Tag: Song Writing

Pre-Work Mixing

New song alert. I mixed two of the final three December songs this morning. I can’t work on the last one now though as it’s time to punch in to work and earn a living doing actual stuff.

I already miss Christmas.

Musical To Do List

I have three songs to mix and then December Music is done. I want to finish those before I move on to the next thing. The next thing being re-recordings volume four. I want some of that done before New Year. Part of me wants to skip the album in a month for January to recharge the creative battery for RPM in February, but another part of me wants to do another 10 songs in January in order to have the 10 songs/month streak last for a full 12 months. I’m also going to switch back to the ES-335 and keep messing with different overdrive pedal combinations. I put the Keeley D&M Drive back on the board. Let’s give that another spin.

In other words, after I mix the last three songs I don’t know what I want to do next.

Typical.

Boxing Day

You know, I still have no idea what Boxing Day is supposed to be, but here’s a Boxing Day “gift” to all you good folks out there in internet land.

A new song! It’s bad, but not as bad as most of them. I can almost… almost… live with this one.

A Covid-19 Lock Down First

I’ve worked on various monthly music goofiness before starting work many, many, many times since the Covid shut down started back in March. Today was the first time I worked on a monthly music goofy by recording guitar parts. I was playing guitar by 8:20am. I could deal with more of that.

My wife is off work today and the kids are at their dad’s until later tonight so I was in the clear as far as not annoying someone who is working or schooling or sleeping. I only had time to put leads onto two songs, but one of them has guitarmonies. I wasn’t planning on it, I just did it. Noice. I also brought out my recently acquired Bluesbreaker clone and paired it up with my Klon KTR. It sounds good, but it just doesn’t have the balls that the OCD clone has. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it on the board.

Oxygen is Important

Today was the third straight car vocals day for me. Four songs on Sunday, four songs on Monday, which left two for Tuesday. I drove to the big, empty movie theater parking lot and started singing very poorly. I had to move the car as the sun was bright and killing me. Why wouldn’t we have had clear skies last night? Once again, the universe punches me in the nards.

When the last December song was finished I had plenty of time before I had to stop so I pulled up a song from re-recording round four. It wasn’t really ready for vocals, but the bass and drums were done and there was still a scratch guitar that I could sing over. What the hell.

The song is important for two reasons. First, it contains the greatest lyric writing moment of my pathetic history. A brilliant couplet that rhymes putz and clutz. Clearly my finest lyrical hour. Second, it’s just an absolute bitch to sing. Talk about a punch in the nards. I wrote it in… 2009? Maybe? 2010? Something like that. Some pre-GarageBand date. I’ve recorded it a couple of times, and because the words were written first (which is super rare for me) and without a melody, when it was eventually put to music there was one little snag.

There was no place to breathe.

Breathing… it’s kinda important. When I recorded it before I used two tracks and they each sang alternating lines. It was a cheat. I was willing to do it again, but I thought I might try to fix it. I sped up the tempo a bit so I could get through each section in less time, and I changed a couple of quarter notes to an eighth note rest/eight note combo. Basically I put in space for really quick breaths. It worked. Except that now I feel like I am going to die. The end of the song goes verse/chorus/chorus and there are no spaces between, and the vocal from each section runs straight into the next. I had to do a 24 bar phrase with only teeny tiny little gaps for breath.

Oxygen deprivation is a thing. My head hurts. What a putz*.

*See what I did there? I said putz after previously saying putz was my finest lyrical moment? Damn, I write good and stuff.

Weekend Wrap Up

On Saturday I posted my to do list for the weekend. How’d I do?

  • Wrap Christmas Presents. I only have one person’s gifts left to wrap.
    • Every Christmas present I had in the house that was not wrapped is now wrapped. I’m still waiting on a couple of deliveries, but that’s not a big deal. Almost done!
  • Do Christmasy things with the whole family, specifically we need to watch Elf.
    • Oh hells yes. Elf, Polar Express, Christmasy stuff all over the place. WOOHOO!
  • This is a late arrival to the list but I am going to help Jen make a shit ton of cookies. Hell yes.
    • So many cookies were baked. So many delicious cookies. I’ve done a decent job not devouring all of them, but I doubt my will power is going to hold out for very much longer.
  • MUSIC
    • Holy crap! 48 hours ago the December music was nine songs, seven of which had rhythm guitars. That’s it. Now? 10 songs, all of the rhythm guitars are done, all of the lyrics and melodies are done, eight of the songs have vocals done, two of the songs have all of the tracking done, and one of them is mixed. I did a car music yesterday, and another today, and I’ll need one more tomorrow. December music is suddenly on fire.

So there we have it. My weekend to do list may have been short, but it’s complete. Big time complete. I like it when a plan comes together. Now we just have three work days, and a Christmas Eve to go before our first and hopefully last ever Covid-19 Christmas. Here’s hoping the little bastard goes down in history as a unique little blip on the universe. HoHoHo.

Tundra

This is a movie theater parking lot at 10:00 AM on a Sunday. The movie theater is open, Covid-19 be damned. Fortunately there is no one there. Granted, there’s another parking lot on the other side of the building and for all I know that one was full, but it still reassuring to know that I might not be the only person left in Massachusetts who takes Covid-19 seriously.

Anyway, I did some bad singing today. I had six songs ready to go but I only got to four of them. I’ll do more tomorrow. My throat wasn’t terribly cooperative today. Very scratchy and cracky. I tried warming up on the drive over but this time it didn’t help much. It was 24 degrees out when I started. I bet that had something to do with it.

Progress.