Tag: Music

Backwards

I just kicked off song number 10 for RPM. I made it the simplest, easiest thing imaginable. Rhythm guitars, bass, and drums are all done. I made it simple because I had a gimmick. A sick, doofus, goofy gimmick.

The guitars are backwards in every other measure. It’s not clean. I recorded the whole song in a couple of sections and then edited the track so I could swap the direction of every other bar. In almost every measure I came in a teeny tiny bit early so there’s just barely the sound of the pick touching the low E string that gets moved from the end of each bar to the beginning, so there’s noise at the start of each backward bar where it should be quiet.

I don’t care. It’s a gimmick and it was fun to do.

More importantly, it let me make some progress today without actually having to write any lyrics.

I Have Run Out of Songs (for Today)

I started the day with eight songs, only three of which had guitar parts recorded. I am now up to nine songs, all of which have guitar parts recorded. I have literally (temporarily) run out of songs! I guess it’s time to both add more songs and write some lyrics. Yikes!

I did the two different guitars thing on the first few songs today, but got tired of switching so I just stuck with the Les Paul for the last few.

Slept Late

My 18 year old self laughs at me when I say that we slept late today and got up at 8:00am. However, we slept late and got up at 8:00am. I slept okay after my second fully caffeine free day. I woke up a few times but my numbers looked good. The heart rate dip was really good and the restful sleep percentage was the same as the first day. I feel okay today.

Not a lot on the agenda today. Hopefully lots of guitar playing. Jen’s working on a project so I want to stay out of her way. I have five songs that need rhythm guitars. I should see if I can add to that list too. I would like to get to it, but I find myself distracted by a video on YouTube where Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick shows off some highlights from his massively gigantic guitar collection. It’s only an hour and eighteen minutes. I wonder if they’ll do a video like this with Steve Howe.

Tracking Guitars – #RPM2022

One of my gimmicky ideas for this year’s RPM Challenge is to double the rhythm guitar tracks with two different guitars. I thought of that a few weeks ago but figured I probably wouldn’t go through with it. Tonight? The first time I sat down to record guitars? I did it. One guitar part panned hard left, another panned hard right. I always do that. This time, instead of using the same guitar on both tracks…

You’ll hear the Les Paul coming out of your left speaker:

and the SG coming out of your right speaker:

Fun, huh? I only got through three songs, but that’s a good start.

No Electrical Fun Today

Jen was going to rewire the light switch in the dining room today because she’s absolutely amazing. She was doing a little research last night and found that our switch contains some stuff that we weren’t prepared to deal with, so we gave it a miss and are looking to have an electrician come in. That means one of the two main projects on the agenda for today didn’t happen. The other main project is my super hero wife making spaghetti sauce from scratch. It’s on the stove right now and it smells so good.

You would think that I would have used this extra time to record guitars. Nope. Not yet. Maybe after dinner. That seems like a decent plan. If not, tomorrow. Instead of guitars I worked on drums. Not literally, more like I worked on GarageBand functions that simulate drums.

GarageBand has a tool called Session Drummers. There are a bunch of different “drummers” to choose from, all with different styles and different quirks. I tend to bounce back and forth between two. One that is pretty straight ahead rock and another that is more R&B. For the last two (I think) Quarantine projects I only used the rock drummer. I was planning on sticking with the R&B drummer for RPM but, with eight songs underway, I changed my mind. I went through a bunch of the options available today and picked a different Rock thing. I then changed the drummer on all eight songs.

Will the listener be able to tell the difference? Nope. Not likely.

Does it matter to anyone on the planet Earth other than me? Nope. Not at all.

Damn if that sauce doesn’t smell gooooood.

Happy Ice Storm Day

Snow is bad enough, but when little chunks of ice fall from the sky? That’s just mother nature being a jerk. We’re supposed to be getting a full day of this crap. Yippee. I just put ice melt all over the driveway. Our new furnace is supposed to get a check up today so I want to decrease the danger of a slip. The guy is supposed to be on his way so I am sitting here with a mask hanging off one ear. I am so* sick of having to wear a mask, but unlike 50% of America, I am willing to deal with the difficulty in order to keep other people healthy.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, ice. The first sand truck just went past. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn into a big deal today. I hate winter. I hate ice. Blah.

I failed to do anything with the RPM Challenge yesterday. I’m optimistic today will be more productive, but who knows. We are up to date on The Book of Boba Fett, I am up to date on Peacemaker, and Jen and I watched the first episode of Pam and Tommy. I wonder how historically accurate it is. I remember hearing about a contractor and I remember hearing about a safe, but is this how it happened? Not that it matters. Also, is Sebastian Stan (sp?) a method actor? I kinda hope not, because that would require him to take a lot of cocaine. Yikes!

Sigh… It’s Friday. I really want to get through this work day with as little stress as possible. I also want to have my next batch of appointments booked. The weekend is so close I can smell it, and it smells like freedom. Or something like that.

*I am trying to set the world record for the most uses of the word “so” in a blog paragraph. Thanks for cheering me on!

Anniversary

I missed an important anniversary yesterday. I was all focused on Covid itself and I missed an important date that is mainly important because of Covid.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of the last time Lizardfish played together. It was Greg’s birthday party. We played a couple of sets and it went really well (except for the untimely death of a snare drum head, RIP). We took a couple of weeks off after the show, like we usually do, then Jen, Harry, and I went to Florida for a week, and by the time we got back Covid was a thing and the country was starting to shut down.

We haven’t played since.

Every time I start thinking I might be okay with trying to get together, something Covid related happens that screws it up. We were talking about maybe having a play in December. I wasn’t really good with that, but maybe early January? Nope. Omicron. Crud.

Maybe… things seem to be calming down around here. Maybe March? Ugh. I miss playing for real. I miss my band.

And We’re Off… Again – #RPM2022

Here we go again.

Welcome to February and the annual onslaught of RPM Challenge posts. Hurray for bad music! Well, a lot of the people who play the RPM game make excellent music. I just don’t feel you’re reading a post from one of those people right now.

The Trello board has been created and the first card has been added! The working title being “RPM 22 01 iPad” because it’s 2022, it’s the first idea, and the file was originally created on my iPad (only because the Logic Remote app isn’t playing nicely this morning, otherwise it would have been started on the Mac).

Does song number one contain a tempo change? Why yes, yes it does. Look at me being all musically thematic and shit.

Have fun, folks!