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.
Hey, check out the playlist I posted earlier today. It’s up to 10 songs at 39:59. That clears both requirements for the RPM Challenge. Four more songs to sketch out and I’ll have enough to complete FAWM. OF course, then I just have to finish writing and recording everything. I am feeling good about this though. (even though all my songs sound exactly the same)
I put rhythm guitars onto the three existing songs today. The first two got the 12-string, and the third got the ES-335 with lots and lots of wah-wah.
The playlist won’t embed for some reason, and the one I posted the other day won’t update (I’ve since deleted it) so you get a link today. Bad Music Found Here.
The second song doesn’t have any drums. I’m trying to decide if I want it to stay that way. I think I do. I’m not sure though. I tried using the GarageBand Drummer function again but I wasn’t pleased with the results. I think it’s better without the drums. I can’t decide.
Completely changing the subject, there were a bunch of deer in the woods this morning. They were all over to the side of the house. I saw one staring intently toward the street. Something out there spooked her because she bolted off in the opposite direction. All of the others followed. I counted six as they were running by. It was pretty cool.
I didn’t do nearly as much as I’d hoped today, but I did get a third song kicked off. Again, not the riff I’d planned for the second song, but something new. Jen was in the kitchen making dinner. I was helping, but she gave me a few minutes off. I picked up my iPad and, using a piano sound, played the first couple of things that came into my head. Tonight, while sitting in bed, I changed the piano to a bass, and then gave the new GarageBand’s “drummer” mode a whirl. It inserted a drum part into each of my three bits. I messed with the settings a little and came up with something that I would not have thought off, that was also clearly better than what I had in mind. I don’t know if I’ll use it again, but it was cool to play with it tonight.
I don’t know why I am doing this, but I am going to make a soundcloud playlist of all of my works in progress and update it every time I record anything. It’s kind of a dumb idea, but what the hell, I’m kind of a dumb guy.
Song idea #1 is underway! I am bending my RPM rule of working all songs from scratch. During November’s NaSoAlMo silliness I bought a new 12-string guitar. When I took it home I opened up garageband on my phone and recorded the first thing that popped into my head. It was just a little 2 bar thingie in A minor. Yippee. I meant to use it for that project, but I didn’t. Now it makes up one little bit of RPM song #1. I think I’ll bend the rule again for what will be song #2. I’ve had a silly little idea for a riff that couldn’t really work as anything other than a bridge that’s been in my head since the mid 90’s. It keeps coming back to me for some reason. I’ll use it in the next song, if I can.
I finished another song today. This one was written in 1991. I can’t say for sure, but it might have been the first song I ever wrote from top to bottom all by my lonesome. At least I can’t remember anything older. There were actually two others that were written at about the same time that might have been my first solo effort. It doesn’t matter.
I think it was 1994 or 1995 that Mike, Dan, and I went into Northeast Broadcasting School’s 24 track studio after hours and recorded four songs. This was one of them. The other three have all been redone in GarageBand too. At first I wanted to record this one, and then make a playlist with all four. Then I thought I’d record the other three too. Then I thought I’d add a few new songs onto the end, just for fun. Then I thought I’d keep the three finished recordings and still add the new songs.
As of this moment, I’m going back to the original plan. Just the four old songs, using the already finished recordings. Yippee.
There is one cool thing about this demo, from my goofy point of view at least. Ever since I started playing the home recording game back in 2007, every song I’ve done (with one exception) has either used a headphone amp, or some kind of software amplifier simulator for all of the electric guitars. Not this one. This one is my actual, real life, physically there Marshall amp. Somehow that little fact made this one seem 100 times more fun.
Here it is:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/drift-away.mp3%20
I was sitting in the basement with my step son last night, watching Mythbusters, playing a little wii u, flying his remote controlled helicopter (which he got for his birthday [I think] a couple of years ago and completely forgot about it without even ever opening the box… the downside of living in two houses, methinks) when I took out my new 12-string and noodled for a bit before snapping a couple of camera+ pics. When I posted them here I wrote that RPM is coming soon. 32 days.
I have also said not long ago that I was going to make a mini project out of four old songs. I have expanded that a little. Three nights ago, my step son was in bed and my step daughter was enjoying the 30 minutes she gets to stay up after he went to bed. I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I wanted to make sure she got to bed at the right time so I forced myself to stay awake.
How did I do it?
Garageband for iPad. I came up with a bass riff and a drum groove. Just like I’m going to be doing ad nauseum come February. So I decided to make a project out of it. This was Friday night, so there were five days left in 2013. I decided I would come up with a riff or two (or three) a day for the last five days of the year, and then while working on the four old songs during the month of January, I would also finish off the five new songs. the difference is that the old songs need to be 100% Garageband for Mac, while the five new songs will be 100% Garageband for iPad.
What do you think the chances of me finishing any of this are?
0%? Sounds plausible.
Inside the Red Head's Head 