Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Seventy Three (Year Two)

So, I started the process of firing up the band again today.  I sent J. a message asking how his holidays were.  This, I figure, will open a line of communication that will eventually lead to music discussions.

And so, in that spirit, I came home from dinner with a friend, sat down, and proceeded to go through every single thing we have recorded for potential inclusion on the record.  It's 34 files.  I broke them down into 3 categories (yes, maybe, no... they seemed like obvious choices), and when all was said and done, I switched a song from the "maybe" pile into the "yes" pile, and wound up with 7 yeses.  Exactly the number I was hoping for. That number of songs (assuming, of course, that I can get B. to agree to the list) not only gets us a full EP, but it also puts our best musical foot forward.

A couple of the songs aren't complete quite yet, but having what I/we do of them done, they shouldn't be too hard to finish off.  There's also likely some lyric writing that will need to be done, but with B. and I swapping lines back and forth, we ought to be able to finish that quickly if we can get on one good roll.

I'm probably going to wait to talk with B. until I hear back from J., if only so I can go in with some sort of news.  It makes the conversation easier to wade into.

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it, I'm setting a deadline for the completion of the EP.  That date is December 31st, 2012.  That gives us (essentially) another whole year.  If we can't get it done in that amount of time, the whole thing is going into a box, and I'm moving forward.

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.