I just made a list of all 20 March and April songs and color coded it based on the state of completion (or incompletion) in which each recording currently resides.
There are two that are ready to mix. Hopefully I’ll get one in tonight.
Rock & Roll, eh?
Here’s another song from the March 10. Back in December while the kids were on Christmas vacation I had a brief idea of writing and recording 4-5 songs as a Christmas Vacation project. It got as far as four Garageband files on my iPad consisting of bass and drums. When the dumb idea of continuing RPM into March came along I rolled those four ideas into RPMarch. Now we’re in May and here we have the first of those four to be mixed. This is actually #3. Not that it matters.
The lyrics are another @floridaman story. If I do 50/90, I might take the lyrics ideas for all 50 songs from that twitter account. It’s a gold mine.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/i-just-explode.mp3%20While I was at it tonight, I also remixed the most recent April song. I brought up the lead guitar (duh) and reduced the sauce on the vocals. I don’t know if it made any difference, but here it is. It still doesn’t have the Highlander line. I guess I’ll have to remix this at least once more.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/time-has-almost-caught-us-my-friend-remix.mp3%20I mentioned yesterday that I was hoping to mix two songs tonight.
Every other Friday I spend the evening hanging out with my mom at my folks’ house while my dad does volunteer work. I get there around quarter to seven and leave about quarter past 10. My mother is usually asleep not long after 8:00, so I usually bring my computer and mess around with music while I wait for Dad to come home. The plan tonight was to try to mix one or both of the two songs that are ready.
This morning before I left I put my computer into my backpack (MacBook Pro, beetches). I had my awesome new blue tooth Bose headphones in their case sitting right next to the computer. I also had my awesome Sennheiser cans, the ones I used to mix last February’s RPM, and last November’s NaSoAlMo, and every thing in between, sitting right there on the desk next to the Bose headphones and the computer.
I forgot to put either pair of headphones into the backpack. I have an old pair of ear buds. Urgh. One of the songs that’s ready to mix is far and away my favorite of this month’s batch (meaning on a scale from 1-10 it’s a 3) so I will mix the other one first. I don’t want to waste the time, and I don’t want to mix a potentially decent song using ear buds.
I am an absent minded nitwit.
Musically speaking, I had a good day yesterday. The first three April songs have vocals. When I got up yesterday morning I still hadn’t worked out the form of any of the April songs. They were just 4 or 8 or 12 bar phrases that happened to kinda fit together. Before work I brought up song #1 and stitched everything together into a form. It actually ended up almost like a suite. I had two 8 bar phrases with clean guitar, and two with overdriven guitar. So the clean pair became verse/chorus of one song and the heavier pair became verse/chorus of a second song. Then I reprised the first song at the end. Next thing I knew I was close to 7.5 minutes worth of rawk. How prog of me!
I had most of the lyrics and melody written and the vocals recorded by the time I had to punch into work. As it turned out, yesterday was a parent/teacher conference for one of the kids. I thought it was going to start at 6:00, which would have let me get there on time (just barely) but it actually started at 5:30. I work until 5:30. So how did I deal? I took some vacation time in the afternoon so I could leave with plenty o’ time to get to the school.
That meant that instead of having a lunch hour, I had a lunch three hours. I finished the vocal on song #1, then blew through the form, lyrics, melody, and vocal for song #2. That’s when I realized I should probably shower and stuff before I go meet with a teacher. Blah, blah, do the right thing. After the shower I had 40 minutes before I had to go. I somehow managed to blow through the form, lyrics, melody, and vocal for song #3! Now three songs in 4-5 hours is not nearly as impressive as my usual RPM Vocal Days, but it’s not bad for an old fart like me.
I still have two songs that aren’t ready to be song-formified. One (the left over from RPM) is still just one 16 bar phrase. The other (the left over from RPMarch) is now up to two phrases, one of which has drums and bass. Then there is the old post-Tempest Fero/pre-Prime Meridian song I want to add. I haven’t started recording any of that yet, although I do have a really bad tape recording of it available for when I do start recording.
The goal is to finish April before I go back and finish March. I might bend that rule from time to time, but that’s the plan for now at least.
So that’s the musical update for today. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak in some more this weekend. There probably won’t be time on Saturday. Maybe a little on Sunday. We’ll see. I’m also still itching for more ocean sun rise pics. Again, we’ll see.
Last night I started recording ideas for the first April song. I’m up to song idea number four. That’s right, I’ve stitched together three more since I woke up today. All of the ideas originated on the guitar. I feel happy about that, even if my playing is getting worse and worse by the minute.
It’s all been on the iPad. I noodle together a phrase, record it, then add drums and bass via Garageband, then I rerecord the guitar so that it’s almost actually in time. I guess just having a click track isn’t enough for me anymore. Was it ever? Who knows.
Last night I recorded two rhythm guitar parts. There are only two left to do. Today I wrote and recorded a vocal. There are only six left to do. Urgh.
I wanted to do more but I’m too tired to think. Maybe before bed I’ll do more guitar, but this six vocals are making me feel pretty sad.
Who is freakishly tall, has glow in the dark red hair, and recorded a vocal this morning before he left for work?
Me!
The music project is still alive. I had two songs that already had lyrics but did not yet have vocals. I recorded one of them today. So I didn’t actually write anything, but at least I did something.
I’ve got six days left. Frankly there is no way in hell this gets finished this month, but I’m still pluggin’ away. I need to get one more song underway to keep to the RPM Challenge laws. I’ve got nine in progress and the running time is a few seconds more than 30 minutes. That puts me below both goals. I need to get cracking on one more. Then there are rhythm guitars for six songs, vocals for eight, lyrics for seven, and lead guitars and final mixing for all ten.
Here’s a hypothetical…
Let’s say I don’t finish by April 1st. How do I handle that? Do I turn the March project into March/April? Or (and this is insanity) do I start a new project for April and work on both at the same time?
I’m leaning toward the latter… because I’m stupid like that.
Just when you thought the March Music project goofiness was dead and buried…
I came up with something new last night. Just a few little riffs. I put them down on the iPad just before bed. This morning I added some guitars. That’s nine songs in progress and two more ideas that I haven’t made go anywhere yet. Tomorrow. More will be done tomorrow. Really. I promise.
Here’s the obligatory post-RPM Challenge post.
Now that my musical month of February is in the past, what’s next?
Well, I think I’m just going to do it again. Not the same songs, and not the longer FAWM based album, but a new recording of either 10 songs or 35 minutes. Call it RPMarch.
I’ve still got four things that I was tinkering with in January, and there was the 15th song idea from RPM that I never got to. There is also the missing Tempest Fero song that I took a listen to this evening. Those six plus four more? There is also the three unfinished things from the 2008 failure. Maybe I’ll save those for April.
Any one else want to take a shot at RPMarch?
I mixed two songs last night. I don’t like either of them, or anything else I’ve worked on this month. It’s good, because I don’t think I am going to have enough time in the house alone to finish all of the vocals.
This is the first song I worked on, and the first song I finished:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/small-3.mp3%20
This is the 12th song I worked on, and the second song I finished. As you can guess, I am jumping around all over the place right now.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/not-in-this-lifetime.mp3%20
I have one more song that is ready to mix. I was just too tired to finish it off last night. Yesterday I wrote lyrics and a really rough melody for three more songs. This morning I recorded two of them. My vocal performance was terrible at best, but it’s done and I don’t think I am going to have time to fix anything that irks me when I start listening back to it. I didn’t take the time to put rough mixes up onto Soundcloud.
So that’s five vocals recorded, and a sixth that is written and ready to record. I need to get four more done to qualify for RPM, and eight more to qualify for FAWM. FAWM is starting to look like a lost cause. I took Thursday and Friday off from work, but I don’t think I am going to have time on those days to handle vocals. I’m starting to honestly consider driving to an empty parking lot somewhere and recording in the car. It’s looking more and more like that’s the only way I will be able to finish everything. Cold weather be damned, you know?
Inside the Red Head's Head 