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Showing posts from March, 2014

Day Two Hundred Fifty (Year Four)

I finished getting everything back into the studio and sorted out after the weekend away. Can't believe tomorrow is the first day of April.  I feel like I've gotten a lot accomplished in the first quarter of the year. I know there were opportunities that I missed, but on the whole I feel like I've started a lot of projects that I'll be able to keep working on throughout the rest of the year. I need to: 1) Keep working on/finish up the record 2) Work on the songs I've pulled for set list consideration 3) Keep up with my theory study 4) Keep working on the 100 Riffs 5) Keep up with the acoustic/electric split. Started book one of Mark Lewisohn's Beatles history tonight, after finishing up the Big Star book last night.

Day Two Hundred Forty Nine (Year Four)

It's always interesting to get home from even a weekend away where I've taken music stuff along with me on the trip.  Every time we get home it feels like I'm moving back into the studio. We got in later than we had initially planned on, so I didn't get entirely unpacked from the weekend, but it was a really good feeling to be able to walk into the studio knowing that, with all the work I did in there last week, it's going to be so much easier to square everything away and keep the bit of momentum I had going through our trip to DSM. Almost finished with that book on Big Star.  Somehow fittingly, I was on NPR's website tonight and ran across a biography someone has done on Alex Chilton.  I'll have to pick that up at some point as well, I think. Today was a good day, it just had more travel time than music time in it.  Hopefully the next week will give me a bit more time to really dig into things.

Day Two Hundred Forty Eight (Year Four)

So, I stopped off at both B&N and Half Price Books today, and I've come to the conclusion that BAM in Dubuque is about a month behind with all of their magazines.  Things that were coming out "in next month's issue" were already on newsstands here.  I feel like I just posted about picking up new stuff the other day. Now I've got two months of things to study and learn, so that will be awesome. Found a cool book at Half Price Books today about the search for authenticity in music.  Seems like it will be an interesting read. Got a chance to practice for a little bit today as well.  We had some down time this morning, and so I took advantage of it by busting out the electric and working through some of the theory stuff that I brought along. It was one of those times that I felt I could have lost myself in studying for the rest of the day if given the opportunity.  Still, I was thankful for the time that I did have to sit and learn and play. Then, tonight, w

Day Two Hundred Forty Seven (Year Four)

So, we're in DSM for the weekend for a talent show where the wife's brother is playing tuba.  How cool is that ? Brought a guitar along, because the weekend was billed as one filled with lots of down time.  I also grabbed: 1) Some of the theory stuff I had been looking at near the beginning of the year (finally ran across that notebook once things got organized again). 2) Vai's 10 & 30 hour guitar workouts 3) The Rock Guitar Goldmine book 4) The notebook and CD copy of the record, just in case I got a free moment to go through any of that. 5) The iPod & Mini-Speakers Hoping to stop in at B&N while we're in town, and hopefully Half Price Books as well.  If I don't find something musical at either one of those places, I'll have failed completely. Today was good, though.  Too much working and traveling, but there was a bit of music in it, which was good.  More tomorrow.

Day Two Hundred Forty Six (Year Four)

Another good night in the studio. I spent most of my time with the acoustic in my hands tonight.  I'm really enjoying settling back into that routine.  My fingers are a bit less calloused than I'd like them to be, but that's just because I hadn't had a ton of time to pick up the acoustic of late (until the last couple of days). I keep adding songs to the list of things I'd like to learn.  Pretty soon I need to stop adding things to the list for a bit and shift hardcore into learning all of the stuff that's on the list already .  There's some part of me that would like to be able to sit outside when the weather gets nice and play, and I'd like to have enough songs at my disposal that I don't get bored when the time comes. Did a little bit of listening tonight, as well. Overall, tonight was a slow paced, relaxing night in the studio, and every once in a while, I'll take one of those over the frenetic, "gotta get a lot done" feelin

Day Two Hundred Forty Five (Year Four)

Today was good. I, 1) Got some music uploaded onto the iPod, and got that fully charged again. 2) Finished up the crazy business with the last few magazines that were taking up space in a rather unruly little pile.  I was right, they all fit into a single magazine file, which got put away.  All this means is that the studio space is finally starting to feel open again.  It's so positive to walk in there and not immediately feel like I've got to clean things up a bit before I get started with some playing. And speaking of playing, I 3) worked with both the acoustic and the electric today, taking the time to do a bit with the whole '100 Riffs' thing while still making time to work through a bit of Kasey Anderson and a bit of Dylan on the acoustic as a way to wind down the night. Did I get as much done as I had hoped to?  Of course not, but I'm still happy with the time that I did get to spend in the studio today, because, like always, it's a springbo

Day Two Hundred Forty Four (Year Four)

Got the rest of those magazines sorted and put away today.  Now I've only got a single pile of random mags sitting in the studio, and those would likely all fit into a single magazine file.  I was right when I said the other night that getting things a bit more squared away in there would help ease things up a bit.  It's definitely working, but it still seems like every time I walk in there, I spot some other small thing that can be done to make it better (side note: the Mrs. made the comment that the studio is the best organized room in the whole house the other day, and she might be right).  Picked up the electric tonight for a bit.  Was really good to get that back underneath my fingers again, if only to knock off a little bit of the rust. Caught up on some of the recent issues of things tonight as well. Tomorrow is looking like it needs to be a day with a mixture of things.  In a perfect world, I will: 1) Get the iPod charged (and get some more music loaded onto it)

Day Two Hundred Forty Three (Year Four)

Things are starting to take shape where organizing the resource closet is concerned.  All that remains, really, is sorting the magazines that are out by publication and getting them put away.  Realistically, this won't take very long, and will probably get done before I sleep tonight. Honestly, it was just good to have a chunk of time to spend in the studio tonight.  I feel like the last few days have had that as the plan, and then fallen somewhat short of the goal.  Tomorrow and Wednesday are looking good for more time than normal, though, as I've got a project to finish up for work that won't take all day, so I'll have some of the afternoon, and all day Wednesday free to spend time in the studio. Some of that time needs to be spent in a good, long session of playing.  Some acoustic, some electric, and a bit of focus on something that is on my list of goals for the year that hasn't gotten much attention of late: the practice binder.  Now that everything is fall

Day Two Hundred Forty Two (Year Four)

Today got me exactly what I needed it to. First and foremost, I made it through the rest of those CDs that had piled up, unmarked, for years and years.  There were a decent number of them that were either blank, or had a single track on them that was 4 seconds full of silence.  Those all got their own (reject) pile as I moved on to other stuff. There were actually a good number of discs that had demos on them, including some revisionist versions of things originally recorded almost 15 years ago.  The revisionist versions were from 2010 or so.  Anyone who has been following me from the beginning will recall J. (who played bass on the original recordings) hunting me down after stumbling across the original demos himself.  We went back and forth for six months or so, swapping tracks over the internet in an effort to end up with something we were both proud of, but progress was slow and eventually petered out.  Some of that had to do with me trying to get him to produce the old hard ro

Day Two Hundred Forty One (Year Four)

The hardest part about my year of musical "put up or shut up" has been the acceptance part of it.  Being happy with what I get done in a day.  This idea that, regardless of my accomplishments, I should have done more, has been tough on me.  Days where I don't exceed my wildest expectations aren't failures, they are still days where things got done. Why I have to keep reminding myself of this is still a mystery to me. I got all the way through the crate of CDs today.  About half of them were labeled already, which was a pleasant surprise.  I moved those over to the folio I started with all of my recorded stuff straight off the top.  That leaves me with a decent sized pile of things to listen to and label tomorrow, but it's a smaller pile than I expected to have when I walked into the studio tonight, so I'll take that as a win. If tomorrow is done right, it will have: 1) a lot of listening. 2) a lot of playing. 3) the rest of the organizing.

Day Two Hundred Forty (Year Four)

So, the first thing I got done tonight was surprisingly simple, and yet it continued to set the tone I established last night (that of small things early leading to bigger things late).  I got my electric case up off the studio floor, and hung on the hook I put up yesterday.  Completely easy, and yet it's just another small thing that establishes the way things are headed. One of the other steps I need to take this weekend, and one that didn't get mentioned last night, is dealing with a crate full of burned CDs that has been taking up space in the closet.  I'd say 95% of those discs are either random guitar parts and song demos that I have recorded over the years, or copies of things I've produced for other musicians.  That stuff needs to be listened to, labeled, and put into one of the giant CD wallets that are sitting mostly empty in the studio.  That way, there's a record of what I've done, all of it is in one (easily accessible) place, and I get the crate

Day Two Hundred Thirty Nine (Year Four)

Today was one of those days that is going to look a heck of a lot better at the end of the weekend than it does today. I got a lot of small things done in a short period of time tonight, but in the end they feel like small pieces that will be a part of a bigger picture come Sunday night.  Tonight, I: 1) Got a hook hung on the wall so that I can get my electric case up off of the floor in the closet. 2) Got some of the books and magazines better sorted out, which will make getting them all put away really easy over the weekend. 3) Did a little bit of electric playing, but didn't focus all that much on the whole 100 Riffs thing. 4) Picked up the acoustic a little bit. Things are looking better in the studio, and I feel like the weekend will really make a bigger difference than today did on its own.

Day Two Hundred Thirty Eight (Year Four)

I've been talking about getting the resource closet properly organized essentially since we moved in.  Tonight, I finally got around to starting that process. I hadn't spent a whole lot of time in the studio since I got back from WI.  Admittedly, the last couple of days have been occupied with listening to (and slowly starting to make some sense of) the demos, and trying to get that process up and running again. Meanwhile, the closet has been filled with random piles of books and magazines for as long as I can remember.  No semblance of organization or reason to much of it, just someplace for things to be until I figure out what to do with them.  I've had enough of that.  I'm lucky, in that, I've got tomorrow off, and will have a chance to really get in there and spend some quality time working on getting things organized. That said, I made a decent start tonight, getting some of the piles sorted out, getting some of the magazines if not off the floor yet, then

Day Two Hundred Thirty Seven (Year Four)

I finished the first listen through the demos today, and in the process, I found that I have a little bit of everything to look at/work on.  I've got: 1) songs that seem to short. 2) songs that could use some cutting. 3) songs that need longer verses. 4) songs that need more of the chorus progression. (some of the songs have more than one of these) I also found that the stuff I tended to have the most issues with was the couple of songs I used the electric on.  Sure, some of the acoustic stuff needs another two bars here or there, but for the most part, it held together pretty well. I know I need to start writing some bass parts, because having those locked in with the drums will really help to propel the record forward.  The way I see this shaking out is that all of the music will end up pristine long before the lyrics are finished, but if that's what it takes... Today was a good day.

Day Two Hundred Thirty Six (Year Four)

Today I started in on the one big goal I have music-wise this week: I need to get through the demos a couple of times, once for simple listening, and then a second time with a notebook and a pen in front of me to be objective and take notes on the changes I feel need to be made.  So, yeah, I listened in the car on the way to and from work, and made it about halfway through.  I'm hearing some of the same things that I got flashes of while I was mixing things down at the end of last week, so that too is cool.   My brother and I listened to a bit of it this weekend, and he seemed to like what he heard, but we didn't get a real chance to go through anything blow by blow.  It was more of a "so, how far along are you in the process?" sort of conversation. I know I've said it a lot, but in listening today, I'm happy with what I got done in the amount of time that I had in February.  It makes me wonder what things would be sounding like if I were able to devote my

Day Two Hundred Thirty Five (Year Four)

Got a later start home today than I had hoped to, but still got in around 9. Before I forget, here's the list of songs from the program they handed out at Saturday night's show: - Hang Your Head - Home In The Woods - Lovers & Friends - Born Again - Longer Time At Sea - Angel Of Mine - Love Is Gone - Mockingbird - Getting By - Curious Thing - Pale Blue Dress - So Wrong For Me - My Heart Would Be There - It Won't Be Long - New Orleans Aside from what was listed in the program, they did - Tennessee - This Is How It Goes - I've Been Accused The band was sharp, the arrangements were great, and again I'm too exhausted to really elaborate.  A long day, but a good day. More happened today, but it will have to wait for tomorrow's post, because I need to sleep.

Day Two Hundred Thirty Four (Year Four)

Wow.  I mean, I had high expectations going into this concert, but still, wow. Some musicians write songs that are not well suited for symphonic arrangements.  Cory Chisel is NOT one of those people.  His music chronicles the high's and low's of life the way a brilliant composer is able to encompass emotional highs and lows in a symphonic work.  Put together, the two were amazing. So many great parts of this show.  Such a long day.  I think I'll let the gig settle a little bit, and write about it more extensively tomorrow. Today was great, but right now I need to find a bit of sleep.

Day Two Hundred Thirty Three (Year Four)

Made the three and a half hour trek up home after work tonight. Finally got a decent chance to really dig into the Volcano Choir stuff on the way up.  It's strange and wonderful and off the wall all at the same time, and I really enjoyed it. Brought the electric and the notebook with all of my notes from the record-in-a-month project along with me (as well as the disc full of songs).  One of the things I'd really like to find at least a little bit of time for this weekend is sitting down (preferably with my brother) and giving it some sort of objective listen, recording quality aside (for the moment) to see where the changes that I know need to be made actually need to be made. Hoping to find the time to do at least a small bit of playing while I'm here.  Also, I'd love to fit in a trip to Exclusive sometime tomorrow, just to see if they have anything that's got my name on it. That's really all the news for today.  Seeing as most of my day was taken up

Day Two Hundred Thirty Two (Year Four)

Today, I got done exactly what I wanted to get done when it comes to my time in the studio.  I, 1) Got my bag and guitar packed for my trip to WI tomorrow. 2) Finalized my road music. 3) Bounced and burned the rough demos, so that I can take those along with me too. These were the essential things. I'm getting excited for the Wandering Sons concert on Saturday night.  This will be the second artist I've seen do a gig with an orchestra, the other being that Brandi Carlile concert I took in on campus at UNI a few years back.  If this show is anywhere near as good as the Brandi Carlile gig was, it's going to be a pretty epic weekend. That's all the highlights for today.  As always, more tomorrow.

Day Two Hundred Thirty One (Year Four)

I dove back into electric stuff tonight, with more work on learning those 100 Riffs.  This time, I went out of order and played around with a few riffs toward the middle of the list.  I will get through them all (by the end of the year?), and perhaps I will also learn the songs they come from all the way through.  Not sure about that part of it yet, but it does feel like a natural extension from the list. Tomorrow needs to be the night that I bounce down the rough demos from February, because somehow I've only got one more night in town before I leave for the weekend.  I did a small bit of listening tonight as well, but not so much that I won't have a ton of that to do on my drives up and then back home. Didn't get to much in the way of acoustic stuff tonight, or any reading in the Big Star book. Kind of a quiet night, when I look at it. More tomorrow, and better.

Day Two Hundred Thirty (Year Four)

I finally had the time tonight to sit down and give my record-in-a-month project a proper listen.  I went beginning to end, and while it's clear that the record is miles away from being a finished product, I've got three general reactions to what I heard: 1) I'm still really happy with what I ended up with.  Were the arrangements and tempos perfect?  Of course not, but considering this was my first real effort at this, I expected some flaws.  Truthfully, I expected a lot more flaws than I found. 2) I definitely need to bounce what I have and take it along on my road trip this weekend.  Not because it's perfect music for a road trip (yet), but because I want my brother to hear it in its roughest form, and because I want to have a chance to listen for melody and chord changes, and see if what I feel like I should hear matches up with what I do.  Which leads me to... 3) Even on an initial listen, I'm starting to hear things.  Tempo changes, where choruses really

Day Two Hundred Twenty Nine (Year Four)

Today was much the same as yesterday.  A little bit of electric, a little bit of acoustic, and some solid progress overall. As for the electric stuff, I worked on the next riff in the line of 100 Riffs.  I didn't spend a lot of time with it tonight, so I'll probably focus more on that tomorrow night. I did sit down with the list of acoustic songs, and start working my way through the chords for some of them, just as a way to familiarize myself with what's coming up.  Didn't work on vocals so much, in part because I'm still getting over the last bit of the cold I came down with a few weeks ago.  Now that the weather seems to be warming up a bit (finally), I'm hopeful that the rest of my cold will burn off quickly, and I can dive into some of the singing. Listened to a bit more of what I had recorded in February tonight as well.  I'm still happy with it.  Right now I'm debating between pushing ahead and trying to go for "good enough" when i

Day Two Hundred Twenty Eight (Year Four)

Today was a lot closer to what I've come to expect out of myself this year. I got into the studio a couple different times today.  The first time I got in there, I focused my attention on finishing up my list of songs I'd like to incorporate into a set list at some point this year.  I'm sure there will be things added to it as the year goes along, but for right now, I like what I have. The second time I got into the studio tonight was more focused on the electric side of things than the acoustic side of things (initially, anyway).  I worked my way through the riff from 100 Riffs that had me stuck earlier in the week (I really have it down now), and then got through the next two in fairly short order. In between those times I got a chance to do a bunch of listening, and get a bit farther in the Big Star biography I've been reading. Really, the only thing I didn't get to this weekend is the record.  That's weird to me, if only because it was the one thing

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Four)

Today was a tad bit more "shut up" than it was "put up."  Not intentionally, mind you, the day just had a way of getting away from me. I did manage to get one of the goals done that I had set for today, however, in that I got the newish music imported into iTunes, and subsequently uploaded onto the iPod.  The charging part of the goal is happening as I type this. Picked up the latest issue of Guitar World today as well.  It's got what looks to be a phenomenally cool acoustic arrangement of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in it.  Of all the awesome things to have in a magazine during a year in which I've played more acoustic than anything else, that would be right up near the top.  That brings me to remembering a really awesome solo acoustic version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" that Laurence Juber released maybe six years ago.  I need to add that to my list of things to learn as well.  If I was going to make a "

Day Two Hundred Twenty Six (Year Four)

So I dove back into 100 Riffs tonight, going into it with the hope that the hand written tabs I did last night would help me unlock the issue I was having transitioning from the first half of the riff to the second half.  It worked.  With both halves clearly written in front of me, I was able to work through the transition that had been tripping me up when the screen cut off was happening on SoundSlice.  That's going to be a nice thing to have in my bag of tricks for the times when I get stumped figuring these things out. I played a little bit of acoustic tonight as well, trying to be better about finding the balance between both instruments.  Late 90's-early 2000's rock has come up a lot in conversations at work of late, so in that spirit, I picked a song from that time period out of my set list notebook ("Your Winter" by Sister Hazel), and took a quick look at it.  Admittedly, it's a song I had mostly learned a long time ago, so the essential parts of it w

Day Two Hundred Twenty Five (Year Four)

Finally got the electric guitar slung over my shoulder tonight.  Couldn't really crank up an amplifier because of the late hour, but it was still nice to get the feel of it back underneath my fingers again.  I tabbed out a couple of the riffs from the "100 Riffs" thing by hand tonight, in spots where the transitions had been giving me grief back in January.  I'm really hoping that being able to look at the whole thing in one shot will help me to work through whatever my minor issues are with them. Took a bit of time in the car on the way home to do some listening (because it seems like the only time I can find of late).  Cool, quirky stuff by Peter Himmelman that a co-worker burned for me last week. Sat and read another chapter of the Big Star book I've been slowly working my way through.  That continues to be a really cool read. Can't wait for the weekend (and can't believe tomorrow is Friday already), my goals include: - 100 Riffs - Listening

Day Two Hundred Twenty Four (Year Four)

I made it through another small step today.  One that got me at least a little bit closer to crossing off one of my goals for the year: I finished the first pass at finding a bunch of songs that I'd like to be able to use in a set list when I start playing live.  The reason it's the first pass?  I just found a playlist in iTunes from eons ago with 131 songs worth of set list ideas.  And there's good stuff in that list that wasn't on the one I started writing in my notebook, so there will be a second pass at set list stuff that I'd like to have done by the time the weekend rolls around, so that I can start working on some of these songs. Aside from that, my studio time tonight was a sanctuary against a stressful day.  I savored my time spent with the acoustic tonight instead of feeling like I needed to cram a bunch of stuff into my brain. I know I had said that I wanted to do some electric stuff tonight, but when I got into the studio, I just wasn't feeling l

Day Two Hundred Twenty Three (Year Four)

After taking a look back at my goals for the year yesterday, I wanted to not only enjoy getting back in the studio again, but also look to make some gains in what was really my first day where I felt like I had a substantial amount of time since the end of last month.  I feel like I was able to accomplish that today.  I, 1) Dove back into the Acoustic Goldmine book a little bit.  I stepped back a lesson or two in the stuff I had been working through, to the lesson on block chords, just because I wanted an excuse to stretch out my fingers a little bit, and get them reacquainted with some of the key concepts in this run of lessons on finger-picking. 2) Listened back to a couple of the demos for the songs I wrote last month, and was pleasantly surprised to still be happy with what I got done.  It's always a true test for me to step away for a little bit, and then go back to something and see if my opinions change.  Definitely looking forward to working on getting those songs clean

Day Two Hundred Twenty Two (Year Four)

So, tonight I went back and tried to take an objective look at what my musical goals were for the year, and translate that into some sort of progress report.  With the year being 1/6 over (essentially), here were my goals, followed by notes on where I sit in regards to them: 1a) Finish writing & recording at least an EP (while holding out hope for a full record). 1b) Either FAWM (February Album Writing Month) or the RPM Challenge. I definitely accomplished the second half of this, and am somewhere in the middle of finishing off the first half as well.  I need to spruce up guitar parts, write lyrics, and record vocals by the end of the year in order to cross that one off of my list officially.  Totally doable. 2) Build on my recent theory studies. With February being taken up almost entirely with the record-in-a-month project, I didn't really build on the theory study that I was doing at the end of last year and the beginning of this year.  One of my goals for March is

Day Two Hundred Twenty One (Year Four)

Today was interesting.  Mom left this afternoon, but we all went to Goodwill before she took off for a bit of random shopping.  I found 12 45's (at a quarter each).  It got me thinking about singles, and how so much about the music industry has changed, but so much has stayed the same. When The Beatles were making records in the 60's, the songs selected as singles weren't ever included on the records that were released around the same time.  It made "Greatest Hits" compilations a big deal, and it allowed for the existence of things like "Red (1962-66)" and "Blue (1967-70)," collections of singles, to be released. Somewhere along the same timeline (and also thanks, in large part, to the Fab Four), the album went from being a collection of songs to having the ability to be a statement.  That idea stuck into the 70's and 80's, by which time the single was being included in the album, as a way to increase album sales, and discourage t

Day Two Hundred Twenty (Year Four)

So, I know I said I was diving back in to the record today, but that failed to take one thing into account: My Mom is in town this weekend, and so the time in studio was significantly lessened today.  That said, I picked up a few interesting things on our travels around the city today.  They were: 1) The latest issue of Guitar Techniques 2) One Way Out: The Inside History of The Allman Brothers Band 3) All The Little Lights - Passenger I spent the whole day winding myself up in my head, getting ready to dive back into the studio, whether it was for learning and studying or for recording didn't seem important, it was just something I was looking forward to. Made it to the end of the day, made it home, and I'm completely worn out and exhausted.  Instead of burning the candle at both ends when I'm already tired, I'm going to sleep tonight, and give it all I have tomorrow in the studio, taking stock of where I'm at two months in, and then moving forward from t