Now that, boys and girls, was a Day!

When I woke up this morning I had 18 songs in progress, four with vocals, and not a single lead guitar.

When I go to sleep tonight there will be 18 songs in progress, 15 with vocals, and three with lead guitars that are all ready to mix.

My throat is sore, my finger tips are shredded, and my ears hear nothing but a dull buzz.  Damn!  I’m gettin’ too old for this shit, but it was a pretty fun day.

I should be feeling super confident about finishing on time… but I’m not.  Why?  Because there is a chance I might not have even a second of time to work for the next few days.  Ouch!

I have recorded nine songs worth of vocal tracks today. Holy shit! My ears are completely shot and my voice is in even worse shape. In total I have 13 down and still five (or seven?) to go. I’m going to have some lunch and watch an episode of Westworld or something and hope my voice comes back to me.

Yikes!

I finished another vocal this morning.  That makes four.  I took a vacation day tomorrow.  The plan is to RPM the crap out of the whole day.  Or at least as much as possible.

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I wrote this on the RPM website today during my lunch break.

Every year it’s the same thing.  February 1st comes along and I start cranking out bass lines and guitar riffs and chord changes like they are going out of style.  I get my little power trio rhythm section recorded and then…

Everything grinds to a halt.  It’s time to write melodies, it’s time to write lyrics, it’s time to sing.

My melodies are all repetitive, but so is everything else I do so that’s not the issue.  I seriously dislike the sound of my voice, but I can sing in tune and I can sing in harmony, and no one is going to listen to any of this shit anyway, so that’s not the problem.  My lyrics are garbage.  There’s no qualifier there, my lyrics are just garbage.  I’ve long ago come to terms with the fact that I am no Dylan or Lennon so that’s not the problem either.

All of those things combined are the problem.  I just don’t really feel good when I do any of that.  It’s worse that I have this hang up where I can’t sing my own stuff if anyone else is in the house.  It’s an embarrassment thing that I just can’t get past.  That means time is the fourth element to my annual logjam.  This year there has been significantly less time alone than ever before.  It’s crazy.

Now that the deadline is looming I have to find a way to power through.  Yesterday and today I got up and ready for work early so that when my wife left for work I had a small window of time to sing.  I managed to finish vocal parts for four songs.  Four wins.  I booked a vacation day for tomorrow so hopefully I’ll be able to finish enough to have a chance to complete the challenge.  I have 18 songs in progress in total.  I was kind of thinking of making this year’s album a double.  Now I just want to get six more vocals done.  Then it’s lead guitars and mixing and those are things that I actually enjoy so they will proceed quickly.

The logjam is breaking.  The confidence level is rising.  Let’s hope tomorrow is a good day.

Progress. Finally. On Monday I sat at my computer with an SM57 in my hand whispering lyric ideas over the melodies I’d written the day before. I wasn’t singing because there were people upstairs. I was able to put lyrics to five of the nine songs with melodies. Yesterday, the 20th, I was able to finally start recording. I managed to put vocals on three of the songs. Finally!

Holy Shit I have less than 10 days left!

Day 19 was productive in a busy work kinda way. I had no opportunities to do any singing, and that is totally the logjam now. I did manage to write something resembling a melody for nine of the 18 songs. I recorded it as a piano track. I did that a little last year. It actually makes writing the lyrics a little more difficult as I have to fit the words to the music rather than working them both out at once, but over all it seems to be a bit of a time saver.

I feel like I got a lot done yesterday, but when I look back… I kinda didn’t.

I finished the last of the rhythm guitar parts. I’d still like to add two more songs to bring me to 20, but as of right now the rhythm guitars are done.

I didn’t record any vocals. I had a window where it might have been possible to start but it fell through. I did, however, try to start writing lyrics. When I write lyrics separate from writing melody they usually end up getting scrapped, but I’m getting nervous so I had to do something.

Not the progress I need, but perhaps the progress I deserve?

Two new song ideas in the works. Both ready for guitars. Both in odd time signatures.

Notice: No vocals. No melodies. No lyrics.

I’m a moron.  Here, let me tell you why.

I can’t sing in the house when other people are home.  I can’t do it, I just can’t.  That’s not why I’m a moron though, that’s just back story.  In recent years I have gotten around my vocalizing hang ups by recording in the car.  I would drive the kids to whatever event they had that day, then park the car as far away from humans as possible, open up my computer, plug in a mic, and sing like the little birdies, all while pretending that no one can hear me.  It’s worked out pretty well for me.  Unfortunately, now that the older of the kids is driving my opportunities for car singing have diminished drastically.

Last night was an exception.  One of the kids was at school until 9:00 pm.  I had to pick him up but I got there about an hour early.  I had my computer and my audio interface and a microphone and a warmed up set of pipes.  I was ready.

Now I get to the moron part.

My home computer is a laptop.  I have a swanky new MacBook Pro.  It’s awesome.  I love it.  The one beef people have with the latest and greatest MacBook Pro is the lack of ports.  It has four USB C ports and that’s it.  No problem.  I use a couple of adapters and BAM, all my stuff works.

Can you see where this is going?

As I was pulling into a parking spot, far away from the building, it hit me.  I didn’t bring an adapter.  My audio interface is USB 2.0.  My port is USB C.  They aren’t the same connection.  Oh crap, what a moron.  I was already to start writing some lyrics and some melodies and tracking some bad singing and I screwed up.  I sat there in the car for an hour, listening to the audiobook version of Ready Player One.  What a waste of time.

I tried to make up for it by working out the song forms for the three most recent ideas, and then recording the rhythm guitars.  It turned into a kinda productive night, but for the second day in a row I completely blew my chance at taking a chunk out of the most difficult part of this challenge.  I’m really not sure what I am going to do.

I currently have 16 songs in progress.  All but one have rhythm guitars and are ready for vocals.  I’m kinda screwed.  I put in for a vacation day next week.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Wasted day.  I had plans to add guitars and if lucky maybe a vocal or two.  Nope.  None of that.  I noodled out another 12-bar idea, but that’s it.  Day 15 is already a wasted disaster too.  I think I need to book a vacation day next week.