Day 15 (yesterday) was decent, considering I spent half the day driving and the other half too tired to think in complete sentences.
I put rhythm guitars on three songs. That puts me up to 11 with a complete rhythm section of guitar/bass/drums. That’s nice. I also finished out the song form for the two little bass riffs I started on day 14. Finally I added a 14th song idea.
Today (Day 16) we are more or less snowed in. Here’s hoping for some more acoustic guitar tracks, maybe another song idea or two, and (most important by far) some lyrics and melodies. I want to do some singing before work tomorrow and I only have a couple of songs ready. I need a shit load more before the day is over.
I snuck in an hour or two of guitar tracking for the RPM Challenge today. Two songs got electric rhythm guitars and one got acoustic rhythm guitars. Yup, I’m still hoping to do 10 electric songs and 10 acoustic songs though at this point, with the month more than half over, I would say there’s a fat chance of that happening.
I played three different guitars today. Is that a record for one sitting?
Two Gibson Les Pauls, one standard and one custom, and a Takamine F-400 S. The 12-string murdered my finger tips. I thought about trying to get through another song, but it hurt and I had to stop. Tomorrow though… a big push tomorrow.
After two days of nothing, day 13 had some progress, but only a little and not nearly enough to make me feel better about the state of things.
I put rhythm guitars onto one song, and wrote lyrics and a melody for another. That’s it. This weekend is going to need a ton of work, and I don’t think I am going to have any time for any of it. I might need to take a personal day next week to play catch up.
Today is Thursday and much like yesterday and the day before it is turning out to be a screwy day. Fun.
I overslept this morning. I had a bunch of things I wanted to do before the work day started and then I overslept and screwed up all of my plans. I did get the big things in, my day’s worth of goofy exercise, breakfast, routine stuff like that, and I managed to sneak in a little bit of guitar playing. I put rhythm guitars onto one RPM Challenge song. Not much but better than nothing.
We got a little snow last night. Probably less than an inch. The snow turned into rain and now we have a driveway covered in a nightmare of slush. At some point later today the temperature is going to drop and that nightmare of slush is going to turn into a nightmare of ice and I don’t know if I am going to have time to clear any of it before it freezes. I am super happy about that. Really. There’s not an ounce of sarcasm here. I am thrilled to the teeth by this potential outcome*.
It’s not even noon yet and the work day has been just as crazy as yesterday. Not bad, but a weird combination of hectic and frustrating. It’s looking like tomorrow will be similar, but after that things should settle again. Here’s hoping at least.
In closing, here’s a few guitar pictures from this morning because I am insane.
*Contrary to the above statement, I was in fact being sarcastic. Extremely sarcastic. My words were dripping with venomous sarcasm. Just call me a sarcasm machine.
Nothing. Again. Two days in a row with no progress at all.
Day 13 has already been a little better but I’ll spell that out another time. Am I running out of steam? Yes and no. I think my internal, gimmicky challenges (10 electric and 10 acoustic songs, and using two different guitars for the rhythm tracks) are probably about to be toast, but the project as a hole is still on, though getting to be massively behind schedule.
Not a lot of progress on day 10 (yesterday) but a couple of noteworthy things.
First, I added song number 12. We’re hoping to hit 20 this year. Not sure if that’s in the cards or not, but every little bit helps.
More importantly, I added lyrics to one song. Just one. I am hoping to have 4-5 ready to go by Thursday morning so I can sneak in some singing in the car before work. Vocal tracking is always the sticking point for me on these projects so anything I can do to make that process a little easier is a big deal. One vocal part written, at least 11 but hopefully 19 to go. Yikes.
I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. Still playing the Les Paul Custom in your left ear and Les Paul Standard in your right game. We’ll see how long that lasts. I also added two new songs. Both have complete MIDI Bass and Drums.
The two new song ideas are numbers 10 and 11. I have a new mini-challenge in mind and song 11 kicks it off. The first 10 songs will be electric guitar focused. Everything after that, hopefully the second batch of 10 songs, will be acoustic guitar focused. I’ll still have electric guitars on those songs, probably just the lead guitar parts, and I still want to play some sax on them, but the rhythm guitars will for the most part be acoustic. For now. Once I actually take my acoustic out of its case and remember how much of an absolute bitch it is to play, I will probably give up on this particular mini-challenge.
We’ll see how day 10 plays out. I don’t expect to have a lot of time for anything over the next three days, but I do have seven songs ready for lyrics so… maybe.
The cats are hunting their little toy mice right now. Well, Robin is hunting. Lily is watching and clearly being very judgmental. Oh well. They played nicely together earlier. It was nice.
I had a musical idea tonight. What if I shoot for 20 songs this year (I always shoot for 20 songs during the February RPM Challenge) and have 10 of them be electric guitar focused, and 10 be acoustic guitar focused? I could try to do that. I’ll probably follow that plan for a few days and then just make it all electric anyway. That’s what usually happens when I try to get clever. Let’s see what happens.
Inside the Red Head's Head 