I finished another song today. This was the third song I started this month. At the time it was sort of a throw away. The first two ideas I had had me kind of optimistic. I had a Straty 12-bar with a riff that was too reminiscent of Goodbye Porkpie Hat, but it was cool. The second song had a decent Straty sounding riff. I liked it. The third song… blah.
Now that it’s finished though… I kinda like it.
The plan for June was 10 songs with all of the guitar parts played on the Strat.
That will still happen, but…
There will be two additional songs. One is a three part suite type thing. It uses my lovely Takamine 12-string and my magical Gibson ES 335. The other song is all 12-string right now, but it’ll probably get some Strat later.
Here’s to musically biting off more than you can chew! 50/90 is two weeks away!
I did a little recording tonight. I put the rhythm guitar onto one of the two songs that were still guitar free, and I put the leads onto two songs that are now finished and ready to iOS mix.
My playing is poor. Very poor. It’s only been a couple of weeks or so since last I played and tonight it was just difficult. I wonder if I took out the Les Paul would I have an easier time.
I also have an urge to write an extra song this month and make it proggy and long as opposed to the bluesier, acidy feel for most of this month’s crap.
We shall see, but I can almost see a GarageBand for iOS file with some 12-string tracks. Almost. Again, we shall see.
I said I was going to do all of the recording this month using GarageBand on my iPad. That’s mostly correct.
I just finished doing something that I’d never done before. I have a song that is recorded 100% on my iPhone. Drums and bass are GarageBand MIDI tracks. There are also two tracks of guitar, the Strat, and three tracks of vocals.
It’s rough, but everything this month is rough. I’m just glad I was able to sneak in a vocal today before this SOB of a cold ruins what little voice I have.
Have you heard the expression, “my eyes are bigger than my stomach”? Meaning I put more food on my plate than I could actually eat? I have coined a guitar playing version of that statement. My eyes play better than my hands. Let me explain.
I am up to seven songs this month. Three of them were written in the dead of night using the built in instrument sounds in the iPad version of Garageband. Today I replaced the fake, software guitar parts with an actual real live guitar. On one song I was almost forced to stick with the crappy fake software. I came up with a funky little riff that was standing out above most of the others in my little head. I thought it was pretty snazzy. When I tried to play it today I couldn’t. It was beyond my abilities at this time. I’ve no doubt that back in 1995 of 2004 I could have nailed the sucker over and over again, but today? With my playing chops as weak as they are? Nope. I couldn’t do it.
I did find a work around though. It was in two parts. First, and most importantly, I practiced the little bastard over and over again for almost an hour. Over and over again. I got to the point where I could play it, but I couldn’t quite play it cleanly four times in a row as the song required. That’s where the second work around came in. It is a huge cheat. An epic cheat. A cheat for all ages. It’s also standard practice in a recording environment. I played the riff once then stopped. I then started the recording on the second measure of the phrase and played it again. I repeated until I had the whole thing comped together. I now have a complete recording of the entire phrase that is, while not perfect, good enough for my needs.
Am I a cheater? Oh you bet your sweet ass I am. In this respect, me and everyone else on the planet.
I’m up to five songs. Four were written on the Strat, one using MIDI on the iPad. One has vocals. I tried working on a second vocal tonight but didn’t have time.
You’d think with all this guitar playing I’d be getting my chops up. Nope. It’s the opposite. I’m getting worse by the minute.
I’ve got a goofy idea for this month. I’m going to do all the recording on the iPad then port everything to the Mac for mixing. But… I’m thinking of doing an actual mix on the iPad too, and then putting both mixes of each song onto the bandcamp playlist.
What do you think? Too lame?
It’s June 2nd. I’ve tortured you by making you wait a whole day for a June Music update! I’m sorry!
Yesterday I stitched together three ideas. I don’t really have a theme this month, but so far everything is 100% iPad (that won’t last), 100% Strat (that probably will last), and almost, but not quite, bluesy. Well, 1.5 of the new things at least.
All three are ready for vocals. Can you believe that? I wanted to write lyrics for one of them before work today but I decided to sleep an extra 15 minutes and then leave a little early instead.
That plan fell apart as epically as most of my music plans do. I was in the car at 7:15 on my first day back from vacation and the damn thing wouldn’t start. I had to call for a tow, and of course the tow truck driver got the sucker running almost immediately. It was fine all the way to work and back. The turd.
Tonight saw the start of the April music project. Idea #1 has begun. It’s four phrases written on guitar (for a change) and recorded along with bass and drums on my iPad. I used the Fender Twin version of Amplitude for the guitar. I’m thinking that might be April’s schtick… Fender amp. Bare bones trio. No doubling (except for vocals and even then maybe just harmonies).
We shall see.
Of course, I’m still not even close to finished with March, so this is really just silliness. Am I right?
I took my laptop and a microphone to the kids’ karate tonight so that I could do some singing/writing in the car while waiting for the class to let out. I drove over to the far side of the parking lot, set everything up, picked the song I wanted to work on, and started hiccuping. Sing a line, hiccup. Sing half a line, hiccup. Sing a syllable, hiccup. I couldn’t stand it anymore.
Bill Nye the Science Guy taught me that the way to get rid of hiccups is to take five quick sips of water. That always works for me. I didn’t have any water (nothing is worse than needing to take a leak while waiting outside in 17 degree weather) and the only drink available was an 11 hour old cup of dunkin donuts iced coffee. Damn, I grabbed it and sipped it five times.
That was the single most disgusting moment of my life. Never, ever, have I been that grossed out by anything. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to hurl. I wanted to blow chunks all over the front of the car.
The hiccups stopped though, and I was able to get a whole vocal done on RPMarch01. Granted, it’s awful and I’ll have to do it again, but I got it done for now.
I sort of lost count. I did either two or three lead guitar parts this morning. I think it was two. This evening I mixed one of those songs. The first four bars have been in my head for ages, but I’ve never found them a home until now. The lyrics were sort of inspired by the @floridaman twitter account. I went there looking for ridiculous stories and instead found two reports of utterly senseless violence.
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/overreaction.mp3%20I hope to get some more guitar soloing in before we go to IKEA in the morning. We can discuss that later.
Inside the Red Head's Head 