"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Listening to Wilco's live set from the Sasquatch music festival as I type this. Thanks to NPR for providing the music. This is the only part of my day that has felt anything close to what passes as normal. That, and the text "conversation" that I had with R. tonight about Uncle Tupelo. Everything else felt completely disjointed. I played for a bit before work, but as seems to be the pattern the last few days, not for long enough. I'm off tomorrow, and am really looking forward to a day that is completely empty of outside plans. What needs to get done? 1) I need to spend time with Music Maker. Figure out a bit more of what I'm doing so that, when B. and I skype tomorrow, I can feel productive. 2) Get some practicing done. 3) Lay down at least a rough sketch of a song to send to B. 4) Find a way to work in the CDs that have piled themselves in various places around my apartment. Got to go play a bit before bed. Hopefully tomorrow is an improvement... shoul...

Short session tonight, only about an hour. Now that we're using the same software, B. was able to talk me through finding all of the musical backgrounds that come with MMM. I'm still thinking that most of my work will start away from the computer, but having the program will make things easier to transfer back and forth. Still waiting to see what happens with files that start on B.'s end of things. Spent most of the afternoon burning a rather large pile of CDs for R. When I dropped them off this afternoon, I asked if she wanted to go see Warren Haynes with me, and even though she's not at all familiar with anything he's done, she agreed. I'm starting to suspect that she's addicted to live music. One of the things I dropped off was a few albums by Iron & Wine, who we are seeing next week. This was the other part of my afternoon, grabbing files from my brother, so that I can hopefully know a little bit about who it is I'm going to see next week. Th...

Today was a day off from band stuff. First Sunday like that in 3 weeks. B. was out of town for the holiday weekend, so we're getting together tomorrow night instead. That being the case, I figured I'd spend a bit of tonight working on exactly what I had hoped to get to when I wrote last night: the playing side of things. So, that decided, I did what I always do when I get into one of these moods: I went for the pile of stuff that I keep setting aside for that ever elusive practice plan that keeps getting pushed off to the side. I dove into that headlong, sorted through it a bit, took some stuff out, and then started working with what I had left. This included a "guitar boot camp" lesson with Zakk Wylde. I've gone through a bit of it so far, seems like fun. I'm sticking with it this time. On days lacking in band stuff, this plan will be assembled. This way, I'm going back and forth between songs and improvement. Secretly, I think this sort of setup is what ...

So, I can tell how crazy my week has been based on one thing. I just realized that today is day 300, and truthfully, if I had been a bit more aware of that, I would've made a bigger deal about it. I can't believe I've almost been doing this for a year. I remember when I started out, thinking that a year seemed so far away, that I had all this time to get a lot accomplished. Honestly, I feel as though I've barely scratched the surface. Still sixty five days before the one year anniversary of the blog... still time to improve, to make bigger strides. As for today, there were really only two major things that happened. 1) I got Music Maker installed on my computer before work. Didn't have a whole lot of time to play around with it, although I was able to discover that the drums B. tried to send me the other day that morphed into piano are somehow still piano when imported into the new program. Odd, I know. 2) I encountered some live music tonight, entirely by acc...

I caved in today and did what I needed to do anyway: I went out before work and picked up my copy of Magix Music Maker. Now at least both B. and I will be on the same page with the program, and now I will have full access to everything she has been able to get at for the last few weeks. I haven't installed it yet, but the way I see it, if I can get up early again tomorrow and get it installed, I'll have the rest of the weekend to see what I can figure out before B. and I chat again on Monday night. As an added bonus, I suspect I'll still have a leg up, because while I will be able to import everything she has, I'll also have more ability to add tracks, simply due to the fact that I've got my workstation here. Its ability to burn CDs, and the onboard effects it has will be a really cool addition to the multitude of effects that come with Magix Music Maker. I did check out the box before dashing off to work, and it says that I can add music through a mic as well, bu...

Had another session with B. tonight. We started the process of sending the rest of the demos in a format which will be playable in Magix Music Maker. Actually, we got almost all the way through, but had to put the file-swapping on hold when the hour grew late and she needed to be up for work in the morning. No matter, they will be there to finish sending the next time we chat... which looks like it will be Monday night sometime, as she will be out of town for the weekend. She was frustrated that she wouldn't be able to get anything done, because she was going to be gone. I had to reassure her that progress is being made, and that a few days away will be okay. Besides, this will give me a chance to try and get some more songs worked on this weekend, make sure that the music I think I finished last night is actually done. We (more B. than myself) also started experimenting with putting some rhythm tracks behind the demos. It seemed like she had a bit of success with the best demo I...

A quick note to finish off the Dylan talk of yesterday... considering I spent a good portion of the day reading the rundown of his "70 Greatest Songs," and listening to his music, it seems appropriate. They let Bono write the essay for the #1 song ("Like A Rolling Stone"), and he wrote something that strikes me, he writes "when the desire to communicate is met with an equal and opposite urge not to compromise in order to communicate - when those two things are in perfect balance - is when everything happens with rock & roll." I finished off (I think) the music for one of the song ideas that have popped up for the band. It will need to be laid down, at least in rough form, before anything can come of it. In a perfect world, I'd like to get that knocked out tomorrow afternoon after work, that way I could have something to send to B. tomorrow night when we Skype again. Here's hoping that I can get some work done, and that B. has gotten a chance ...

Bob Dylan Turned 70 today. My relationship with Dylan has always been an odd one. My first exposure to his music was thanks to an LP my folks had of his greatest hits. Eventually, I wound up with that same recording, and Freewheelin' on CD, and from there it's been a bit of a hodgepodge. I've got Blood On The Tracks, Highway 61, Bringing It All Back Home, and Blonde On Blonde . I have his MTV Unplugged set, and his set with the Band. There are probably one or two others that I've got lying around as well. That said, I know I'm still missing a lot of his music. Knowing that I really didn't have anything to speak of from his later period (I had unintentionally stopped with Blood On The Tracks ), I picked up Time Out Of Mind tonight, along with the latest issue of Rolling Stone that has Bob on the cover and ranks (or claims to rank) his "70 Greatest Songs." I'll admit that I prefer Dylan when his voice is the clearest. While I may not own any late...

Considering all of the insanity and progress that went on yesterday, it would follow that today would be a quiet one on the music front. First one of those in a long time. I did pick up the acoustic a few times throughout the day, though. Also of potential importance, a friend I was hanging out with tonight stated again a potential desire to take a least a few guitar lessons from me this summer. We were going to try and do that last summer, but it never quite worked. Perhaps this is the year. Oh! And speaking of lessons, I ran into a regular customer yesterday who teaches at one of the local guitar shops in town, and we were talking shop (as we usually do when he stops in). I happened to mention my desire to take a few lessons here and there, and he told me I should swing by the shop one day, and we would get something sorted out. He said it wouldn't even have to be an every week sort of thing, which may well fit perfectly into my schedule, so we shall see about that. Guess I...

Tonight was awesome. I had said last night that all I was hoping to accomplish was getting the file sharing situation squared away. We struggled initially, with the files I sent, again, not being able to transfer to her system. I wound up figuring that B. would need to burn the files I sent her to a CD before she could transfer them into Magix Music Maker. After all, that was the way I had success initially. Turns out that wasn't the case. What I couldn't wrap my head around was this: if I have the files on my computer, and the files worked, then why, if she had the files on her computer, did they not work? After having a bit more trouble, I finally uncovered the "share your screen" option in Skype, and was able to walk her through what I was doing. That, it seems, was what we needed to do all along, because after working out a few more kinks (like finding the folder where the files had been saved, converting them properly, and opening them in itunes first) we made ...

Was talking with R. today about the musical things going on in my life, and about the blog in general. She asked about the genesis of the blogging, and I laid it out for her: it was a motivational tool designed to catalog my musical experiences and keep me honest in my efforts to play every day, and improve. Somewhere along the line, I admitted, I've gotten more caught up in the music writing side of things than in the actual improvement of skills side of things. This needs to change slightly. YES, the hard rock stuff (and the solo stuff) is important. YES, it's going to get a lot of attention as the progress on the record continues. But I can't let the fact that this opportunity is in front of me completely destract me from the fact that I need to improve as a musician if I'm going to achieve my ultimate goal. I need to re-dedicate myself to the advancement of my skills, to playing as a means for learning AS WELL AS playing for the sheer joy of it. I'm not sure h...

I'm so glad that I have musical people in my life who I can bounce things off of! I got to chat with a co-worker today about the band related stuff that has started up this week. She asked how it's all going to work, with myself, B., and the producer all being in seperate places. We also chatted for a bit about whether or not we'll be able to use the demos as a jumping off point. These are the questions I need to bat back and forth with someone on the outside, in part because it will prevent me from showing anything but confidence in the event that such questions come up with B. Today would be the day I'd like to sit down with J. and figure out whether or not we'll be able to drop rhythm tracks (drums, in particular) in behind at least a couple of the tracks we have. Some of them will need re-cutting, but it would be nice to use at least 2 of them sort of "as-is." When B. and I talk Sunday, I need to remember to ask her for a write-up of the progressio...

Slowly, but surely, all of my hopes for this hard rock thing are falling into place. Step 1 had been getting B. on board, but she took care of that one on her own. Step 2, in my wildest dreams, was to get J. to produce and hopefully lay down the bass tracks. This morning at 6:30, he sent me a message that essentially took care of the production/mixing part of it. I'll have to get on him about the Bass stuff, but that conversation can come later. Even if he doesn't feel up to laying down the bass tracks, I do have another person I could ask. In a perfect world, I'll be able to sweet talk my brother into playing at least a little bit of lead guitar on the record, but he's going on vacation tomorrow, so that conversation will have to wait a bit. This is less of a big deal, considering that the lead stuff won't need to be laid down until the end of the process. Also, R. asked if we had t-shirts yet, reminded me that there will need to be a tour bus purchased at some...

So, Monday night, I said that I'd be content if we got Skype up and running, and explored the file transfer situation a bit. As it turned out, that's exactly what we got accomplished. We got started about twenty minutes to 4 this afternoon, and over the next two hours, we got almost all the way to being able to start. She's using the Magix Music Maker in her process, so I had her send me a file that she had been messing around with. After a considerable amount of digging about, we found a way to take her MMM file and convert it to an mp3, which allowed me to drop it into iTunes. Once I could do that, I could burn it to a CD. Having done that, I transferred the file to my studio console (Boss' BR1180-CD), and imported it. As I had hoped, it worked well in my recording gear, allowing me to drop in a simple guitar part over her looped rhythm track. Then, I bounced it down, burned it back onto a CD, and loaded it into iTunes on my end. This is the point at which we ran ...

I sat down to work on some lyrics tonight after work. That hasn't happened in a very long time. I've had a few ideas running around in my head the last few days, and the more I thought about it, the more they started to feel like something for the band. And seeing as we're firing it up again at some point tomorrow, I figured now was as good of a time as any to try and get back into the saddle with lyrics. I wound up with about 3/4 of a chorus in my first go-around. Not really sold on one of the lines, but I can feel that the line is there if i pick at it some more. Might have the title as well, we shall see how the end of the chorus works out before declaring that loudly though. It feels good to be doing this again. I'm even enjoying the search for the right word, which at times can be frustrating. Not sure where the music is going yet... haven't even sat down with the acoustic to start sorting it out. I want to get the chorus lyrics (at the very least) to the p...

All right, I won't waste any time here... the official work on the hard rock record is starting on Wednesday. I talked with B. for two hours tonight (after texting back and forth for a bit before hand), and I really think we would've started tonight, but her internet was being difficult. I know I've said it before in the last few days, but I'm so excited to get back to this music. The Wednesday start will be good. We're both off that day, so depending on when we get going, we'll have a good chunk of time to devote to getting everything set up, and then maybe getting started on a bit of the music. If we can get her set up on Skype, and get a bit of the file transferring done, that'll be a successful first day in my book. Plus, it'll give me another day to try and sort out the progression I was working on yesterday. It's funny, you know, she said she was going to go through all of the old stuff, and me, I'm more worried about all of the new i...

So, tonight's post was supposed to be all about me getting home from work and locking myself in a room with a guitar, so as to make progress on the record. Even when I went out to dinner with R. after work, that was still the plan. During dinner, however, we got to talking music, as we always do, and an interesting topic came to the surface: Who are the big artists/critical darlings that we don't own anything by, but feel like we should. Somehow, I was expecting our lists to be different, but in the end, they were eerily the same. The list went something like this... 1) The Grateful Dead 2) David Bowie 3) John Prine 4) John Hiatt (I have one of his records) 5) Tom Waits (R.'s suggestion... I have finally started to collect his stuff) and 6) Janis Joplin I admitted to missing out on most of R.E.M. (the early stuff, in particular), and Frank Zappa. It was R.'s big admission that had me falling out of my chair and clutching my chest: Clapton. She clarified this...

I'm starting to think that the oft mentioned D minor progression has more in common with the Double Drop D idea that we have than I initially suspected. Why it is that I didn't catch on to this sooner, I'm honestly not sure. Anyway, it could well mean that I have another guitar part for the Double Drop D! Speaking of which, I played around with that a little bit tonight. I've been wondering a lot lately why it was we never could get lyrics for that. The only thing I can think of is that the tempo was off. I know I wrote about it a few months back - something or other about it making more sense if the intro was just lopped off the front... I really need to go back and find that posting (or series of postings) to see what it was I had stumbled upon, because if I remember right, whatever it was worked out really well. Tomorrow night I think I might need to lock myself in a room with my album notes and my acoustic, see if I can't just hash out the whole freaking rec...

I was wrong. I said earlier that my plan was to work my way through that D minor progression that I had started messing around with yesterday. That didn't happen. Here's what I did instead. Four years ago we had this three chord progression that we tried to fit into almost every song we wrote, because we truly, truly loved it. It was a chorus, and a damn good one in both of our opinions. Only problem was, it never really fit. In part this was because we could never quite find the chords to form the verses that go around it. I strongly suspect that I found the other couple of chords the chorus needed to facilitate a return to the verse tonight. I'm also fairly sure that I stumbled upon the first chord of whatever the verse progression will end up being. Now I just hope B. likes it as much as I do. I can't wait to get started again!

So, Blogger was down all day yesterday, otherwise there would have been a post. Going to pull double duty today in order to make up for it, though! Yesterday's news is two-fold. 1) Nailed down what I think will be the chorus for one of the hard rock progressions I've been working on. As much as I liked it last night, I liked it just as much this morning, which is a good sign. The tune sort of feels like it might need another section, but we shall see. It's got a verse progression and a chorus progression, so for now, I'm moving forward. 2) As of Saturday, B. graduates. We texted back and forth yesterday, and she is so excited to be done, so she can focus on her music. This means (and I know, because I asked her as much) that, come Monday, we are starting to work on the hard rock stuff in an official capacity! Eeek! Seems like every spare moment between now and Monday will be spent working on music stuff, which is just the way I like it! That's the big stuff......

I stayed away from the acoustic today, miraculously. Played some electric, though. Scales, mostly, with a few blues licks thrown in for good measure. Picked up the new Manchester Orchestra record today as well, after just missing out on getting it at work. Sneaky customers snapped it up before I remembered it was out. Haven't opened it up yet though, which is odd for me. Usually I'm one of those "crack it open the second I get home" kind of people. I'll get to it. Maybe tonight. More likely, tomorrow afternoon after work. Kinda bummed that I didn't get more done musically today. Woke up really late (lost the entire morning), and then had to get a lot of other stuff done today. Got through most of it, though, so that should leave the bulk of tomorrow afternoon free for music stuff... or so I hope. Not much else to speak of today. Will do better tomorrow.

I can tell that working on the hard rock record on a regular basis is helping my musical approach. I was going through the progression that I was working on last night, and found myself wishing I could hear those chords on piano. Some part of that, I'm sure, was the cool conversation I had with a customer at work tonight regarding music writing and the piano, but still... sometimes I wonder how much easier it would be for me songwriting-wise if I had some basic knowledge of piano, and a keyboard of some kind at my disposal. I've also spent the last twelve hours or so pondering whether or not we have a double album in the ideas we have, or maybe it's two full albums, or perhaps we have a single album and a longer EP, or even a series of EPs and no full length. The whole thought process started off when I realized that at least 5 of the ideas are things we've never been able to make fit with the other music we have. Some of the reason for that could likely be that the 5...

I cleaned out the front half of my car today. I know, it's a weird spot to start a blog that's supposed to be about music . Trust me, it applies. I've gotten used to finding a ton of odd things when I undertake that task. Tonight, though, was a real surprise. I found a LOT of music... and when I say a lot, I mean it. I found 6 CDs in my car that I had lost track of... 6! Here's what I found: 1) Brandi Carlile's first record 2) Highway To Hell by AC/DC 3) Heartland Highway by Sister Hazel 4) Kaleidoscope Heart by Sara Bareilles 5) Get Away From Me by Nellie McKay 6) Black Sabbath's Greatest Hits This week really has been like Christmas... As for yesterday's stated goal of finishing off one of the songs from the list 'o hard rock, I got about halfway there. I sorted out the verse progression for one of them. Still need to work my way through the chorus, but I do have a few notions as to how that may end up working out, so I feel like I did okay....

Today was a day filled with minutae. Nothing terribly importantt, just the ticky-tack sorts of things that need to get done in order for the bigger things to be accomplished. I got the studio cleaned up a bit, did a little studying up on double drop D tuning in an effort to find some chords that might blast us through that great start to a tune we've had sitting around for 4 years now. Let's see, what else... I got all of the collected demos from that huge pile of CDs put in one place, and started to try and find a place for all of the music in my house that seems to have no place at the moment. I really need to find another of the CD racks that I've got... that would be spectacular... I just think they don't so much exist anymore. Should've bought them all when I had the chance 10 years ago (there were 8). Need to keep going with the CDs tomorrow, and knock out at least one of the ideas on the huge list o' songs. Modest goals, but very attainable, I think.

It felt a little bit like Christmas at work today, but not because of the customers (although it was pretty darn busy). Oh no, it had more to do with everyone else in the store. The old in-store plays are periodically left on the break-room table after they have expired (gone off sale), and whoever so desires can take one. After they have sat for a week or so, there is always a sign that says "take another one." When nobody takes them after that, they get thrown away. Now, knowing our music manager the way I do, I am well aware of the fact that he hates to throw away music. Being the good employee that I am, I never want the manager to suffer through something that he hates, so I step forward, and offer to take some of it off his hands, so it doesn't have to be disposed of. Today's haul included: 1) Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest 2) Black Dub's selftitled release 3) Sarah Jaffe's Suburban Nature 4) Ray Charles' Rare Genius: The Undiscovered Masters...

Today was a day of sorting through and squaring away. In terms of audio files, anyway. Admittedly, I got up later than I wanted to, but I still found the time to sort through a lot of the song ideas that are saved onto my recording console. There are definitely some things that I haven't heard in a long time, some of which will be used for the hard rock record, and oddly enough, some things that I could probably use for a power pop record. Then, tonight after work, I sat a bit with the electric and tried to remember what it was I had done with that A minor riff that my brain misplaced last night. I was moderately successful. Got part of the riff, I think, but not quite all of it. I'm getting there... more sorting likely tomorrow. Hopefully more of a chance before work this time. I've just got to make this come together. I'm fairly certain it'll happen quickly once I really get rolling on it, but still...

Okay, it's time to get truly serious about this hard rock stuff. I've been back from vacation about two months now, and I sat down tonight to actually go through the list of songs/ideas from top to bottom, and had a moment of fear when I looked at the list and couldn't remember what I was doing on one of the tunes. Then, of course, I went to the recording gear to see if I could find it, and was unsuccessful. Granted, I'm sure I'll "rediscover" it at some point in the next few days here, just by messing about, but still... Perhaps in lieu of that, however, I did find the start of a pretty cool progression that will go nicely underneath a riff in D minor that we have on our list. I really just need to get back in the habit of recording EVERYTHING I come up with, in the hopes that some form of greatness will leap out of it at some point. Played a bunch of acoustic today. Ran my way through yesterday's Springsteen a few times. Still not comfortable wit...

Let's see, where to begin... I watched the Springsteen documentary, but I did it this morning after I woke up, as opposed to last night before falling asleep. Fantastic doc! It's always fascinating to me to see the machinations behind the creation of music, and this one did a great job of outlining the process and the struggle involved with making Darkness on the Edge of Town. The documentary that went along with the 30th Anniversary edition of Born To Run was just as good. What was really cool about seeing the Darkness one and having already seen the Born one is that the records followed each other chronologically, so there was a bit of overlap at the start of this latest one. The other cool thing that came out of watching that this morning was that, in answering some of the questions posed during the documentary, Springsteen had an acoustic in his lap, and would strum through the chords and explain some of the meanings behind things. This, of course, got me involved in lear...

Today was essentially spectacular. It was the last day of my seven day run, and as an added bonus, it was a New Release Tuesday. Two big things came out today. 1) Brandi Carlile's live record Live At Benaroya Hall With The Seattle Symphony and 2) Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town documentary came out on its own today, outside of the big 6 Disc box set. Which means that I could finally pick up the Doc. and the extra songs without paying an arm and a leg. I'll hopefully post my thoughts on the music tomorrow, and fully intend to try and watch the documentary before I go to bed tonight. Who knows, I might just take a peek at the hard rock stuff before sleeping as well.

So yeah, got home really late from work tonight, and proceeded to sit down with the electric and just sort of mess around for a bit. Trying to play along with some videos on YouTube, running scales, that sort of thing. Spent a few minutes discussing old shows (VH-1 Storytellers & Behind The Music) with my brother, who is too young to remember either of them. Still can't decide if this fact makes me feel old, or privileged to have lived during a time when the music channels on TV still aired programs about music . I've only got one more day of work in my extremely long run of days, and then I get a "weekend." I'm already trying to plan out said two days in my head so that I can make them as musically productive as possible. I was really wanting to sit with the list of hard rock ideas today before work, but didn't get the chance to, so I am hoping very much that I can dedicate at least an entire day out of the two to that project, maybe get a few things ...

I'm sort of falling into a routine this week. Whether that's a good thing or not, I'm not sure, but most of my playing is coming late at night, right before I pass out for the night. Before I get around to picking up the guitar, however, I've been doing a lot of listening in the hours after work. Also, in the spirit of awesome acoustic based awesomeness... following in the footsteps of "Codeine," there's an awesome song on the first JTE record called "Who Am I To Say," that covers the same sort of emotional area. Great song... that's really all for tonight.