Skip to main content

Day Fourteen

So, I'm two weeks in. It's an odd place to be, because, on one hand, the progress I have made feels really good. But on the other hand, I feel like I ought to be farther along than I am.

I know that the process of getting better happens more in small increments than it does in leaps and bounds, and I don't really know what I expected to have happen in the first two weeks, but I don't like the feeling that there's more I could/should have accomplished. Granted, that feeling has more to do with the last three days (when I worked twice, and had family in town the other day) than it does with the first eleven days, but still. At the same time, I know that it's good to feel that way, because it means I'm not satisfied with my progress. It's such a weird catch-22.

Worked on a bit of acoustic stuff tonight. Had the chords for "Dynamite" by Son Volt off of American Central Dust. Great song on a very good record. It's also a fairly simple song to play. Ran through it a couple of times. Think I might need to play it in a different key to have it better suit my voice.

I will say this for the last two weeks:

1) I feel better knowing I'm working towards something.
2) I am starting to be more relaxed with the instrument in my hands.
3) My hands are loosening up a bit.
4) I've put the pieces in place to have an excellent, exploratory year.

Every journey starts somewhere, right?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DayOne Hundred Sixty Nine (Year Eight)

Today was another good day.  I spent all of it with my brother, which I needed a lot, even though I just saw him over Christmas. Tonight we finally got around to some music discussion.  He took a look at my list of goals for the year, and sees it as a really good set of steps to get me where I'd like to be from where I am.  I picked his brain about a few of the nagging questions I still had as I get started, and he was able to put my mind at ease. Having a chance to sit and chat with him is always good for my musical soul, because he constantly drives me to be a better, more well rounded player, and I'm pretty sure that I can never thank him enough for all of the advice, support, and encouragement he offers every time we chat.
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Six (Year Two)

Well, on first listen I was underwhelmed by Motion City Soundtrack's My Dinosaur Life .  And yet, while it wasn't the giant explosion of musical awesomeness that it had been billed as, I did find one diamond in and amongst all of the other rough.  It came in the form of "Stand Too Close," the seventh track on the album.  That , my friends, is a song that I can see generating a lot of plays in my itunes.  Another thing that dawned on me today.  At some point, I'd really like to own a ukelele.  They've had these unbelievably cheap uke packs at work for the last couple of Christmases or so, but the instruments appear to be so poorly made that it wouldn't even be worth it.  That said, I found a cool website online today that gave a few hints on how to simulate a uke on an acoustic guitar.  Apparently, if you put a capo at the 5th fret, and then play ukelele chord shapes on the 4 highest strings, you can get close.  Especially if you've got a ny...
Post a Comment
Read more