Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Fifty (Year Two)

So, a couple of days ago, SL sent me a link to a blog post by Jon Acuff.  He wrote a great book called Quitter about how to get from your day job to your dream job.  This blog post of his got its genesis from much the same place as my own blog sprung to life.  He posted on his birthday about how great he was at starting things, and about how not-so-great he was at finishing things.  Then he issued a challenge to the people who follow his blog:  make a "finish list" of things you want to get done in 2012, and follow up/through on it.  After thinking about it for a couple of days, I'm doing this.

Here's the link to Acuff's post.  http://www.jonacuff.com/blog/the-hardest-part-of-a-project-is-also-the-most-important/

And here's what I'm certain is going on my list:

1) The record with B.

I'm tired of looking at it not being done.  I'm tired of waiting on other people.  If I've got to refurbish a currently defunct laptop and find ProTools, then so be it.  The steps involved in that can be steps involved in getting this project to where I want it to be... in a CD case on my shelf.

The beautiful part of this is that I know my playing isn't where it needs to be for the serious lead-work that will be required of this project.  I will really need to step up my practicing in order to get my playing to the right point.  I've spent so long fighting with the two sides of this blog... the band side and the practicing on my own side, that it has slipped past me that, in order for both sides to be effective, they need to play off of each other.

In short, I'm tired of making middling progress on both when I know full well I ought to be kicking ass on both, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to boost my practice time (hopefully closer to that crazy 50 hour number than they are now), and start moving toward something I can be proud of.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Six (Year Four)

Today was the first official day of the second half of my "album-in-a-month" challenge. As for today's goals, I wanted to see what I could get done in regards to track order, and get at least a little bit of a start on the lyric writing process. I spent more time working on the track order question than I did on the lyrics today, but as a result of that, I ended up with something that I think will work in terms of order. I did sit with the notebook for a few minutes at the very end of the day, and got a solid starting line of lyric and some other ideas that I hope will be jumping off points for lyrics. What I'm thinking I might do, however, is switch my focus from the lyric writing part of the process directly to the recording part of the process.  That way, if I can get the music recorded and burned onto a CD, I can take the music with me in the car, and listen and try to see what images and thoughts the music brings up.  It's a tactic that has worked for...

Day Two Hundred Ninety Two (Year Five)

Today was the last seminary village cookout of the year. While we were all sitting around the picnic tables eating dinner, I got a chance to talk with a few of the Mrs.'s classmates about guitar related stuff. As it turns out, more than one of them wants to be more proficient on guitar. I'm not saying that this will lead to more teaching opportunities, but I told one of them that I would throw a folder together for them. Essentially, anytime I get a chance to talk shop is a great chance for me to reinforce some of the things I have been focusing on. If nothing else, it gets me thinking ahead to tomorrow's day off and a chance to get into the studio for a decent amount of time.

Day Three Hundred Forty Two (Year Four)

Tonight was a slightly unfocused night in the studio. It was a night of acoustic stuff, but most of what I got accomplished involved tinkering with different songs by Jackie Greene and Johnny Cash.  If nothing else, I set up the next list of songs I want to figure out. Tomorrow night I need to start getting back to the Acoustic Goldmine book, as well.  Every time I sit down with the acoustic for an extended period of time, I reconnect with the emotional side of that instrument.  There's so much to learn still in that book, so much information designed to improve my playing.  I need to take better advantage of it. I know it's crazy, but I'm already looking forward to Friday.  I really need to spend a lot of the day in the studio.  Getting a weekday off of work is such a rare commodity.  I need to do a good job of using my time wisely.