Tag: Rpm Challenge

Crappy Weather and Crappy Singing

We got a couple of inches of snow yesterday followed by some rain and a drop in temperature which turned the snow to ice. I went out after work and shoveled and it was like shoveling bricks. It was not fun. I was happy that the driveway and both cars and the path to the garbage barrels and the area around the fire hydrant were all cleared.

Then later, around bed time, it started snowing again. Not much, but it quickly turned to rain again and immediately froze. When I got up this morning everything I had shoveled yesterday had been magically transformed into an ice skating rink. Yippee. I was also ran out of ice melt last night. Oh goodie.

I did not let it stop me though. I hacked the layer of ice off of one of the cars and proceeded to drive to a not-so-empty parking lot for some car music! I say not so empty because there were two humongous trucks trying to plow the layer of ice off of the lot. You can probably hear them on the vocal tracks. Yippee, again.

I got through four songs and oh my goodness do they suck. That brings me up to seven songs with vocals, with eight more to go. Only two of those eight have lyrics though, so I need to do a lot of work tonight. There must be another car music in the morning. Fortunately tomorrow is Saturday so I can spare a little more time, and if needed I can go out more than once. I can do the same on Sunday. Assuming I can get all of the lyrics written (and one song still needs rhythm guitars as well) then I will have all of the vocals down with a couple of days to spare. Then it’s just lead guitar and mixing, which will likely take a lot of time to get through. I’m already sort of sorting things into two buckets: Songs that might be useable for the final album, and songs that most likely will not be useable. There are two on the later list. Drop candidates, as it were, and one on the bubble. The rest of them are bad, but not so bad as to throw away… maybe. We’ll see how I feel when they are mixed.

My studio view today is thusly:

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Also, a pic of half of my audience for the day:

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And now for a few shots of the scenic drive to the not-so-empty parking lot:

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So the musical plan for later tonight is record some leads, record one song’s rhythm guitars, mix a song or two, and write a shit ton of lyrics and melodies.

Yeah… I can do that. Some of it at least.

Gotta Keep Pushing

Twice this week I was going to go out and do car music before work only to be screwed over by snow. On Tuesday I probably could have done it but today there was no chance. Damn it.

I did the same thing I did on Tuesday though. If I couldn’t go out and sing, I’d stay home and record some guitars. Last night I added a couple of noodles that are now song #15. I wanted to work on lyrics last night but 24 bars of bass guitar riffs was as far as I got. After finishing my faux running (yogging) and watching episode two of Star Trek Picard this morning I worked those little bass riffs into a song form and recorded the rhythm guitars. Then I put leads onto the only two songs that are currently ready for leads. Nothing special as far as playing is concerned, but both songs are now ready to mix. Just before I punched into work I added lyrics to song #9 as well. I now have five songs ready to sing and will get to as many as I can before work tomorrow. Assuming mother nature doesn’t kick me in the balls for a third time.

Obligatory pictures:

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I took the Wren and Cuff Super Russian off the board and replaced it with the Way Huge Russian Pickle. Two different copies of the old Sovtek version of the Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal
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The plan for tonight is to try and write lyrics. I currently have six songs that are ready for lyrics and one more that isn’t quite ready yet. I’m at 15 songs now when I only need 10. Two of the 15 are especially crappy and might go unfinished. We’ll have to see what happens over the next five days.

I will complete this project if it takes everything I have. I am not blowing my RPM Challenge success streak.

One Song Down

Look at that, I mixed a song! The 2023 RPM Challenge will not be a shutout and that is good. The song isn’t good, but the fact that it exists is… and isn’t that the entire spirit behind the RPM Challenge?

One down, at least nine more to go.

2023 RPM Challenge – Day 19 of 28

Again, posted to tumblr:

I failed to record any vocals today. I’ll try again tomorrow. I did write lyrics to two more songs (I have seven now) and I added two more songs, complete with rhythm guitars. One of the new songs is in 11/8 time, which is a first for this prog nerd.

Vocals in the car in the morning or die trying. Not literally, or course. We buried my mother last Tuesday, I don’t even want to think about death for a while.

And now for the obligatory Les Paul pics:

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So the continuous auto focus zeroed in on the mic stand. Okay.

I Overslept

Today is Sunday and I did what many of us do on random Sundays… I overslept. My alarm was set for 5:30am. I got out of bed a couple of minutes before 7:00am. I also had a minor hangup that kept me from getting the day started for about 20 minutes and both of those things together mean it’s way too late for me to tackle car music today.

My exercise is done for the day. Yesterday I bumped my four mile morning jog (pronounced “yog” with a soft j) to five miles. Mostly because there were many days over the last month or so where I was not reaching my move/calorie goal without doing extra exercise, so for now I am just going to build that into the morning routine. I am eating breakfast right now and when I am done I will take a Covid test. I have been symptom free since my two exposures on Monday and Tuesday so I am confident in another negative test, but I am still going to test for another couple of days. Just to be sure. I have to go into the office on Wednesday and I don’t want to risk passing anything on to anyone.

What does the no-car-music-today change mean for the music project? I still have five songs that need lyrics, so I can take care of some of those. I think I might also try to add another song or two. Yeah, it’s overkill but I am seeing guitar leads on the horizon and my playing is so incredibly rusty that I could really use an excuse to just play/practice a little. That would be a good thing.

I did something silly yesterday. I started watching the directors cut of Star Trek the Motion Picture. Shatner’s Star Trek V is often considered the worst of all of the Star Trek movies, and while that may be generally valid, that first movie is pretty awful. I’m only halfway through the director’s cut but I haven’t seen anything obviously different. The endless exterior establishing shots are still endless. Endlessly endless. The acting is often less than stellar in Star Trek movies with the original series cast, but this one… this one is bad. Overall though, the movie isn’t quite as awful as I remembered. Maybe #5 really is the worst of the bunch.

Okay, let’s get the ball moving. I need to get myself something for breakfast that is more substantial than the protein bar I just finished. I’ll probably post a film pic too before I really get the day rolling. For now, talk to you all later. Good Day.

2023 RPM Challenge – Day 18 of 28

I just put this on the dumb tumblr RPM Challenge page…

I told myself I needed to get four or five songs worth of lyrics written today. I did four. I also fixed a screwed up bass track and added percussion to one song.

Not my most productive day, but I am good shape for tomorrow. There will be some singing in the car in the morning. Car Music, 2023 Edition.

Really I am only posting this because wordpress.com’s block quote function seems to be working when it wasn’t working before. That’s nice, huh?

Another Day, Another Negative Test

That’s three days post-Covid exposure with a negative test. Let’s keep up the good work, shall we?

I ate a lot last night. I was kinda shocked at how I couldn’t stop myself. Today I had what is becoming a normal breakfast, a chicken patty and a supplemental protein bar, but I already had 50% of my liquid goal for the day before 8:00am. Is that bad? I don’t know. I hope to spread the second half of the goal out more as the day rolls on.

Music… there was no car music this morning. I have lyrics written for one song. I need at least three before driving to the movie theater parking lot is worth the effort. I hope to get to at least half of the 10 songs today so that I have a lot to do tomorrow. I want to have them all written and recorded by Tuesday. That will give me a week for leads and mixing.

As stated yesterday, the goal for today is to clean the hell out of the kitchen. Also, we put out some little catnip filled toys for the cats. I need to find them all and remove them from play. The two cats do not handle their drugs well. They get super aggressive toward each other when they are high on the ‘nip. That must be curtailed.

That’s the plan, kids. I believe today’s goals are achievable. Let’s see how it goes. Also, let’s try to watch Wakanda Forever, shall we? Yeah, happy Saturday.

More Guitars

My fingers are killing me.

I took the four songs that I had recorded on Wednesday using an amp sim and redid them using a real amp. Tube amps, babie. You can’t beat ’em.

I also played with my new camera. I used the self timer and continuous autofocus to see if I could get a selfie while playing… because I am a content whore, don’tcha know.

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2023 RPM Challenge – Day 16 of 28

I just posted the following on that stupid music project tumblr thing that I almost never post to…

It’s been a rough few weeks. My mother went into hospice and passed away on the 5th. We held her wake on the 13th and buried her on the 14th. As a result, RPM has been way in the back of my mind all month.

I haven’t blown it off though. It’s still a big enough deal for me that I have been making time where I can. I have 10 songs in progress. There’s a little noodle of an 11th idea too, but I don’t know if anything will become of that. All 10 songs have the full structure. About half have melodies already. Six have rhythm guitars. I ran a rig with two amps on the first two songs, but switched to an amp sim for the rest. I sort of expect to go the sims route for the rest of the project, but we’ll have to see.

I haven’t written any lyrics yet and there are no vocals, obviously. Twelve days left. Ironically, I haven’t failed an RPM Challenge since 2012. Fitting, eh? I don’t plan to fail this year, but I am sort of resigned to the possibility.

We’ll see how the next 12 days go.