One!

RPM 2016 is officially more successful than RPM 2008. Or 2009. Or 2010 and 2011!.

One song finished. I wrote it last night. Long after I had 14 songs in progress, which means I should have quit while I was ahead. Onward to 20 songs!

RPM Update

Well, my plans for recording vocals more or less went down the shitter. I had Monday off for the holiday, and I took vacation days on Tuesday and Wednesday. The plan was to sing my ass off on the two vacation days, after using the three day weekend to get all the backing tracks done.

I got the backing tracks done, but my beloved wife Jennifer came down with a really awful cold. She called in sick yesterday, so I spent some time writing lyrics and melodies and whispering them into a mic because I’m too big a pussy to sing when there are people in the house.

This morning, my beloved wife Jennifer went to work and I immediately set up the mic and went to work. I decided to save the songs that I worked on yesterday until last, thinking that I should focus on the songs that still need lyrics to be written first. Good move. I finished three songs before Jen texted me that she was coming home. She gave it a shot, but she was too sick to stay in the office and risk passing it on to everyone else. She came home and telecommuted. That means in two vacation days off of work I managed a whopping three vocals. I am screwed.

I have my telecommute day tomorrow, so I can crank out some singing before work and during lunch. Over the weekend there will be a couple of hours where I will be able to be alone and get a little more singing done. Then I have to find time next week, when there isn’t any time to be had. Like I said, I’m screwed.

The good news is, there are a total of 13 songs with lyrics written, including the three that I’ve already recorded. If I can quickly record vocals for the rest of those and write and record one more, then I will be set for both RPM and FAWM.

Further good news, one of the songs with finished vocals is ready to mix. Guess what I’m doing tonight. So I have a goal to write and record 14 songs. The song that I finished tracking today is song number 18. I wrote the whole thing on my iPad last night, including the lyrics and melody, and recorded the whole thing today. I still have this half baked idea of sending in two 10 song CDs to RPM headquarters in Portsmouth. I actually started piecing together song #19 today. It’s just a 12-string and a little bit of a lyric so far, but it’s there. Getting to 20 songs is a given at this point. Finishing 20 songs feels like a pipe dream.

Of course the best news of all is that my brilliant, beautiful, beloved wife Jennifer is feeling much better this afternoon. Hopefully she’ll be right as rain tomorrow. I hate it when she’s sick and I can’t make her all better. Poor sweetie.

It Lives!

The 12-string guitar… it lives!

Three of the 14 songs had space reserved for acoustic guitar. One of those three was designed to have all of it’s rhythm guitar parts be acoustic (and it’s in drop D too!). Those parts are all finished now.

After I recorded the last piece I sort of felt like I was in the groove, ya know? So I kicked off two new songs. One is just a 12-bar blues but it’s in 7/8 time. Take that, establishment! The other is the second song inspired by something I read on the FAWM forum. Someone threw out a challenge to write a song using the “ice cream changes”. That refers to a chord progression that was used and reused extensively in the 1950s and early 60s. Basically, rock and roll pre-Beatles. It is, for the theory nerds in the audience, I – vi – IV – V. I actually used that progression once already, on song #14, but I transposed it to a minor key, making it i – VI – iv – v. (For the non-theory folks, a capital roman numeral refers to a major chord, and a lower case refers to a minor chord.) As I referenced with The Who song I posted yesterday, I am embracing the fact that all of my songs sound the same, and just not worrying about it this year. Given that, I used the ice cream changes again, only this time I kept it in a major key.

So if you do the math, I’m up to 16 songs now. No lyrics yet, and some of them don’t even have a song form yet. Still… 16 songs! WOOHOO

Go RPM Challenge!

Inventory

I took a little RPM inventory tonight and updated my trello board. I have 14 songs in progress. Seven have all of the rhythm guitar parts done and are in the ready for vocals list. Three more have guitars recorded but still need to have the song forms worked out. Four more still need more pieces to be written. Tomorrow is the half way point of the month. I’d say I’m in half decent shape.

Some, not All

I didn’t even come close to getting as much done as I’d hoped today, but RPM progress has been made. I am now up to nine songs with rhythm guitars recorded. Yay, eh? It’s almost time to break out the acoustic guitar. Be afraid!

I thought I was going to have two full work days with the house to myself. I was wrong. I will have one full work day with the house to myself. I will have to get as much vocalizin’ and socializin’* done on that day as possible, and then cram in the rest when I can get a free minute here and there. The double album plan is kaput.

*That is a Bloom County reference. Death Tongue. Remember that? Before they sold out and went all corporate rock and changed their name to Billy and the Boingers? When Opus learned what Bono already knew? No words rhyme with Nicaragua? Remember? On the Death Tongue comic, Steve Dallas was listed as lead vocalising and socialising. One of the two spellings I’ve used on this post might be correct. Also, both of the spellings could be wrong.

Finally

At long last, I have actually recorded guitar parts that are usable. Last Thursday I recorded the guitars for two songs but there was a lag issue between GarageBand for iPad and the Amplitube amp sim I was using and things sounded just a tiny, hair off. Other than that, there had been no actual instruments on any of my RPM songs to this point. It’s February 11th and I didn’t have a single guitar part recorded!

Today is my telecommute day though, and I was home from dropping off the kids by about 7:10. I spent the next hour and 40 minutes on guitars. I rerecorded the bad parts for those two songs from last week, and then cranked out two more songs. That’s four guitar parts down, nine to go, and I still need to add at least one more song.

My time management is pretty awful this year, but I will… I WILL… get everything done on time.

RPM Challenge – Day 9

This has been the weirdest RPM to date. I have 13 songs in progress, but I don’t have a single recorded instrument track that is useable. I’ve got a few guitar tracks down, but I want to replace all of them. Everything I have so far is just built in GarageBand sounds. Guitar, bass, and drums. I have so much guitar to do that it’s starting to feel overwhelming. Every day I come home and say, tonight I record guitars! Then every night something comes up. It’s getting frustrated. I took a couple of days off from work next week to start vocals. I need all of the rhythm guitars done before then, never mind adding real bass guitar.

Like I said, weirdest RPM experience ever.

RPM Challenge – Day 2

I haven’t recorded any real instruments yet, but I’ve got a nice chunk of work done so far using my iPad and iPhone. Yesterday I wrote a bass riff in the shower, a little guitar/bass groove while sitting in the car before work, and a little guitar riff while on my lunch break. When I got home I wrote 3-4 phrases for another song, with all the parts but no actual arrangements yet. I then fleshed out the car-before-work idea with 3-4 more sections and all the pieces, but again no actual arrangement of those sections.

Today, to start day two, I did another set of phrases with all instruments but no arrangement. Count them up and you’ve got five songs in progress before 6:45am on day two. Not a bad start.

Now we just have to hope the ideas don’t suck. They probably do.

Here is the annual works-in-progress playlist, which currently holds nothing but cheesy GarageBand for iPad sounds.