things to the song I started when I woke up. I tried changing the time signature to 10/8 but that made the GarageBand drummer go super weird and I couldn’t follow what it was doing. I kept losing “the one”… if you’re a musician you know what that means. I switched it back to 4/4 with the tempo set to double time and then set the drummer function to play in half time. It all came out in the end.
When that was done and I was just about ready to fall asleep… I wrote a melody and lyrics for song number one. The first lyrics of the project. I’m hoping to get a couple more done tonight so that I can record some vocals early tomorrow morning. We’ll have to see about that though.
And that is what I accomplished on day six. I fear things are going to be light today and day seven’s update will be uneventful. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
Scroll back a few days and read about how day two was a bust and I only managed to noodle a couple of bass lines. Yesterday was day five and it was better than that, but only just.
I had a super busy work day that included time commuting to and from the office. There wasn’t really time for any music. Just before I went to sleep I managed to sneak in a little work sitting up in bed with my laptop and my little USB piano keyboard thingie.
Let’s call it song number seven. It is overly simple but it’s in 7/8 time so by definition it is cool. You may also call it groovy if you want, but groovy often implies dance-ability and 7/8 makes even the best dancers trip over their own feet (hey, where did that last eighth note go?). It has the bass and drums and the song form all finished and a guide for when I get around to recording the real guitar tracks (spoiler alert, I did that this morning).
So as of bed time last night we are up to seven songs in the production pipeline. No lyrics yet. I need to get cracking on those so I can track some vocals this weekend.
Day four was a busy day for real life stuff but I managed to sneak in two music breaks. First, before work, I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. One of which was the nightmare song that’s in 5/8 time. What the hell was I thinking? Later, shortly before bed, I started song idea number six on my MacBook. The song form is done and the MID Bass and Drums are done. That’s all. Weirdly, it is in 4/4 time. GarageBand for iOS only gives 4/4, 3/4, and 6/8 as options where the Mac version lets you use pretty much any time signature. Often when I work on the Mac I’ll try to use something that doesn’t work on the iPhone or iPad simply because I can. Not this time. This time it was plain old boring 4/4.
That’s all for day four. Right now there are six songs in progress. Three have rhythm guitars. One of those has a melody. Everything else just has bass and drums. That is the state of the challenge as of falling asleep last night.
When I was working on music yesterday, during the brief window of time when I was free to do so, I thought I ended up with a much more impressive amount of progress. Looking back on it now… meh. It was okay, given how busy I was otherwise, and it was WAY better than day two, but over all? Meh.
I took the two bass riffs that made up my entire haul from day two and added a few new bits and worked out the full song form. I then added two new songs. Both had a full song form and MIDI bass and drums along with a MIDI guitar to act as a guide for when I record the real guitars. Song four also has a melody track played on a MIDI electric piano. I didn’t have a chance to add any lyrics. Also, just to note, song number five is in 7/8 time (which is proggy and cool) but song number four is in 5/8 time which is just nuts. I originally had an idea that was in 7/8 but I fucked it up on my first pass at recording the bass line and my screw up worked in 5/8 and I just ran with it. It’s going to be an absolute nightmare to record the guitars and vocals… but watch me turn 5/8 into a theme this year.
Three days in and I am up to five songs in the production pipeline.
Day two was basically a bust. Home owner plumbing emergencies will do that to a guy. I started one idea, song number three, but it was just a couple of short bass riffs on my iPhone. That’s all.
Spoiler alert, day three will be a little bit better. Not much, but a little bit.
Inside the Red Head's Head 