Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Sixty Two (Year Four)

Over the years, I've talked about doing a lot of things in this space.  I've mentioned (a lot) the desire to even out the time I spend with the electric guitar vs. the time I spend with an acoustic in my hands.  I've talked about wanting to make records.  I've talked about wanting to put together a set list and play some gigs.  I've talked about wanting to be a more well-rounded musician.

Here's what dawned on me tonight: absolutely everything on this list centers on the acoustic.  When I sit down to write music, it's not the electric I reach for first.  When I sit down to record, sure, I may lay down an electric riff as it goes through my head, but I'm always trying to block the song out on acoustic.  When I think about playing live, 99% of solo singer-songwriters play acoustic (and as much as I love the idea of making a solo-electric singer-songwriter record, I'm not there right now).

Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of days this year where I reach for the electric first, but I just feel that starting the year by making a bigger point of the acoustic ties in really well to all of my other goals this year.  It'll definitely strengthen my hands, and I suspect it will also make my electric playing more fluid almost by default.

I've found some pretty good books with solid acoustic-based lessons in them, and I know I've got a pile of old Guitar World Acoustic issues at my Mom's place.  If I can find a way to grab those the next time we're up north, I know there will be a ton of stuff in them that I didn't appreciate enough the first time around.

Tonight was a good night for playing.  My fingers are just the tiniest bit sore as I head off to bed.

Oh, and I picked up American Weekend by Waxahatchee tonight.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day One Hundred Eleven (Year Eight)

Okay, so Dave's voice was kinda shot last night and the show was still epic.  Here's what they played: Run All My Life Learn to Fly The Pretender The Sky Is a Neighborhood Rope ( with solo's ) Sunday Rain My Hero These Days Walk Under My Wheels / Jump / Another One Bites the Dust / Blitzkrieg Bop ( w/ band introductions ) Big Me Congregation Breakout Times Like These This Is a Call Under Pressure ( Queen  cover) Monkey Wrench Breakdown ( Tom Petty  cover) Best of You Dirty Water Let There Be Rock ( AC/DC  cover) Everlong   And here is a little bit of "Big Me," just for fun:    
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Forty (Year Six)

It's done.  Well, okay, so it's 99.5% done, but that's close enough for me. The stereo and the turntable got set up this morning, as I figured they would, and the two bags of randomness (picks, my slide, tuners, etc) and the few small piles of notebooks got dealt with tonight.  I even managed to get the iMac set up, if not fired up. And yet, the studio remains only slightly unfinished.  Somewhere in either the house or the garage, there must be a box or a bag that has a couple of studio-related items tucked into it, because there are at least two things I can't find.  As fate would have it, they're important things, too.  And something tells me that they're all in one place.  I'm missing: 1.  My looping pedal 2.  The power cable for my Marshall 3.  The foot switch for the Marshall They're all things that would have been in the same general area in the old studio, but given how much of the house we've gotten set up already, it really surpris
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Forty One (Year Eight)

Holy shit.  I knew it had been a good number of days since I'd posted, but I didn't think for a second that it had been NINE of them... the last week and a half has been a blur, so let me see if I can catch myself up: 1.  It was spring break week last week, so in theory I should have been able to get a lot of good work in, but there was family here all week long, and staying with us.  It was great to see them all, but it didn't leave an awful lot of time for hiding away in the studio. 2.  My Dad and my Brother were here at the end of that time, though, and we got a chance to talk through a bit of the plan for the hootenanny that Dad wants to throw this summer, so that was good. 3.  New Decemberists record came in the mail today.  I'm listening now, but am hoping to spend a lot more time with it over the weekend. I've felt disconnected and off for great parts of the last week, even with people here.  It's no wonder, considering I haven't posted here. 
Post a Comment
Read more