Anyone Else Play Guitar Today?

Hey everyone, raise your hand if you were able to sneak some guitar playing in before work this morning.

Robert timidly raises his hand.

Yup, I recorded lead parts for two songs. I now officially have no songs in progress that are currently ready for any guitar tracks. I have to do some MIDI work tonight, and maybe some car vocals in the morning, and then I’ll have some stuff ready to work on.

The Great Guitar Pick Journey of 2024 continues as well. I tried another new one today. Much of my internet research pointed to Dunlop as the brand to go with. I tried Max Grip first (1.14mm) and those were okay, but no as good as the Fender picks I’d been using for ages. They have little grippy things on them that are supposed to keep them from spinning around between your fingers as you play, and that worked but it felt awkward. I am sure I could get used to it but I moved on to option two this morning (for now at least).

Option two is Dunlop Tortex Jazz III. This one was much better than the Max Grip in all ways but one. The little guy is just tiny. I kept going into muscle memory mode and literally missed the strings. It’s just small. It feels really good in my hand, and the overwhelming majority of suggestions I’ve received in my online questioning said to try them. I’ll stick with it for a while, but I am wondering if they make the same pick only bigger.

I have two other options that I want to try before I start looking outside of Dunlop, but I haven’t bought either of them yet. One of them is pretty expensive for a pic. We’ll see.

Anyway, here are the obligatory pictures from this morning’s lead guitar playing extravaganza.

Two amps… I ran them both direct out though. No speakers. Sadface.

Long Day Alert

Wow… Wednesday… am I right or am I right?

It’s a work-in-the-office day. I woke up nice and early, though about half an hour later than I was hoping. I had a lot of meetings on my work calendar today, the first of them being very early in the day. I wanted to make sure I could get through my whole morning routine, including 45 minutes of jogging (pronounced yogging) in place and making lunch and packing emergency protein snacks and all of that stuff while still leaving enough time for me to get to work a little early.

Unfortunately when I got out of bed I saw that we got a dusting of snow overnight. Not a lot, but enough to cover everything and guarantee a terrible morning commute. I was hoping to get out onto the road by 7:15. I made it by 7:20, but I had to cut my exercise in half to pull off that feat. That means I am going to have to yog tonight when I get home and I really do not want to do that. I wasn’t late to work, but it did take me an hour and a half to drive the 40 miles.

Now that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon, I have survived two big meetings and I have a third coming up in half an hour. I’m stressing out, big time, but once I get through today I will not have to worry about this sort of thing for a while and I am happy about that idea.

Tomorrow and Friday I will be working from home. I am optimistic that I will be able to get a lot of music done before work both days. Fingers crossed for some guitar playing and car vocals and fun stuff like that. I’m also thinking it would be nice to mix a song or two over the weekend. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

For now though, I am really tired and can’t wait to get through my next meeting so that I can relax a little. Maybe if I can get my exercise finished right after dinner tonight I might be able to go to bed early and enjoy not having to stress over a work project for the first time in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, right?

Car Music: 2024

Was today the first car music of 2024? I think so.

I snuck out of the house a few minutes after 7:30, got to the movie theater parking lot (which wasn’t quite as empty as I like it to be) by 7:40 and recorded vocals for two songs until 8:25. I didn’t have time for any more, and even if I did I might not have. It was a struggle today. My voice was very scratchy and I’m not terribly pleased with the results… then again I am never pleased with the results so what difference does it make?

The upside is I now have two songs that are ready for lead guitars. The downside is that I have no calluses on the fingers on my left hand so recording lead guitars is going to hurt a bit. I can hack it though. I’m practically a pro at this… not really… whatever.

Here’s the view of my “studio” today:

There was a truck parked right next to my usual spot so I had to move over a few rows.

In closing, here is the obligatory clock picture:

No Music This Morning

I didn’t play my guitar this morning. I had to punch in to work early to get some paperwork wrapped up before the start of the business day so I spent my time on that instead of music. A fair trade, I guess.

The plan for tomorrow is car vocals. Get up early, do my exercise, have breakfast, hop into the car and drive to an empty parking lot and sing like a deaf canary. Epic. I have six songs in the current volume of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project that are ready for vocals. Maybe I can pick off two of them. If things go really well, maybe three. I spend more time on the re-recording stuff than on the usual demo projects. I want them to be better than usual, even though I am a crappy singer and they end up sounding equally as garbagey.

Last night before bed I spent some time adding guide tracks to some of the songs. Just a MIDI piano playing (roughly) the vocal melody and harmony parts so that I can have a little help when I record the actual vocals. All of these songs have been recorded once before, but I tuned the guitar down a half step this time around so they are all in a different key and that’s just enough to screw up my memory of how to do things. My ear is good enough that it can usually rise above such mini-challenges, but why not give it a little help, right?

I already have two songs that are ready to mix. One of them has been ready to mix for about 18 months now and I just haven’t had the energy to get it done. I’d like to pick off one of them tonight, but as the haiku in the previous post hinted, I am freakin’ exhausted already today (it’s 2:46pm and I am ready for bed). I am not going to have the energy for anything tonight beyond making dinner, going grocery shopping, and then coming home and impersonating a vegetable in front of the TV.

I call that making plans.

Car vocals tomorrow! You heard it here first! (Now don’t let the public down, Robert!)

Officially On a Streak

When I finished playing guitar yesterday morning I had run out of tracks that needed to be recorded. Last night I started another re-recording song so that I could have something to work on today. Now here we are again with nothing ready to work on because for the third day in a row I played guitar!

I now have six quarantine tunes ready for vocals. That’s what I call a backlog. It’s going to take me a while to get through all of that. I have one more song on my list for this round of re-recordings. I had two but I decided to drop one of them. If I can prep that one with bass and drum MIDI tracks today then I’ll have something to do tomorrow morning. Then we start doing car music on Tuesday? We’ll see how it shakes out.

Obligatory guitar pics, via Hipstamatic shake-to-shuffle….

More Playing

I played guitar again this morning! Two days in a row!

I put rhythm guitars on a Quarantine tune, and lead guitar on another song. It was my first recorded lead on the new frets and the first recorded lead in months, meaning I have no calluses, meaning ouch town, population: me.

In other guitar playing news, the new pick journey officially began today as well.

I started with a Dunlop grippy model and amazingly dropped it within seconds of starting to play. WhatWhatWhat??

Pre-Work Day Guitar Playing

I recorded some guitar tracks today! WOOHOO!

I put rhythm guitars on one Quarantine Tunes vol. Seven song. Lots of chunky wah-wah groove. Awesome. Here’s hoping I get to make some time to play a lot this weekend. I have a lot of stuff ready for car vocals too.

Get to work, Robert!

Make Music

I have barely done anything musical in the past week. I told myself I was going to work on Quarantine Tunes Volume 7 this month, and I have done some work. I just haven’t done enough.

I have one song ready to mix, but it’s been ready to mix for about a year. I have one song ready for lead guitars but, again, it’s been ready for about a year. I have three songs ready for vocals and I have been trying to get myself into a place where I can record them (meaning in the car in an empty parking lot at the crack of dawn) but I’ve failed to get it done all week. Tomorrow, maybe? I also have two songs ready for rhythm guitars but I just haven’t been able to make the time to record the tracks. I will, I just need to get myself motivated.

Motivation! Why do you vex me so? Get your ass in gear, Robert! Do something! Play the effin’ guitar, you bozo! Make some music!

Four Years Ago

We didn’t know it until a few days later, but on this date four years ago we lost Neil Peart. Easily the most painful moment of my musical life. He had such an impact on me. I’m sure if I ever told him that it would embarrass the hell out of him, so I would never have said anything even if I had the chance… but it’s true. It’s silly that some clown in a rock band that I never met could have such a huge effect on who I grew up to be… but it’s true. You know? It’s true.

Mental Health Break

I played guitar today. I worked on two songs. I used the direct out and cabinet sims off of two amps, which broke my amps and speakers rule for the re-recording project, but I didn’t wake Harry so that was worth it.

I played like dog shit, but I played and that’s what matters. I needed it. I have more to do so I might sneak some more playing in later today.

Sigh of relief.