Tag: Music

Zombies and Music

I’m still thinking about an album in a day challenge for tomorrow. I started working on the first song idea at 9:45 this evening. That means I have until 9:45 tomorrow night to finish about half an hour worth of music. It’s already feeling like a failure. I started too late to have enough ready to go for a car music in the morning. that means I’ll probably have to do a late morning car music and maybe an afternoon as well. That doesn’t seem likely.

Another roadblock was having to watch tonight’s new episode of The Walking Dead Daryl Dixon show. Did anyone else notice that the woman who played the nun who sets Daryl on his mission is the same woman who played Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter movies? I guess there are only so many French actresses around but still, she fought the Death Eaters so I bet she can take out zombies with the best of them.

Another impediment to the album in a day thing is the Doctor Who binge watch. I started season 12 tonight. That means I have finally reached the Tom Baker 4th Doctor era. He’s the Doctor I used to see on reruns on PBS back in the 80’s. He’s more or less the reason I wanted to binge watch the original show in the first place.

So I probably won’t finish a full album in a day, but I will add a lot of new stuff for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. So it’s all good.

Time Off Projects

We are about 200 miles from home. We’ll get there sometime tomorrow, probably in the mid-afternoon, after we drop off the rental car at the airport. We were originally coming home on Monday. I booked time off from work on Monday and Tuesday. Eventually the plans changed and we were booked to come home on Sunday but I never cancelled the Monday and Tuesday time off. Now that we’ll be getting home on Sunday, though not as planned, I want to come up with some projects to work on to have something creative and productive to do on those two days off.

The weather is going to suck on Monday, but be pretty good on Tuesday. I think I will try to pull off an album-in-a-day project on Monday. I’ll start it Sunday evening, I think, and then see if I can get 30 minutes of new music written and recorded by the same time on Monday. It will all count toward the 50 songs in 90 days challenge as well.I have only ever pulled off the album-in-a-day thing once. Maybe I can get it done again.

On Tuesday, if the weather is as good as predicted, I hope to do some photography stuff. Sunrise at the ocean, then a spot or two on top. Maybe this will finally be my morning in Boston? Who knows. After the photo-walk (whatever it ends up being) is done I’ll get back to 50/90 for the rest of the day.

Either that or I’ll just watch Doctor Who for the full two days off. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Tuesday Morning Music

Last night, just before I fell asleep, I added a new song idea to the 50 songs in 90 days thing. It is song number 47 and I made it all that way before I worked on a 12-bar blues. Usually the first 12-bar pops up way earlier in the project than this.

This morning I got up early and added guitar tracks to three songs, including the shiny new 12-bar. If I don’t start cranking out lyrics like a lyric writing factory, then this whole challenge is going to seriously crash and burn. I still have a mountain of stuff to do and not a lot of time left to do it in.

For now though, Hipstamatic guitar pics. Shake to Shuffle.

Back Up Your Files

Do as I say, not as I do (or in this case don’t do what I didn’t do). Back up your files. Always back up your damn files.

Yeah, you know that car music I did yesterday? The one where I put vocals on four songs? Yeah, I just accidentally deleted the vocal track from one of those songs. I didn’t notice until after I was past the point where undo could bring it back. Also, with all the travelin’ fun yesterday I never got around to backing up the work I did in the car and now that vocal take is gone forever and I have to do it again.

On the up side though, I did manage to put rhythm guitars onto four songs today and lead guitars onto three. It should have been leads on four, but one of them needs to have the vocals redone because I am a friggin’ idiot.

Back up your files. Always.

10/365
10/365

Note: Today’s work has already been backed up. That doesn’t fix what I didn’t back up yesterday though. Moron.

Saturday Morning Music

Car music happened this morning. I drove to the movie theater parking lot and put vocals on four songs. Three of them were written beforehand, one was written on mic. I don’t do that very often anymore, but I had run out of tracks to sing and wasn’t quite ready to stop so I threw it together on the spot. Sweet.

The view from “the recording studio”

I was originally thinking of spending some time playing guitar today but I don’t think I will have quite enough time, what with our plans to go to Vermont to visit the kids this afternoon. Instead the goal is to write some more lyrics so I can have another successful car music tomorrow, and set up some song forms so that I can have a lot of songs ready for rhythm guitars tomorrow as well.

The goal is 50 songs by October 1st. 27 songs are done, 46 are in progress. It doesn’t look good, but it’s still doable. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Friday Morning Music

I over slept a little today, and then took longer than usual to get my act together. That means I didn’t have a lot of time for music. I did get to spend about 45 minutes working on one song. Yesterday I started… I think… four new song ideas? One got guitars, one got a full song form, and then one song I started a few days ago (the only song I touched in the first six days of September) got a full song form. That last one was the one I put guitars on today.

Tonight I have to write lyrics. I need to do singing in the car both days this weekend. I need to have songs ready to mix by the time our Florida trip starts so that I can have something to do while we’re away and I can’t sleep at night because I am not in my own bed. You know how that goes, right? Although, I do expect to be physically wrecked after full days in the Disney World parks. You know how that goes, right?

Anyway, some photos.

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8/365 – Photo a Day Challenge
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Guilt Works Sometimes

Yesterday I wrote a post trying to guilt myself into working on new music today.

It worked.

One new song, complete with double tracked rhythm guitars.

Also, today’s photo a day is done. All before starting the work day. Not bad for a guilt trip.

7/365
7/365
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Musically Guilt Yourself, Robert

It’s September 6th. I have blown off the bulk of the first week of the last month of the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. Like a putz. I have worked on one eight bar riff this month. Like a jerk.

Tomorrow. You heard me. Tomorrow I start pushing things again. Tomorrow I will make progress. I will work any ideas that aren’t in song form yet into a song form. I will add new riffs and chord change ideas and work them into songs. I will, hopefully, record some rhythm guitar tracks. I will also write some lyrics and some melodies so that I can do a full on onslaught of car music this weekend.

Progress will be made, Robert! Progress will be made!

And that, kids, is Robert trying to use his blog to guilt himself into working on the music challenge. Yeah, that’s what this is. Bring it on.

Less Than Nine Hours to Go

It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.

I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.

What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.

I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.

Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.

You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!

Speed (Rough) Mixing Night

I have mixed a bunch of songs tonight. I’ve lost count. Four? Maybe? I keep thinking that once I get one that doesn’t suck I’ll post it. I give up so I’ll just post this dog just to share something.