Insert a sigh of relief here.
I put rhythm guitars onto three songs. Progress at last!
Now let’s go celebrate my wife’s birthday!
That’s Better
Tag: Song Writing
2024 RPM Challenge Day 5/29
Here is what I wrote on my lame ass tumblr page:
My update for day five is identical for my update to day four. Just as I was drifting off to sleep I forced myself to wake up and noodle out a couple of bass guitar lines. Together they make up song number eight.
That’s all I have for February 5th. Hopefully I will be more productive tonight, but I somehow doubt it.
Musical Meanderings
Lame. Two days in a row of the absolute bare minimum. I need to do more tonight, but it’s a work in the office day today so there won’t be a lot of time. It would have been nice to be further along by the end of the first week, but I think I am about where I usually am at this point. I know I have a lot of progress in me, I just have to get it done. Or something like that.
Maybe before I sleep tonight I can work out the song form for songs seven and eight and in the morning tomorrow before the world wakes up I can crank out a crap load of rhythm guitar parts. I am off work tomorrow for Jen’s birthday (WOOHOO!!!). We have a couple of house painters coming over to give estimates, and we are planning on a birthday dinner together. I am not sure what we’re planning for the rest of the day. Hopefully our Star Wars re-watch or something goofy and fun like that. Maybe we’ll go shopping for computer components or something else like that. You know, the things my beloved bride likes to do for fun. There probably won’t be a lot of time for music and I am 100% fine with that. Tomorrow is my sweetie’s day and I am up for anything she wants to do.
2024 RPM Challenge Day 3 & 4/29
I haven’t checked in with the RPM Challenge in a couple of days. How have I been doing, you ask? Have I made any progress? Sure.
Here is what I wrote on my dumb tumblr page to sum up day three:
Not quite as much as I had hoped to get to on day three, but not bad.
I put rhythm guitars onto two songs (songs number three and five). I finished the MIDI bass and MIDI drums and worked out the song form for song number four, and added a new idea that now has the bass/drums/form finished. That new one is song number six.
I failed to write any melodies or lyrics so I still don’t have anything ready for vocals. I am going to be traveling quite a bit today so there’s a good chance day four might be a bust. Maybe I’ll sneak something in after dinner tonight. Let’s hope.
Musical Meanderings
Okay, so we’re up to six songs in three days. Not a bad haul to start the month. No lyrics yet, that’s a little concerning, but half of the songs have their full rhythm section down.
Now here is my dumb tumblr summary of day four, yesterday:
I expected to get shut out on day four. It was my step son’s 21st birthday and we drove to Vermont and back to celebrate with him a little. I would have been okay with not making any progress at all, but I did manage to sneak one little thing in.
Just before I fell asleep I noodled a couple of bass guitar ideas and called them song idea number seven. It’s probably terrible, but it’s in the pipeline now so it will become a song one way or another.
Musical Meanderings
Something is better than nothing, even if it’s barely something and not terribly interesting… at least I don’t think it was terribly interesting. I was falling asleep as I worked on it, and I haven’t listened back to it today.
Tomorrow is another potential day of being shut out. It’s my work from the office day this week so my morning won’t see any work. Maybe I will sneak some in before I go to bed again. We will have to see. Wednesday could be a big day. It’s Jen’s birthday and we both took the day off. I might be able to squeeze in some serious productivity in the morning at least. We have a couple of contractors coming over to give house painting estimates and I do want to do something nice for Jen’s birthday, so there might not be that much time for music. I’ll see what I can do. Thinking about Wednesday is getting way ahead of myself though. Let’s get some shit down tonight before we worry about anything else, m’kay?
2024 RPM Challenge Day 2/29
What did I post on that dumb music project Tumblr account as a summary for day two of the RPM Challenge?
Day two was not as productive as day one, but I got some stuff done and I am pleased.
I put rhythm guitars onto one song and also gave that song a melody. Later in the day I added song idea number five and finished the MIDI bass and MIDI drums and gave the whole thing a complete song form.
Day three has already seen some progress, but you’ll read about that tomorrow.
Musical Meanderings
Yup. A decent haul on day two. One new song format, one song’s worth of rhythm guitars, and one vocal melody without lyrics.
Similar to yesterday, I wrote my summary of day two after I did some work on day three. I put rhythm guitars onto two songs this morning after breakfast. Hopefully I will have some more melodies and maybe a lyric or two or three at some point today. I won’t be able to do an early morning car vocals tomorrow, but I should be able to do it on Monday so I want to have a lot of stuff available to work on by then.
Pics!
2024 RPM Challenge Day 1/29
Every February I try to post daily RPM Challenge updates on a Tumblr page that I set up a thousand years ago and only ever use to try and track daily updates of music projects. Why? Why do I do this? Why do I even keep this Tumblr account? What the hell is wrong with me?
I find that I post to that page for a week or two and then I fall off and eventually forget all about it. It’s lame. I am lame. You could probably tell that by all the lame posts though, so I don’t expect anyone to be surprised.
Anyway, I posted the day one summary this morning even though I have already done some work on day two today. Whatever. Since I am a content whore I will quote the Tumblr post here because… ya know… reasons. I guess.
The RPM Challenge is underway once again. Will I manage to post daily updates here? Probably not. Oh well.
Day one went really well. I managed to start four songs before I punched into work for the day. Three of them were multiple riffs/changes that I noodled out on guitar. The fourth was just a bass/drum groove that I worked out on my iPhone.
After work I added bass and drum parts (MIDI) and a song form to two of the three ideas that started on guitar. I started adding bass and drums to the third but was unable to finish.
And that is my wrap up for day one. I’ve already done a little work on day two.
Musical Meanderings
There you go. There is my day one summary. I mentioned the morning stuff here yesterday but the after work stuff should be new news.
As for today? I put rhythm guitars (two guitars through two amps each for a total of four tracks) onto song idea number one. I didn’t have time to add them to song idea number two too. Maybe this evening. We’ll see.
Time Off Timing
I get a certain amount of personal time off from work each year. We accrue one 12th of that total amount of annual time each month. We can carry over some of that personal time off from month to month, but we do have a cap on how much we can have stored up at any given time. The cap is higher than the annual allotment, but it is pretty easy to accrue up to the cap on any given month. With today being the first of the month, our accrual numbers were updated today and sure enough I have hit the cap. Shit. I got a friendly reminder to make sure I book enough time off this month to get back down below the cap so that I don’t fail to accrue any more time next month.
I already had one day off booked in February. My beloved wife and I both took her birthday off. I need to take two more days to ensure that I get far enough below the cap to not have a problem in March. I booked those two days for later in the month. Interesting that this comes up in February… the one month out of the year where I go absolutely bonkers crazy working on writing and recording an album’s worth of music. Sure I do album-in-a-month things throughout the year, but February is the only one that really counts. February, also known as the RPM Challenge, is the one that matters to me. As silly as it is, I get super invested in this thing every year. I am not really sure why it is so important to me, but it is… and now I have a four day weekend near the end of the month where I can cram in tons of music project work.
We are 11 hours into February now. Was I able to get anything done this morning?
Why yes, yes I did.
After finishing my exercise and my breakfast and my daily writing prompt blog post, I picked up my guitar and noodled out three (3) new song ideas. Three of them. Already! Crazy right? Sure is, especially when you realize that just before I punched into work I noodled out a fourth new idea in GarageBand on my iPhone. It’s just a bass riff for now, but it’s there and that means I have FOUR songs in progress already.
I also have two potential album cover photos. Not that these are really in the running, but just expect to see lots of square format pic over the next four weeks. One of them is bound to end up as the cover.
In closing, allow me to summarize the progress made in the pre-work hours of day one…
WOOOHOOO!
Three Days to Go
New (Old) Song!
I’ve been talking about it all month, but finally we have a new recording all mixed and ready to share. This is a song that was written and originally recorded for the 2021 RPM Challenge and re-recorded here for Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven, aka The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project.
What do you think, should I have put some more reverb and echo on everything? This is the wettest mix I’ve ever done… maybe. It’s pretty much dripping wet.
Hopefully there will be more stuff coming in the next few days.
Sign Up
It happens around this time every year, or at least every year since 2008…
I just signed up for this year’s RPM Challenge. The annual musical extravaganza/torture event is happening and I will be eye ball deep in it all throughout the month of February. We wouldn’t have it any other way, would we?
I have no idea what I am going to do this year. No goals other than to finish. 10 songs or 35 minutes of music… or maybe 20 songs or 70 minutes of music, as maybe I might shoot for a double album this year. Who knows.
Maybe my 1978 Les Paul in your left speaker (or your left ear if you’re wearing headphones) and my 2020 Les Paul in your right speaker/ear? Fun, eh?
I went to sleep last night fully planning to record some singing in the car this morning but then when I woke up I just didn’t have the energy. Tomorrow, for sure. Then some lead guitar playing. That’s the plan at least. I’m not trying to write anything new this month as I am saving that up for RPM February. Maybe I should just noodle some riffs and chord changes onto a memo file to have in the bank for next month. I’ve done that before but I usually try to keep everything 100% February if I can.
So I have signed up for the RPM Challenge… have you? Well why not! Make some music next month. It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be.
Anyone Else Play Guitar Today?
Hey everyone, raise your hand if you were able to sneak some guitar playing in before work this morning.
Robert timidly raises his hand.
Yup, I recorded lead parts for two songs. I now officially have no songs in progress that are currently ready for any guitar tracks. I have to do some MIDI work tonight, and maybe some car vocals in the morning, and then I’ll have some stuff ready to work on.
The Great Guitar Pick Journey of 2024 continues as well. I tried another new one today. Much of my internet research pointed to Dunlop as the brand to go with. I tried Max Grip first (1.14mm) and those were okay, but no as good as the Fender picks I’d been using for ages. They have little grippy things on them that are supposed to keep them from spinning around between your fingers as you play, and that worked but it felt awkward. I am sure I could get used to it but I moved on to option two this morning (for now at least).
Option two is Dunlop Tortex Jazz III. This one was much better than the Max Grip in all ways but one. The little guy is just tiny. I kept going into muscle memory mode and literally missed the strings. It’s just small. It feels really good in my hand, and the overwhelming majority of suggestions I’ve received in my online questioning said to try them. I’ll stick with it for a while, but I am wondering if they make the same pick only bigger.
I have two other options that I want to try before I start looking outside of Dunlop, but I haven’t bought either of them yet. One of them is pretty expensive for a pic. We’ll see.
Anyway, here are the obligatory pictures from this morning’s lead guitar playing extravaganza.
Inside the Red Head's Head 