Tag: rpm2022

A Little More Progress – #RPM2022

I had a pretty busy day today. There was a lot going on at work and around the house and that didn’t leave a lot of time for music. I did manage to write lyrics and record vocals for three songs. Any day I get through a few vocal tracks without dying of embarrassment and shame is a productive day in my book.

12 songs have all of their vocal tracks down. Only one of those 12 has lead guitars and is ready to mix. Another one of the 12 might require some new rhythm guitar tracks. The more I work on the song the less I like what I have. I think I might do them again, but only if I have time.

There is only one song left that doesn’t have vocals. I’m at 13 total but I really want to add more. 20 is a nice number. 20 songs counts as two completed RPM albums and that’s always fun to do. At least it was fun the one time I did it. There was another time I had more than 20 songs, but a bunch of them were recorded twice so they don’t count.

Not sure what I will have time for tomorrow, but I’ll try to get through something. I need to add more songs to the pile. I don’t have any 12-bars yet. Maybe I should add a 12-bar.

The Guitar Was Played Tonight – #RPM2022

Oh glorious glory, the electric guitar was played tonight. Only for about an hour. Maybe an hour and 15 minutes. Progress on the RPM Challenge was made though.

I had three songs that needed rhythm guitar tracks. I got them all down. I had nine songs that needed lead guitar tracks. I got one of them.

There are 13 songs in progress. I would like to get to 20, but I’ll take 15. I need 10 for the final challenge submission and I want to have some options for which 10 to use. The more options the better because none of these songs are terribly good, even by my abysmally low standards.

Still, regardless of the final outcome at the end of the month, there was rock rolled tonight.

I used a clip on tuner in the bedroom setup (though not the band setup). You wanna make something of it?
That’s a B minor 7th if you’re playing along at home.

Superb Owl

So there’s a game or something tonight? I saw that the Buffalo Sabers were playing the Montreal Canadiens in what must have been the lamest match up of the century so far, but that was earlier. What game is everyone talking about?

Har har har.

Clearly I am not watching the Super Bowl, though my bass player let it drop yesterday that he’s in one of the two cities represented in the game. I wonder what the volume level in public spaces is like there. Hopefully they don’t go through what Boston used to go through with riots near Northeastern. Those were bad ends to great experiences.

It dawned on me today that by taking tomorrow off, my co-workers are going to assume I was planning for a Sunday full of drunken revelry. Dudes couldn’t be further off if they tried.

I worked on music quite a bit today, but not as much as I would have liked. I snuck some singing in when no one was looking and at the moment I have three songs with vocals complete and six more ready to go for a (weather permitting) car music in the morning. I seriously considered doing some car music during the super bowl but knowing my luck I would get t-boned by some drunk football fan trying to find his way to the next super bowl party. You know how it is.

Tomorrow I am meeting with the surgeon who, hopefully, will someday perform my weight loss surgery. I am pretty nervous but far from panicked. A little part of me is expecting her to tell me that I am not qualified and I should just go home and hurry up that inevitable heart attack. I guess that counts as nerves. You know how it is.

Okay. My exercise bike is calling me. I just wasted 61 minutes watching a cool YouTube video about Les Pauls. Time to go get some exercise minutes in.

Wish me luck.

Snow Ruins Everything

I got my fat ass out of bed early this morning so that I could do some singing in the car for RPM and it’s effin’ snowing out. Not a lot, a couple of inches of fluffy crap, but it’s ruined my morning plans. I could still go out do something, but every parking lot in the city is going to have plows all over it. I can’t have a magical, perfect, pristine vocal take ruined by the sound of a plow in the background. Gross. Now that I think of it though, magical, perfect, and pristine never happen so maybe the sound of a plow in the background will be in improvement. No. Even I’m not that desperate.

Looks like the plan for today is to write more lyrics, write more melodies, add more guitar parts where needed, and maybe try to start a new song or two.

On a different note, Jen and I watched the first two episodes of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu and I think I might be a little bit hooked. I must admit there was a tiny bit of culture shock watching two of the Three Amigos be less than cordial to each other. Also there was a bit of culture shock hearing the kid from Wizards of Waverley Place dropping f-bombs. I mean, talk about being out of touch, right?

Back to the weather, we may still go out today. We might possibly brave the snow to do a curbside pickup at a store (gasp in Covid horror). I think I might be ready to start working up the courage to go into stores and businesses again. I have to do it for work and I have to do it for doctors appointments. Any time I start feeling Covid-confident, which is almost never, my mind wanders over to the band. We had a chat going last night and we know it will be a month and a half before we can start thinking about getting together (one band member has major work commitments right now) so maybe… Maybe sometime in March we’ll play again? I should buy a new amp and a new guitar to celebrate.

Okay, Robert. Get to work on that RPM thing. Get some stuff done, you lazy asshole!

Wrote Some Tunes – #RPM2022

I wrote a few melodies today. Not nearly as many as I’d hoped, but enough to get me to the point where I have enough songs ready for vocals to make car music in the morning worthwhile.

I’ve 13 songs in the works right now. Nine have the full rhythm section recorded, and five of those are ready for vocals.

Here’s hoping I get a ton done tomorrow. I have a doctors appointment on Monday so I took the day off. Here’s hoping I get a ton done on Monday too.

RPM progress is happening. It’s slow, but it’s happening.

#RPM2022 Stalled

Over the last few days I’ve been dropping the RPM Challenge ball in a huge way. I have 10 songs but none are even remotely close to being done.

Tonight I did what we are supposed to do when we run out of gas. I forced myself to do something. It resulted in two new songs. I should try to push things a little more but I’m exhausted from the long day.

I’m going to bed, but I plan to keep forcing the issue tomorrow.

Progress, babie.

Bad Seal

I had a less than perfect sleep last night. My CPAP mask kept losing its seal. It would start leaking air on one side of my face so I’d wiggle it back into place, and then a leak would start on the other side. It was pissing me off as well as keeping me awake. Eventually I took it off and adjusted everything and put it back and it was okay. I think I’ll be using a new mask tonight, just out of spite.

One of the weight loss appointments I booked yesterday is over Zoom. I got the meeting invite this morning. Yet another baby step. Let’s all get together and change my life, okay? Change my mindset first, then change my internal structure. Welcome to a new me and all that stuff, right? New Year, new me… literally.

I wrote my first lyrics for this year’s RPM Challenge. Are you proud of me? I am. Writing lyrics sucks and I suck at it. What is the song about? I haven’t a clue. Maybe after I sing it a few times I’ll decide what it’s about. For now it’s just a bunch of words whose syllable count matches the bad melody I wrote.

Okay. It’s time for work. Let’s be productive and have a good day, okay? Ready? Go!

Backwards

I just kicked off song number 10 for RPM. I made it the simplest, easiest thing imaginable. Rhythm guitars, bass, and drums are all done. I made it simple because I had a gimmick. A sick, doofus, goofy gimmick.

The guitars are backwards in every other measure. It’s not clean. I recorded the whole song in a couple of sections and then edited the track so I could swap the direction of every other bar. In almost every measure I came in a teeny tiny bit early so there’s just barely the sound of the pick touching the low E string that gets moved from the end of each bar to the beginning, so there’s noise at the start of each backward bar where it should be quiet.

I don’t care. It’s a gimmick and it was fun to do.

More importantly, it let me make some progress today without actually having to write any lyrics.

Happy Ice Storm Day

Snow is bad enough, but when little chunks of ice fall from the sky? That’s just mother nature being a jerk. We’re supposed to be getting a full day of this crap. Yippee. I just put ice melt all over the driveway. Our new furnace is supposed to get a check up today so I want to decrease the danger of a slip. The guy is supposed to be on his way so I am sitting here with a mask hanging off one ear. I am so* sick of having to wear a mask, but unlike 50% of America, I am willing to deal with the difficulty in order to keep other people healthy.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, ice. The first sand truck just went past. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn into a big deal today. I hate winter. I hate ice. Blah.

I failed to do anything with the RPM Challenge yesterday. I’m optimistic today will be more productive, but who knows. We are up to date on The Book of Boba Fett, I am up to date on Peacemaker, and Jen and I watched the first episode of Pam and Tommy. I wonder how historically accurate it is. I remember hearing about a contractor and I remember hearing about a safe, but is this how it happened? Not that it matters. Also, is Sebastian Stan (sp?) a method actor? I kinda hope not, because that would require him to take a lot of cocaine. Yikes!

Sigh… It’s Friday. I really want to get through this work day with as little stress as possible. I also want to have my next batch of appointments booked. The weekend is so close I can smell it, and it smells like freedom. Or something like that.

*I am trying to set the world record for the most uses of the word “so” in a blog paragraph. Thanks for cheering me on!

RPMin’ like a fool – #RPM2022

Two days in and I’m up to six songs now. All just bass and drums (MIDI track) but I’ve got weird time signatures and tempo changes everywhere. It’s just madness!!