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.

22 Down, 28 to Go

I checked blog posts from August 30th in the three years that I finished 50/90 to see if maybe I mentioned something about how far along I was. 2020 didn’t say anything. 2021 had a post saying I finished mixing song #31. 2014 had one too and I think it was song #34.

Here in 2023, this is song #22. I feel like I am eons behind the pace. Probably because I took a little more than two weeks off in the beginning of August. Dumb ass.

Anyway, I actually like this song. It makes me wonder if anyone’s ever had a hit single in 7/8 time before. Could this be the first?*

*No. No it cannot be the first.

Harry’s Guitar

I mentioned I used Harry’s guitar on one 50/90 Challenge song. Here it is. I wish I had used it on a better song, but there really haven’t been any better songs this year.

Guitar Playing Avalanche

Eight songs. I put lead guitars on eight songs this morning and it was all before 8:15am. My finger tips are a burning agony right now. I saved the song I am playing my step son’s guitar on for last. The strings are probably 7-8 years old and feel like barbed wire. I was hurting before I played that puppy, and I am hurting more now. Ouch babie, ouch.

Speed Mixing

I am speed mixing 50/90 songs tonight. I hope to crank out five before the new episode of Ahsoka comes out (in half an hour). I probably won’t finish quite that quickly, but one down and four to go.

One More Song

I have failed miserably on the 50/90 front today, but I did manage to sneak in a quick mix.

Polyrhythms for the win… or the train wreck, depending on your mood, I guess.

Mixing

I mentioned in a post the other day that the recording process for this year’s 50/90 challenge has been reduced to quick and dirty and it’s okay if things aren’t perfect, I just need them to be done. There isn’t enough time left on the game clock for nitpicking. That’s why I was able to mix three songs today in the hour and a half I spent struggling through lunch.

Of the three, one song is okay. One song is less than terrible. One song is almost terrible. Here I am sharing the one that’s okay. I am 90% sure I have written this song before but I am too lazy to go looking for it.

I now have 15 songs finished. 30% of the challenge is complete. Not bad considering I blew off almost three weeks this month.

Sunday Morning Car Music

Three days in a row. This is becoming a trend!

Car music this morning. I put vocals on the four songs I wrote lyrics for last night, and one extra that was left over from last month. At least I parked in a different spot today. You know, just trying to keep things fresh.

Here’s hoping I get a chance to record some lead guitars today. Maybe add another song idea or two and put rhythm guitars on them. We also need to start mixing some of this crap too. Time to start finishing these puppies off.

On the way home I took some point and shoot pictures, mostly stop light theater because I got stopped at almost every light in the city. Happy Sunday!