Tag: Song Writing

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 4/90

I started the day with two goals. Let’s call them goals A and B.

Goal A was to put rhythm guitars on all eight songs that are currently in progress. That goal was completed, though the guitar playing got sloppier and sloppier as the day rolled on.

Goal B was to add another song or two to the pipeline. That goal was not completed. I just didn’t have it in me last night.

Today is day five and I am working in the office. There will be a significant reduction in available time to get music done. We’ll see what happens.

More Guitar

I spent some more time this afternoon playing guitar. Just adding parts to some 50/90 Challenge songs, that’s all.

My finger tips hurt. Maybe I’ll have calluses again by the time the 50/90 challenge ends in October. That would be nice.

Laugh at the nerd!

Rhythm Guitars

I said I was hoping to get a little more than just MIDI tracking done for 50/90 today.

Four songs worth of rhythm guitars are done. Hopefully that’s more like four songs and counting for today, but we’ll see. My finger tips are hurting a little.

311/365
311/365

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 3/90

Day three’s update is identical to day two’s. Three new song ideas. All have MIDI bass and drums and a complete song form. That leaves me with eight songs in the pipeline, all in the same completeness bucket.

I am hoping there will be something more involved in tomorrow’s update. We’ll see. Maybe some guitar tracking?

2024 50/90 Challenge Day 2/90

Another day with no real instruments being played, but decent progress none the less.

I added three new song ideas. All three have a song form worked out. They are just MIDI bass and drums though two of them also have MIDI guitar guide tracks.

The pipeline now has five songs. All with song form and just MIDI instruments.

On to day three.

New Mix

I mixed a song a couple of nights ago but didn’t get around to posting it to my alonetone or hearthis.at accounts so it just sat there on my laptop. Now it is out there for the whole wide world to ignore.

I think it kinda sounds like crap, but the song itself is okay, I think. You can probably hear the edits in the chorus because I wrote a melody without leaving any space for that pesky little breathing thing. Oops.

The lead guitar was through a nearly cranked amp. That was fun. Noisy as hell, but fun.

Musical Notes for This Week

This is a to do list… read the title… it is a pun, my friends. Get it? I made a pun! It’s punny. It’s puntastic.

Ugh.

The current home recording music project is to take 10 songs from the 2020 Fifty Songs in 90 Days Challenge, edit them, rearrange them, rewrite them, and completely re-record them. When I punched out of work last night I had the 10 songs picked out. One is mixed and finished. Five are completely recorded but still need to be mixed. The other four hadn’t been touched.

Last night while sitting up in bed I took one of them and got as far as finishing the MIDI music bed. Bass, drums, arrangement, song form changes, all done. This morning after I finished today’s errands I cranked out the other three. Now I have four songs ready for rhythm guitars.

Best case scenario is that I track all of the rhythm guitars tomorrow. I work in the office on Monday so nothing is happening then. Tuesday morning before work should be car music where I track all of the vocals. Wednesday is back in the office. Thursday is lead guitars before work. At that point I will have all tracking done for all 10 songs before we leave for Florida.

Yeah. Let’s see if we can pull this off.

Note: It is 99% certain that I will not pull this off. When it comes to the musical planning stage, Robert is not terribly reliable.

Unrelated musical note… one of the reasons my band’s singer quit was because he moved to Maine. He told us yesterday that he’s moved back to the Merrimack Valley. He also mentioned getting “the itch.” Now is that an itch to just have one band practice just for fun, or is it an itch to get back into the band? I don’t know but I am thinking about maybe being hopeful that our singer search could be over. It’s probably not, but if I can’t be optimistic about the Bruins anymore this year, then I’ll be optimistic about this.

Thanks for Nothing, Bruins

6-1? They lost 6-1? On my fucking birthday? Thanks for nothing, Bruins. Way to kick a red head when he’s down. Damn it!

As the hockey world was imploding all over the state of Florida, I tried to ease my pain by mixing a song. I think it sounds okay. It probably doesn’t, but I am trying to be nicer to myself now that I am 53 years old and shit.

This is the first of probably 10 songs that will make up the eighth round of The Great 2015 Re-Recording Project, aka Quarantine Tunes Volume Eight, aka the Best of the 2020 50/90 Challenge (as all 10 songs are from that project, similar to how Quarantine Tunes Volume Five was all songs from the 2021 50/90 Challenge… which was WAY better than 2020).

Friggin’ Bruins ruining my friggin’ birthday. Jerks.

My Ears are Killing Me

I said I was going to celebrate my 53rd birthday with a work-on-music day and that’s just what I’ve done.

I have worked on new recordings of five old songs. Two songs got lead guitar tracks. Two songs got rhythm guitar tracks and vocals. One final song got bass, drums, rhythm guitars, and vocals. I don’t know if the clock is going to cooperate or not, but the three songs that did not get lead guitars today might still get lead guitars today.

I was home alone for all of this guitar playing… so I played through my Fender Deluxe Reverb… the best amp I’ve ever owned… and I played loud. Very loud. The decibel meter on my Apple Watch topped 100 db once. Yeah. My ears are killing me. Oh glorious noise!

251/365

Robin seems pretty sad about the news about Steve Albini but she agrees that playing the guitar at a disturbing volume is as good a way to honor his memory as any.