Skip to main content

Day Three Hundred Thirty Three

One of the really cool things about working on this record is that it gives me the chance to dissect exactly what it was we did all those years ago. Whether it's J. needing progressions in order to lay down a bassline, or B. wondering what it was we played on a certain song, or my own questions as to how we laid down a certain part, it has been fun in the last two weeks to go back and try and investigate 5 year old decisions. Why do I mention it tonight, you ask? Because, following up on my run throughs last night, I played along with the demo of the song tonight, and discovered that it was one of the ones we recorded a half step down. I had re-tuned to standard before trying it, because B. had never really written in anything other than standard, and was I ever surprised when it didn't exactly sound right. That had been her progression, and my only thought is that she must have written it at my place, on my acoustic, because there's no other way the song could've been recorded half a step down. I'll have to remember to ask her when we finally catch up (hopefully) on Thursday sometime.

Because of all this, I'm starting to analyze my own songwriting. It's kind of fun, and kind of intimidating at the same time. Oh well, at least it will help me to change things up periodically.

That's really all for today. Off to read a bit of the Keith Richards book before I pass out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day Three

Short one today. I've got a bunch of the DVDs that Guitar World has put out. Waded through those to see what I had, worked off of the lead guitar one. Just basic scales , but still a light place to begin. It was nice to just start loosening up my fingers again. Off from work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get a lot of playing done. Said I'd mention the other project I'm hoping to finish this year. Back when I was living in WI, I started a hard rock band with a friend of mine. She was heavily influenced by Evanescence, and so, with her as vocalist, we started writing songs. We had written and demoed almost a full album's worth of music by the time I moved to IA, and had even purchased a P.A. in preparation for eventual gigs. We never did find a permanent drummer or bassist, so our demos sound very rough (and not nearly loud enough). I'd like to finish those songs, and make an EP of the 4 or 5 strongest, just as a way to put a cap on that project. More tom...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Seven (Year Seven)

Today was okay.  It ended up being quieter than I wanted it to be, but I got in a few things. 1.  I got the music from the car hauled in and sorted out in advance of my road trip to Dubuque for a little longer than a day.  I'm taking the Radiohead reissue with me for that, since I haven't gotten a chance to sit down with it yet. 2.  I'm also taking an empty notebook along with me, in the hopes that I might start to get some lyric ideas down on paper while I'm gone.  I watched some cool videos early this morning about the idea of writing all of the music before writing lyrics, and the way things are going that is looking like what's going on with me. 3.  I wish there had been more playing today, but I'm still feeling good about where things are sitting.  This next week needs to include a lot of writing.
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Four

Today was a hodgepodge of musical stuff. Here's a list of the stuff it included... 1) I uncovered two more songs to add to my ongoing list of "supremely catchy pop music." One of the songs is the first song on the latest record by the Smoking Popes, who I saw the other day. It's called "Wish We Were," and it's a glorious pop-punk distillation of unannounced love.  The second song is by a band called the Vaccines. It's called "Norgaard," and it comes off as a mix of 60's California pop, punk energy, and surf rock. 2) Found a poster frame for my Alkaline Trio poster. 3) Heard from B. via text tonight. Apparently she has rediscovered her knack for "creepy, cool lyric writing again." I couldn't be more excited about this. When she hits that kind of stride, B. usually comes up with some pretty great stuff. She tells me she got an entire lyric tonight. Some rough ideas about melody, but nothing concrete yet. As for me,...
Post a Comment
Read more