Skip to main content

Day Five (Year Three)

I'm feeling good tonight.  Just, relaxed and confident about the year ahead.  Maybe it's because, after five days of trying to find time and failing, I finally found time to sit with a guitar tonight and just play.  I can't even begin to describe how much I needed that sense of relaxation.

Also, I think I've decided what August's focus is going to be.  If I'm going to be teaching, I need to freshen up on the one thing that everyone always seems to put off, but always needs to know just a little bit more about: theory.

I've got a Hal Leonard book on theory as it relates to guitar, and some Berklee Press stuff, and probably a host of other resources.  It's time to dig them out and give myself that refresher that has probably been three years in the making.  I know I'm not going to learn it all in a month, mind you, but I need to do it before I start teaching again.  Besides, as long as I try to fit most of it into the context of learning songs, I won't bore myself (or my future students) with it.

Let's see, what else.  I got a music recommendation from a co-worker today.  Lotus Plaza is the name of the band.  Apparently it's the side project for the guitar player from Deerhunter.  We had their last record as an in-store play last year sometime, and if I remember right, I ended up with the CD when it got taken off the list of stuff we kept.  I'll have to dig that out again, refresh my memory on what it sounds like.

Heard from J. today.  First time since the end of February.  Just a general message.  I invited him to the wedding in October, though.  He said he'd like to come.  It'd be good to see him.  It's been a long time.  One way or another, we'll get our record made.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 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....

Day One Hundred Forty Two

So, I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I've been staying up late. listening to music, doing a bit of playing, and watching old episodes of Behind The Music on the internet. It's funny, you know, because I never met the rest of my "band," I've become the critic. It's all right, don't get me wrong, but for a decade now I've always hoped that I'd find a way to release something. It'll happen, I know it will, but it's continually happened slower than I expected it to. I've gotten close to getting something released, as I've documented before here before, but with the winter coming and the cold closing in, I'm facing another chance to make something musical of the winter. I'm going to start by finishing up the old things that have gotten pushed to the sides in the last few months. With the buildup of everything since the summer, it should be easier. Even if all I do is spend the winter writing lyrics, trying to g...