Yesterday was day 18… what did I do, what did I do…

I put rhythm guitars onto two songs. They were both easy songs but I struggled with them for some reason. I was hoping to get to three songs (the only three songs I had that still needed guitars) before work, but I only managed two.

Later in the day I added a new song idea. This makes 17. By the time the day was over it had MIDI bass and drums, a MIDI guide track for the guitar parts, a MIDI piano track acting as a guide for the melody, and lyrics. Nice. Spoiler alert for tomorrow’s post, it now has guitars too.

After that I finished the lyrics and melody for a song I started working on the day before (at least I think it was the day before) and then added lyrics and melodies to two more songs.

That’s it for day 18. Tomorrow (day 20) is a day dedicated to music as it’s my annual oh-crap-I’m-not-going-to-finish-so-I-need-to-book-a-vacation-day day. Today (day 19) is an in the office day so who knows if I’ll have time for much tonight.

The current state of the project (including work I’ve already done today):

• Zero songs complete
• Zero songs ready to mix
• Six songs ready for leads (be they sax or guitar or both). Five have vocals and one is a planned instrumental
• Five songs ready for vocals (which I expect to record during my day off tomorrow)
• Five songs ready for lyrics and melodies
• One song ready for rhythm guitars
• Three songs ready to exist because I have 17 songs in progress and I want to get up to at least 20

I keep doing this. Before I get a chance to write up the previous day’s events, I have already started recording something today. It’s throwing off my whole summarization vibe. Maybe this year will be the last year that I do daily posts like this. I used to do them on the RPM Challenge website itself, but that functionality no longer exists. Oh well.

So day 17 was yesterday. What did I do? I recorded vocals! I managed five songs. My performance sucked and the sound sucked worse. I think there might be something wrong with the microphone I keep in my car-music backpack.

After that I added another song idea. We are up to 16 songs now. I also started on lyrics and melodies for one song but I didn’t finish. My next shot at car music (my code name for vocal tracking) is the day after tomorrow. I need to write a bunch of lyrics and melodies before then. I also still want to get up to 20 songs, so there is still an absolute mountain of work left to do and very little time left to do it. 10 days to go.

Let’s look back at the day that was RPM Challenge Day 16 (yesterday). I did a lot, and I’m having trouble remember exactly what.

I started with a new song idea and went a little nuts on it. Song Idea Number 15 got the song form, the MIDI bass, the MIDI drums, two tracks of acoustic guitars, a melody with a MIDI piano as a guide track, and lyrics. The whole kit. It would have been better if I could have cranked out the vocals and the leads and had the whole thing done in one day, but that’s too much to ask.

After that I put two tracks of acoustic guitars onto one additional song, and then got busy with the lyrics and the melodies. I added three more on top of song number 15. That put me at six songs in total that were ready for vocals. Spoiler alert for day 17, five of them are done.

I feel like I should have done a lot more yesterday, but all in all it was a decent day’s worth of progress. I still feel terribly behind the pace though. Here’s hoping for a productive week.

I am ready to do some car music tomorrow*. I have six songs ready for vocal tracking so I should have plenty to do before work.

Or will I?

I just looked out the window… it is snowing again. If the roads are bad in the morning it will totally screw up my plans.

I hate winter.

*Car music is the act of getting into the car and driving to an empty parking lot somewhere in order to record vocals for my crappy songs in a place where no one will hear me sing. Not because anyone in my house complains about me singing, but because I have this weird phobia kind of thing about singing my shitty songs when people can hear me. It’s a hang up that I’ve learned to live with… I guess.

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 just barely managed to not be shut out for the day. I noodled out a couple of little bass guitar phrases. That’s it. It was Valentine’s Day though.

Day 15 is going to be a little better, I promise.

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.