Tag: Song Writing

Relating to Sheldon Cooper

Ever watch The Big Bang Theory? You know the character Sheldon Cooper? I found myself relating to him this morning, intensely.

You see this truck?

See it? Parked there in the parking lot like it’s no big thing?

Its in my spot.

I repeat, its in my spot.

Its totally sitting there right on the spot that I go to when I do my morning parking lot vocal recording sessions. Just sitting there like some smug son of a bitch, taking up my god damned spot!

I had to move to the other side of the lot to get the required privacy.

It threw everything out of whack (no it didn’t). It caused me to screw up 10 times more often than usual (no it didn’t, I just sucked a tiny bit more than usual and I’m blaming it on the parking spot). It caused me to even have to change one of the melodies I’d written out ahead of time because the parking lot made my vocal range a couple of steps smaller (no it didn’t, again, I just suck).

I had an audience though, the poor suckers (there were two of them even though you can only see one).

The good news is, I am done with vocals for June music. I only had two more to do and I struggled with both of them, but they are done. I thought about maybe doing a song or two from the re-recording project while I was out on the town, but I decided not too. The mojo was not with me today.

I took a roundabout route home instead so that I could take a picture of the ugly clock.

299/365

For June Music I have five songs already mixed, two more are ready to mix, and four still need lead guitars. I might have this thing finished by the 29th again. That would be cool.

Don’t Daisy Chain Your Pedals

My new Crybaby wah pedal is on my pedal board. My RYRA Klon Klone and Keeley Blues Driver clone are not. The board is powered by two MXR bricks. The two non-board pedals each have their own plugs.

I was using the two clones, but I wanted to use the crybaby with them and I didn’t have a third plug. I took it off the board and did what you shouldn’t do. I put all three pedals onto a daisy chain. I did leads for one song and then tore it all down.

Don’t daisy chain pedals together. My already noisy rig reached new, previously unimagined levels of awful noise. Just don’t do it.

The crybaby sounded great though.

I Broke My Rule

I broke one of my primary album-in-a-month challenge rules today. Twice. I think I might do it again too.

I mentioned before that I was a little unhappy with the first few rhythm guitar parts I recorded this month. Well, I have a rule that states once a track is done, it’s done. Today I kicked that rule to the curb and re-recorded all of the guitars on songs #1 and 2. I’m just out of control.

I also put lead guitar on both of those songs. That means I have two June songs ready to mix. It’s just crazy!

Car Music: Day Two

I went out to my current car music parking lot of choice again today. That’s two days in a row of vocalizing madness!

I have vocals on nine of the 11 songs now. I was on a roll today and the only reason I didn’t finish off the last two songs was that the lyrics haven’t been written yet.

One item of note…. today is the first day of summer, and car music in summer is a much sweatier experience than car music in winter. Believe me on that one.

In closing, if you were curious, yes I did bring a mask with me…….. four of them.

Car Music: June Edition

As of last night, seven of the 11 June music songs have lyrics. As of an hour ago, four of those seven have vocals.

Car vocals, to be precise.

Road trippin’, mobile studio style.

Sum Up Today’s Music

I took the day off from work today to be available for the dishwasher delivery. I was able to use the downtime before and after to work on some music. I was able to make a little progress on both projects.

For the album in a month thing, I wrote lyrics and melodies for two of the 11 songs. That’s it. I was hoping to get to more than that today. I might sneak another song or two in before bed tonight, who knows.

For the re-recording thing (tentatively titled Quarantunes Volume 1) I redid the rhythm guitars for one of the songs I did over the weekend. I didn’t like the tone. It’s better now, and I’ll probably keep it, but there’s something weird about it that isn’t happening in the other songs that used the same setup. I don’t know. I then added the guitars to the only one of the eight songs that I hadn’t touched yet. Some of it sounds good. Some of it doesn’t. I had an idea that didn’t really pan out.

Finally, I took the two songs that I put the guitars down a year ago and redid them. They both sounded pretty good already, but they both sound better now. I’m very pleased with how they turned out.

That means both projects are now fully at the stage where the next step is vocals. Crap.

Oh yeah, and the amp I bought online this morning will be delivered on Monday.

Music

Remember those 11 June Music songs? Neither do I.

The great re-recording project continues. I’m looking at it like a series of two or three EP’s. I have eight songs earmarked for volume one. Two of them got rhythm guitars on Saturday, two on Sunday, and one tonight. I think I’m going to redo on of the Saturday songs. Two more songs got good guitar takes about a year ago, but I know I can do better. The eighth song got rhythm guitars back when all of this started, five years ago, but I’m going to redo those as well.

Tonight’s song included slide guitar. Just for a noisy effect, not for anything even remotely melodic. I’m the world’s worst slide guitarist.

Now, I need to get back to the June music. I’m not abandoning it at all. Also, I need all of this crap finished by the time 50/90 starts on the Fourth of July.

Yikes!