Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Eighty Two (Year Two)

I reached out to J. today in an attempt to find an easier way of figuring out tempos on the old demos than sitting with a CD of the songs and a metronome, trying to match the two.  If only we hadn't been in such a rush all those years ago, we might have had the good sense to record the songs against a click track of some sort.  Oh, how easy that would have made this process.  I hesitate to even think how much farther along we'd be with solid tempos noted for everything.  At the very least, it would have made the drum parts a whole lot easier, which would have given us a start on every song on the record.  Oh well, can't go back now.  We've just got to find our way through from where we are.

The other major music news that I somehow forgot to mention yesterday... the world has lost another one of its classic voices.  Etta James passed away yesterday at age 73. 

A link to her most well known (if not her highest charting) single: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9JOxagV9Pw

It gives me pause to wonder, as we lose these iconic voices, who will step up and replace them?  Will it be Adele?  Will Christina Aguilera finally shed her poppy desires and use the voice she got signed with?  The one that belted out jazz and blues standards to win over Clive Davis.  Will it be someone like Cyndi Lauper, who came to the blues later on, but has released an incredible record in the genre, and clearly has the vocal chops?

That discussion closely mirrors the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame discussion that I've had with various people over the last few years, but that seems like a post for a different day.  I'm off to continue trying to match up demos and tempos.  More tomorrow.

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 Nine (Year Four)

Tonight was one of those nights where absolutely nothing went right, but somehow, some way, I managed to get into the studio for a little bit, and make what felt like good progress, all things considered. I went back through the second half of last night's chapter in The Guitarist's Guide To Scales Over Chords , just to make sure that I had a decent grasp of everything that was covered, and then made the move to the next chapter. After the theory-heavy chapter I had just gotten through, it was a great relief to have the next one be more music (playing) centered.  It was all about putting the scale examples they cited in the early chapters to use in a musical context. I've seen a great number of books try to do this in a successful manner, and end up failing spectacularly, but so far I'm liking what this book is putting forward.  They give you "starter" examples, that don't necessarily make the best use of note choices, etc. and then present you with an...

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.