Skip to main content

Day Three Hundred Two

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 how often B. and I are going to be working on the record, but in the times in between, my time needs to be divided between working on the music, and working on my playing, so that the music can be better.

I'm also thinking it would be nice to take some lessons again. I really believe that the right teacher at this point would get things to fall together quicker, and get me closer to feeling comfortable teaching faster. I should try and find a bit of time to play around with that this week.

Second Skype session with B. is tomorrow night. Hoping we can, at the very least, get this file sharing situation squared away.

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.