Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Eighty Four (Year Three)

Here's what finally dawned on me today...

One of the things that happens when you don't do something for a period of time (write songs, for example), is that you tend to lose confidence, not in your ability to do what it is you're trying to do, but more-so to pull off what you hope for in your head.  Then you don't take chances, and your process gets rusty and you end up with something that doesn't meet your imagined hopes and dreams.

Take, for example, the progression I've been working on this month.  There are parts of it that I really love, parts of it that are perfectly average, and parts that I'm really not sure about right now.  And with a week to go in the month, that's not a good place for me to be. 

Could I have done things differently this month?  Absolutely.  Could I have picked another progression that I have that's more of a finished product?  Absolutely.  Could I not have thought about the fact that I want to record the first thing I'll hear on the finished product first?  Again, Absolutely.  And still, I find myself here, with a dynamite intro riff, a bass part I'm happy with so far, some pretty standard verse chords, and a really dodgy chorus at the moment.  And no lyrics to speak of.  All with a week to go!  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not panicking... well, not entirely, because here's what I know:

1) The song will come together.

2) The problem, in general, isn't with this song.  The problem is that I'm not working on enough songs.  If I was, I'd be better at finishing off progressions and spotting pitfalls along the way.

This is going to happen.  Mark my words.

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.