Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Twelve (Year Three)

So, I didn't teach today.  My car wouldn't start after I got done with work tonight, and I had to have it jumped in order to make it home.  My student's father (who is also a close family friend) came out to jump my car, and they suggested we re-schedule.  I was all ready to teach, but they wanted to postpone, which was probably the smart decision.

What did I do instead?  Came home, sat down on the couch, and watched an episode of this show I've been recording called "Guitar Center Sessions."  The episode I watched tonight featured Grace Potter & The Nocturnals.  It was incredibly cool to watch performances... people actually playing instruments on live TV, and then sit and listen as the interview segments basically walked you through the band's entire career, from formation right up to present day.  Each episode is an hour.  Nothing too ridiculously long, but they give you just enough that you come away feeling like you got let behind the curtain a little bit.

Let's see, what else... I snaked the second Missy Higgins record out of that case that S. found last night, and am importing it into itunes as I write this.  Seems like I'll be exposing myself to her stuff in reverse chronological order.

Also, I've at least somewhat decided to pick up a music bio as my next read.  Early returns indicate that it might be Juliana Hatfield's book, When I Grow Up.

Sat with the acoustic for a few minutes tonight, too.  Nothing sounded right, so I'm holding off a bit in the hopes that tomorrow will bring deeper wells of inspiration.

Today was a long, long day.

Comments

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...

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.

Day Ninety Three (Year Six)

Today was an interesting day. On one hand, it wasn't a day where I spent a ton of time in the studio, but on the other hand, it was a day where the time that I did spend in the studio was probably the most productive time I've had in a long time.  In short, even though I didn't spend all that much time working on the EP tonight, I feel like I got a whole lot closer to finishing it. I've been frustrated with myself lately for not finishing things a bit quicker, and struggling with the fact that, while I have been successful at finding a whole lot of kernels of songs, they haven't seemed to want to sprout into completed works.  Tonight, instead of freaking out and making myself more stressed out, I sat down and looked at a few favorite songs to see if I could sneak a peek behind the veil, if you will. The answers jumped out at me immediately.  I haven't been doing enough with the kernels.  Mostly, I haven't been facilitating the chord changes that will a...