Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Forty Nine (Year Two)

I haven't been late with a post in a very long time, but it happened today.  And I don't even have an amazingly spectacular story as to why it happened.  I fell asleep on the couch.  Go me.

I had a few interesting things happen musically today.  All of the quirky variety.

1) Had lunch with K., who was in town from Waterloo for a day.  Went to Olive Garden.  Felt like old times.  All she had asked for from me this Christmas was volume two of the "Songs To Frighten Customers" mix that I had made a few years back.  I thought it was going to be tough to find more songs.  It wasn't.  So I got her that, and she got me a book of staff paper from B&N, where she titled all the pages with Gibbs rules from NCIS.  This makes me happy.  Partly because it's Gibbs, but mostly because some of them will make really cool song titles.  Maybe that will be a bit of inspiration when I start writing again.

2) In celebration of the old times, we went to Half Price Books.  I found a Kaki King record (she played the guitar parts in August Rush, and I've been curious about her ever since), a cheesy music movie that my manager had recommended (BandSlam) that was actually kind of fun, and a "50 Rock Guitar Licks" type DVD that skipped when I got it home, but it looks cool enough that I'll be exchanging it tomorrow for another copy tomorrow.  They had a few of them, so it ought to be pretty easy.  Also, the DVD came with a TON of extra learning resources.

Either way, everything combined to inspire me to pick up the guitar when I got home.  I'm noticing that the tenseness in my fretting hand dissipates when I stop and think to myself that I need to feel each note that I pick out.  It's like some part of me is still stressing that I haven't played enough to bring my chops back to where they were a few years ago.  I need to stop worrying about that and just play enough to bring them back.  It's happening, I know it is, I just want it to happen faster.  Got to put in more time if I want to see more results, though, right?

Got another day off tomorrow, so I'll try to fit in a lot more playing in between the other stuff I've got to do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Two)

So, the new Springsteen disc is amazing.  There's enough of a mixture of his upbeat rockers, his ballads, and his message songs to make this his best record since The Rising .  And speaking of that record... Buying The Boss the day it comes out always takes me back to a specific moment in life.  It was July 30th, 2002, the year after 9/11, the year after someone on the streets of New York told Springsteen "we need you now."  I had driven to Oshkosh, WI to visit some friends, when I remembered that Springsteen's disc was scheduled to come out that day.  I drove downtown to The Exclusive Company, but had to park a few blocks back.  At the time, there wasn't much going on downtown, but when I got out of the car, I could hear this music coming from up the block somewhere.  The closer I got to Exclusive, the more it began to dawn on me, they had set up a giant set of speakers in their upstairs windows, and were blasting the new album out into the streets....

Dat Two Hundred Thirty One (Year Three)

So, apparently the new Airborne EP that came out yesterday is MP3 only!  Downloaded that as soon as I figured it out this morning, but didn't have time to sync the ipod after doing so.  Therefore, I naturally had a ton of time to listen tonight that was away from my computer. On the plus side, though, I was able to spend some of that extra time with a guitar in my hands, working on the chord progression for this month's song.  I've got an opening chord change that I really like, and the flicker of a two guitar approach, with one of the two parts capoed up the neck dancing somewhere in the back of my brain.  If all goes according to plan, it could work out really well. Also, finally over halfway in the Grohl bio.  Considering I was hardly home at all today, I feel like I got a decent chunk of that read. Tomorrow should (hopefully) be another decent day for music, with a chance to play in the evening, and enough time for a few runs through the Airborne EP....

Day Two Hundred Forty Six (Year Two)

I know I keep promising a rundown of my Exclusive Company purchases, but that rundown will have to wait for one more day.  I promise, however, that tomorrow's post will contain that list.  Today, however, there's one other thing that I'd like to touch on. I've been on a bit of a mini vacation.  SL and I are up in Wisconsin visiting some of my friends and family. As always happens, I wanted to go through the storage units that my folks have rented for some of their stuff, and the overflow that I had when I moved away from home.  I'm always curious to see if there's anything I can take with me back to DSM when I leave. Today, mixed in with some of the books and games that will make the trek back home with us, came a bit of a revelation.  I had forgotten just how many tablature books, binders of songs, and assorted guitar magazines I had stashed away when I had to move on such short notice all those years ago.  It's fascinating to me to realize all of the ...