Tag: Recording

Scale and Sleep and Stuff

There were a number of reasons why I wanted to change what I eat. The main reason being that I felt like garbage all the time due to having to carry around my gigantic stomach. The other reasons included things like clothes not fitting right anymore, spending way too much money on junk food, fearing that when I sit in a chair it will be crushed beneath me. You know, the little things.

Another of those reasons was due to the digital scale in our bathroom no longer being able to read my weight. When I stepped on it the display would say ERR. In other words, you’re too fat for the scale you fat ass. I’m happy to say that after two weeks of no coca~cola, smaller lunches, no junk food breakfasts, and less snacking between meals, the scale gave me an actual number today. Granted it was an absurdly huge number, but a number. I feel happy about that little detail. Granted, hippopotamuses often feel happy too. I’m still a monstrous fat ass, but I’m enjoying my tiny little victory.

On a less successful note, another reason for changing my intake was that I had trouble sleeping through the night. Eliminating coca~cola from my diet would remove the vast majority of my caffeine intake. If I can cut back on chocolate too (so far so, sort of good) I could stop having caffeine all together. Well I haven’t had any caffeinated soda of any kind in over two weeks now, but I’m not seeing a lot of improvement in my sleeping. A little, maybe, but not that much. I still wake up 1-2 times a night for no apparent reason, and I never feel all that rested in the morning. I probably do feel better than I did a couple of weeks ago, but there has not been any major change. I wonder how long it takes caffeine to purge from your system? I wonder if my massive caffeine intake over the years would skew things so that it takes longer to purge. I wonder.

On the upside of things, the cold that cleaned my clock last week is about 95% gone. Jen is feeling better too, although it hit her much harder than it hit me (and it kicked my ass) and she still has a way to go before she’s all better.

On a non-health note, I put some new strings on one of my guitars yesterday during telecommute lunch and I did a little recording. Then immediately after work I did a little more recording. Then this morning before work I did a little more recording. New/old song in a couple of days? Seems likely. Maybe if I keep up the pre morning commute schedule there might be two new/old songs soon.

In the meantime though, Robert says no to caffeinated beverages. The goal is to have a decent beach body by 2033 (kidding). At this rate, anything is possible.

Another Song

Over the last two days I threw together a new recording of the first song I wrote for my 2009 finished-way-after-the-deadline RPM Challenge.

Why?  Because the old recordings sound like vomit and I can’t tell if the songs themselves are vomit or just the recording.  So maybe if I dust some of them off I can make that determination.

Here’s the new recording…

And here is the old recording…

Both of these files are going to be deleted at some point, when I figure out what to do with the new version.

Three New Songs

I sat in the car, waiting for the kids to get out of karate class, and I mixed three songs.  I am such a dork.

First, Out of Control.  Written in 1997 by me, Mike, and Maria.  Unlike the other songs I’ve taken from the Prime Meridian set lists, this one was actually written for and by Prime Meridian.  We had a number of different singers over our three years together.  One of them used to call this song, Out of Control Like a Tootsie Roll.  It took huge willpower not to sing that line today.

Second, The Monica Song.  More than any other song I’ve posted online, the lyrics to this one make me cringe.  A lot.  This song is me, a not quite 21 year old, musing over a picture from a Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Calendar.  If memory serves it was April ’92.  I lacked the confidence to ever explicitly write a song about a woman, so I wrote this crap as a sort of exercise. It is a little painful to listen to now.  However, I still really dig the way the guitar part grooves.  I believe this is the one song I’ve tinkered with the most of any as far as arrangement is concerned.  When I first wrote it, it was a heavy rocker.  While working at Northeast Broadcasting School a couple of years later I flipped it on its head and made it an acoustic song with just one guitar, one voice, and one saxophone.  This arrangement is meant to be a bit of a hybrid of the two others.  I don’t know if I like it or not.

Thirdly, The Sky.  Speaking of embarrassing, back in ’94 or ’95 Mike and I were playing in a band with a drummer named Dan.  The band never got a name, but we were occasionally very good.  I think that period might have been the best I’ve ever been as a guitar player.  Anyway, we made a 24 track demo at Northeast Broadcasting School.  Three of the four songs we did have been re-recorded by me this month, including this one.  Although at the time it had very different lyrics.  On two of the songs on that demo, Jim the Keyboard Hero contributed freakin’ fantastic keys.  This song was one of them.  Unfortunately, I totally suck on keyboards so I had to seriously dumb down Jim’s awesomeness in order to at least have some organ on the track.  It’s kind of painful to think how much better Jim’s part was.  Still, I always had fun playing this song, even though it’s pretty cheesy.

Musical Flashbacks

The re-recording of old songs continued this weekend.  There was a slight twist on the process though.  This time, the songs date back to…

The 1980’s!

Queue the horror movie music and the gallons of hairspray complete with ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons.

One of the two songs in progress is actually the first song I ever wrote (co-wrote, actually) that was finished.  I had written, or co-written riffs that were glued together and jammed on without ever getting  a melody or lyrics or any kind of real structure.  This particular song contains my first attempt at lyrics and melody although in the end some one else came up with a better melody.  I have a GarageBand file with drums, bass, and a simple keyboard.  I was going to record the vocals this morning before work, but yeah right.  Maybe tomorrow.  The second song is on my iPad and is just drums and bass parts for the song’s A, B, and C sections without any arrangement.  Still, it’s in process.

What I should be doing is finishing some of those still unfinished ideas that are clogging up my MacBook, but no… I’m time traveling to the 80’s.  You got a problem with that?  You wanna make something of it?

Music and Pain

I’m sure after a month of constant RPM posts you are all going to be thrilled to hear this…

I have set up an official recording to-do,list for the near future. I still have four unfinished songs from 2007. One has gotten as far as having the rhythm guitars finished. The other three have bass and drums done. There are three unfinished songs from 2008 that I haven’t touched since then. They are on the agenda too. In the last week I have started recording two mid-90’s songs and am ready to start recording the vocals. There is one remaining song from this past November’s NaSoAlMo that is also ready for vocals. There is a song that was meant to be a songfight.org submission but was never finished. There is a little dueling acoustic guitar thing that it did off the top of my head one day a few months ago. That one might actually be finished. Finally there are two songs that go way, way back, one as far as 1987, that I put on the agenda last year but never touched. Those are what I plan to record over the coming months.

There is talk on the RPM forum of doing a mini-project over the summer. I hope to do that as well. I want to keep recording and playing and writing. I don’t want to find myself looking at a fast approaching February 2014 without having done anything over the prior months. I want to get better, not stay stagnant.

Of course, playing guitar is easier when you can use your left arm. Last fall, when I raked the yard for the first time I had major pain in my left arm for a week afterward. I could barely lift my arm at all. When I raked the second time, same thing. This winter I had the same reaction to shoveling the first time. Friday I did some shoveling. Not a lot, but some. I was fine all day Saturday and figured I’d gotten off lucky. Then today I tried to get something off a high shelf. Holy crap did it hurt. I can barely lift my left arm at all, and when I try the pain is huge. I am wondering if I slept on it last night to make it worse. I did play the guitar a little today without any trouble, so I’m not worried, but damn does it hurt!

We will see how it feels tomorrow.

Now What

I probably wrote this exact same post last March, but it needs to be stated again.

I have finished the RPM Challenge and FAWM. I’m very proud of my goofy self, despite the fact that the music I made isn’t very good. I wrote and recorded 14 songs in less than 28 days. It feels like a nice accomplishment.

Now what?

Last year I made a list of a big batch of unfinished songs I’d started in 2007 and 2008, as well as a few newer songs that needed to either be re-recorded or re-written and decided that I’d pick them off one at a time over the course of March and April or so in order to keep the happy RPM vibe alive for a while.

I finished recording 2/6 remaining 2007 left overs, and started tracking the other four, which are all at various stages of incompletion. I re-recorded one song, and re-wrote another. In November I started writing two new songs and have finished one of them.

For 2013 I have two little ideas on what to do next. One is to continue picking off the unfinished songs. There are eight of them, including the one from this past November. I also recently found a cd full of random songs I had written and played along with Mike and Maria back in the late 90’s. some of those songs might deserve a long awaited recording. I’ve picked two to start with, maybe three… or four.

So that’s the plan going forward. Finish more of the left overs, record some more ancient artifacts, and once in a while actually write something from scratch.

Lets see how long it takes me to run out of steam this year.

RPM Day 25

My head is pounding.  I have a five alarm headache to say the least.  Why?  From all the yelling, that’s why.  I wrote and recorded vocal parts for seven songs today, and completed recording the vocals for two others.  That’s it, kids, all of the RPM/FAWM vocalizin’ is done with.  Nothing but lead guitars left to record.

I even finished the big 10 minute piece of prog rock crap today.  That makes six songs complete.  Eight more to go to finish FAWM, four more to go to finish RPM.

RPM Day 24

Holy crap!  It’s the 24th already??

I finished two more songs today.  Aren’t you pleased?  I bet you all can’t wait for March 1st, right?

This song was declared finished, then yesterday was declared unfinished, and then after a remix today is again declared finished.  I was going to redo the vocals, but I decided I probably couldn’t do any better on the next attempt so I just fixed some things that I didn’t like about the previous mix.

This next one is actually one that is finished for the first and last time.  Please don’t be scared off by the very long fade in.  Sometimes the prog nerd in me takes over when I least expect it.  There is a song there somewhere, I promise.  Also, I told myself that I was going to keep this as a guitar/bass/drums/vocal project with the occasional keyboard part thrown in as an exception.  Well, this one sort of centers on an electric piano (although it sort of gets pushed around by the bass on the right side and the rhythm guitar on the left) and it has a sax solo.  Yup, I was listening to this on the way to the grocery store this morning and I sort of sighed reluctantly when I realized that I had to put some sax on this one.  My days of being a competent sax player are long, long past me.  The pitch is a little suspect, but what are you going to do?

I might try to sneak in more lead guitar tonight.  I have two more songs that are ready for it.  We’ll see what the day brings.  My fingers aren’t feeling all that great right now and I need a break.

1-0 After Two

I spent a few minutes recording tonight. I finished one of the two unfinished song idea projects including the rhythm guitar parts. I also snuck in a new song project that I think will end up being a guitar and voice only kinda song.

I should be sitting here right now trying to come up with another idea or two, but the Bruins are playing the Canadiens. We are down 1-0 after two periods. They are about to drop the puck on the third. How can I not listen to the rest of the game?

Game on!
Go Bruins!

Tyler Seguin scores to tie the game 14 seconds into the third period! No way I’m working on music now!