Yesterday was day 27, which means as I type this it’s day 28 and it’s the last day and I am too panicked (musically) to think straight.
I seriously forget what I accomplished yesterday. I know I did two songs worth of vocals, and I know I mixed four songs. I also did some sax parts but was it two songs or three? I also, also did some lead guitar but was it three songs or four? I think it was three parts each but they combined to finish four songs. I think.
It doesn’t matter. I have two more lead guitar parts to record and then I have to mix EIGHT songs, make a cover photo, and pick the running order for the final album submission.
That sound you hear off in the distance? That’s me screaming in frustration.
I just finished mixing the 12th song for this year’s RPM Challenge. I kinda sorta like it. I think the GarageBand drummer would have worked up quite a sweat if it were a real human being and not a piece of software. Oh well.
12 songs down, eight to go. Two of them still need their last guitar tracks to be recorded. So ridiculously much left to do and I only have tomorrow left to do it. Oh, and I have a full work day to get through too. If I manage to pull it all off then I expect my brain to be a puddle of melted mush by the time I sleep tomorrow.
I did my car music this morning. I was out of the house a couple of minutes past 6:00am. I only had two songs to work on so I knew it was going to be a short trip. What I didn’t know was that it was going to freakin’ snow!
We only got enough to cover everything, but I don’t think we were supposed to get anything at all. At least I didn’t hear anything yesterday. Granted, I knew the forecast was calling for it to be warm today so I didn’t pay attention to any precipitation predictions but still… what the hell?
Fortunately it didn’t stop me from finishing the last two songs worth of vocal tracks for this year’s RPM Challenge. Once I got home I finished the last three saxophone parts too. On top of that, I managed to sneak in a few songs worth of guitar leads. I am still not finished with tracking for this month’s project. I still have to add lead guitar to two more songs. After that, all that will be left is to mix the last (gulp) 12 songs. Yikes!
All of this zaniness ends tomorrow… record two guitar leads and mix 12 songs… and work two full work days… yeah… I can do it. I’ll stress out and be on the verge of constant musical freak out, but I can do it.
Not a lot on day 26 (yesterday), but what I did was important.
I wrote the lyrics and the melody for each of the last two songs. That sets me up for a short vocal session in the car on day 27 (which I am literally packing up a bag to go do as I type this) which will leave me with 20 songs potentially finished… or something like that. 19 vocal songs and one instrumental.
Speaking of the instrumental, I mixed it last night and boy is it terrible. Oh well.
Only two days left and I am about to start musically panicking. Come along for the ride, let’s all panic together!
There will be car music in the morning before work. I had two songs that needed lyrics and melodies and I wrote them both out tonight. I also mixed one song but it is absolute garbage so I ain’t sharing it. Sorry.
It’s quarter to 10pm now and I am exhausted. I’m hoping I can get the vocals recorded quickly tomorrow (I am positive I just jinxed myself though) so I can have some time for lead guitars and saxophone. Three of the six songs that still need lead parts have places reserved for sax solos. I don’t know if I have it in me though, especially where the song I mixed tonight had a lot of sax and it just sounds awful. My playing was embarrassing.
Two days to go… I’m feeling the crunch for reals, but I still think I can pull off all 20 songs. It depends on how things go in the morning.
Two days in a row now I have skipped my daily exercise. Uh oh, bad habits forming over here!
Why? So I could record guitar tracks for RPM Challenge songs. That seems like a good reason. It will probably happen again tomorrow but instead of guitar it will be recording vocals in the car… assuming I can write the vocal parts for the last two songs before I fall asleep tonight. That’s a pretty big if.
Should I manage to get up early enough tomorrow I might be able to sneak some guitar playing in before work too. What about saxophone? I’m not sure if any of the remaining songs have plans for sax or not. I think one or two might. I also think I might just make a game time decision and change those planned sax parts to guitar parts. We’ll see. I put sax on four songs so far. That’s 20% of the entire project. That seems like an acceptable amount… though 25 or 30% seems more acceptable. We’ll have to see.
Once all of the songs are mixed (and hopefully that means all 20 songs and not some smaller number because I just declared mixing done while there were still songs outstanding) I have to pick an album running order. I might actually do three playlists. One with the 10 electric songs, another with the 10 acoustic songs, and then one with just the best 10 overall. That would be the one that I declare the Official 2025 RPM Challenge Album Submission, whatever that means. I thought about using AI to generate an image for the album cover but AI is fucking evil so I will just “borrow” something off of wikipedia. The working title of the final album is still Groundhogs Wear Top Hats but I might change that to Groundhogs and Top Hats to make the image search a little less ridiculous. We’ll see.
For now though, here are this morning’s stupid pics. I switched from the 85mm f1.8 lens to the 40mm f2.0 lens to give myself a little bit of a new option for the same old pics. The first one is today’s photo a day picture (179/365).
I’ve been doing so much at random points through the days that I am sort of losing my handle on exactly what I did, and that’s making these little recap posts difficult. What did I do yesterday on day 25?
I started the day by skipping my morning exercise routine. I put acoustic rhythm guitars onto one song. It just so happened that that one song already had vocals from the last car music session so I switched to electric guitar and added leads. I also added leads to an additional song. Then I drove to work for the day.
After work I really tried to focus on wrapping up the mix down for as many songs as I could, but I kept getting pulled away by things that are way more important… like cooking dinner… right? I mixed three songs. I was hoping to get at least one more in, but I sort of fell asleep twice during the process and quit while I was ahead.
I’m back in the office today. I did manage some stuff this morning but there is sooo much more to do. I’m not worried about having a finished RPM Challenge album, I’m only three songs short of qualifying for that, but I am worried about finishing everything I planned on top of the minimum requirements. So much to do and so little time.
Inside the Red Head's Head 