"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

And here we go again!  Back at step 1 for the third song of the Start Experiment.  All week long I've been going back and forth about what the third idea was that I was going to finish off, and when it all came down to it, I surprised myself by going back a ways into the vault and pulling out a chorus idea that I've loved for a few years now.  It never really had anything to go with it before tonight, when I finally sat down and finished off at least a rough draft of the rest of the progression.  I'm optimistic that it will hold up in the morning, but some of the transitions seemed a bit rough around the edges.  I'm pretty sure that I've also got the tempo close to right, as well, so that spells a full win for Day 1 of song #3. In looking back on the last 17 days of work, being a rusty songwriter, the hardest tool to sharpen is the transitions between sections.  They're getting easier again, but it has taken some efforting. Probably the coolest part abo...

Going into tonight, the last night of the second song cycle, I was hoping to get a few things figured out: 1) I wanted to map out the whole song, if only to figure out where the electric and the bass got out of sync in the last 15 seconds of the song. 2) I wanted to get the electric part right all the way through and 3) I wanted to at least play around with dropping in the acoustic part. Here's how it all went down: I got the song completely blocked out, and in so doing quickly diagnosed the issues in the last chorus and the outro.  It shouldn't be weird how much easier it becomes to work through something when every chord change is there in front of you, but somehow it always takes me a bit by surprise.  That said, I think getting the electric part took me two takes. I started in on the acoustic part, just intending to record the intro and the first verse.  More to get a feel for the sound and the strumming pattern than anything else.  I'm close on the...

Today was great!  I made some major progress toward finishing the second song of my EP today. According to the schedule I wrote out when all of this began, tonight was supposed to be the night I recorded vocals.  Considering my equipment failures of the last few days, however, I pretty much knew that wasn't going to happen.  Here's what did: 1)  After not being able to get the bass part right the last few days, tonight was the night I nailed it.  Felt really good to finally get that recorded. 2)  With the rhythm section firmly in place, I was confronted with the prospect of two guitar parts.  Ever one for cutting corners (not a good habit, I know, but one that is fading as this project continues), I skipped over the acoustic part and gave the electric a shot.  Well, I got the tone right, and in the process I figured out what the instrumentation needs to be where the guitars are concerned.  The first time through, I hit the electric part...

So, today was... odd. I made recording progress in the morning.  Got a scratch acoustic guitar part down for this week's song.  I can tell that I'm getting readjusted to the recording process, though, because it felt really strange to put that down without having a bass part laid down first. Then, with that taken care of, I packed up my Strat and headed into Sioux City to see about getting it repaired.  I don't know if it was because I told the guy that I was in the middle of recording this week, but he looked at my guitar right away.  I told him that I suspected the problem was in the jack where the instrument cable connects to the guitar, so he took the plate off, and immediately said, "oh, I can see where that would be a problem." Apparently there are two wires that serve to connect that jack to the rest of the electronics.  In my Strat, one of the wires is red, and the other is white.  I peeked at what he was looking at, and the white wire had com...

Today started out great, and has crashed and burned tonight.  Here's why: 1)  I got the drums fixed after work today, so that was a win.  Changing all of the fills from 1 measure to 2 measures really seemed to slow things down, if that's possible.  It made the track a lot clearer, and put into place exactly where the changes are between verses and choruses. 2)  I got the bass part perfected and written out, but not quite recorded, if only because my fingers betrayed me when it came time to lay the track down.  Still, I was feeling great about my progress.  I took a dinner break and watched a bit of TV with the Mrs., and then, when she headed off to bed, I headed back into recording mode.  And then disaster struck... When I went back to keep working on my song, my electric guitar wouldn't work.  The jack where the cable goes in still clacks loudly, and the line on the recording gear still hums, but I tried it in my amp and with my record...

Today was strange. Next on my list of daily recording tasks was laying down the bass line.  I thought I at least had a solid idea of where that was headed going into the day, but as I sat down to record tonight, nothing really seemed to click in conjunction with the drums. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just record the acoustic part first, and then go back and lay down the bass tomorrow."  A good plan, except that it didn't work. The real issue, I discovered, is in the way the drums are laid out right now.  I've got fills that segue between the intro and the verse, and then the verses and the choruses, but somehow the fills aren't uniform.  It seems like a few of them are a single measure long, and the rest of them are two measures long.  With no continuity on that front, it was hard for me to time things right.  The solution is obvious, thank god, and that is to go back through the drums with a fine toothed comb and make sure that all of the f...

Day One, Year Four.  Man, oh man, does that look weird .  Can't believe that I've been doing this for four years now. What's interesting to me is that, all these years (and a few swift kicks in the ass) later, I'm finally starting to see exactly what it's going to take for me to get where I want to be as a musician.  I'm sure that, if you went back to the first week of posts for each new year, somewhere in there would be a similar statement.  The differences this year are the Start Experiment, the knowledge that I've got someone in my life who supports and encourages my music, and if we're being totally honest, the fact that, inside of a month, I'll have a space solely dedicated to the learning and pursuit of music. Okay, on to the Start stuff. 1)  After I posted last night, it bothered me so much that I hadn't found that backing track for "That'll Be The Day," that I turned on a bunch of lights in the living room (where I was...

Well, it's the last day of year three of the blog.  I had such high hopes to go out with a bang, and while today didn't fall completely flat, it seemed like nothing went quite according to plan today. 1) I couldn't find the CD with the backing track for "That'll Be The Day."  Feel like I looked everywhere, but with my luck it's probably tucked away somewhere that I'll find it in a month when I'm setting up the music room in Dubuque.  My other option is to make a phone call tomorrow night and see if, by chance, the disc happens to be one that got left behind in Wisconsin. 1a) On that note, it feels like it's been forever since I've mentioned how unbelievably excited I am to have a music room in a month!  It's going to be so amazing to have a chance to set up an entire room devoted to my musical pursuits, and have everything set up exactly the way it needs to be for me to be productive from the moment I get there. 2) I'm still a...

So, day #9 of the Start Experiment (also known as Day #1 of work on song #2) was a smashing success.  I got the chords down for all of the song #2, and found the tempo after what felt like a long time spent searching for it. I didn't really want to move on from the first week's project until I got all of the kinks ironed out, but I fought that urge by telling myself that the quicker I got everything done for this week's tune, the more time I'd have to finish up work on the one from last week. That being said, after ironing out both chords and tempo, I took a quick look at bass line possibilities for the new song.  Found a few ideas I liked enough to jot down for further perusal tomorrow (I've got the afternoon off!).  If anything at all goes according to plan tomorrow, there's a significant chance that I could end the day even farther ahead than I am now.  In a perfect world, I'd be able to get both the drums and the bass part sorted out and laid down, b...

Well, the second run of 8 days (i.e., the second song out of three) begins tomorrow morning.  I'm pretty sure that I've got the chord progression written for that one already, so it'll just be the tempo I'll need to hash out.  Feeling as good about the second song as I am, I spent the night tonight trying to figure out what the problem was in the verses of the song I've been working on for the last 8 days.  And if I'm not mistaken, I solved the problem.  A change in the order of chords here, another switcheroo there, and bang!  I like what I have now a whole lot better than what I had at the end of the day yesterday.  It means I'm going to have to change the bass line a bit as well, but I've already got thoughts on how that's going to go as well. Anne Lamott talks about "shitty first drafts" in her brilliant book on writing, Bird By Bird , and I think that what I ended up with this week was just that, a shitty first draft of a song.  So...

So, I got a take of the acoustic part recorded tonight, and I learned a lot from recording four minutes and eleven seconds of music. 1)  The bass part has too many notes in it.  As much as I liked it, and as melodic as it is, it's got so much going on that it distracts from the acoustic part.  There's a quote from John Paul Jones (and I'm way paraphrasing here) where he says "with Zeppelin, anything that was notey and melodic was mine, and anything that was blocky and chordal was Page's."  I had been thinking about that quote before I sat down to start writing the bass line, and I suspect that it got the best of me. 2)  The strumming pattern for the acoustic part needs refinement.  I had suspected this might happen going in, and while it wasn't too bad by the end of the song, it was really rough around the edges at the start. 3)  The chords for the chorus are perfect, but the voicings in the verses still need a bit of work, the 3rd chord in parti...

Well, I didn't make it all the way back today, but I got close... and I made a decision that might just save me in the end. I spent most of the evening playing bass, working my fingers into a little bit of shape, trying to get myself ready to record the part that I wrote on Tuesday and was supposed to have gotten recorded on Thursday.  It took me a few hours to feel confident, and another hour and a half or so to make it through a take that works.  Slow, I know, but I kept on missing notes and having to start over.  Well, that and the fact that I somehow managed to get an entire take that wasn't quite in tune when I tried playing along on acoustic. So, the second full take was the keeper.  I tested it against the acoustic, and it should work well. The other decision that I made was this:  The song doesn't need a full blown electric part, just a solo.  That's going to save me tracking one part at least.  I should be able to knock out the acoustic ...

So, last night when I was playing around with the bass line, I was trying out ideas on my electric guitar, just using the four lowest strings.  My thought process was that, if I can find a suitable bass effect that I can run through my electric, I'd be fine recording my demos.  Tonight, fully admitting that I'm a day behind on recording right now, it dawned on me that it would be so much easier to just get out the bass, plug it straight into the board, and go.  I'm less comfortable with bass than I am with guitar.  Haven't played it as much, and the thicker strings take a bit of getting used to for me.  Granted, I suppose that recording three songs in twenty four days ought to help out my bass playing some.  Haven't laid down any tracks yet, but just in picking up the bass and playing against the drums a bit, it feels right (as it should).  That's what happens when you try to take shortcuts on the way to awesome, you end up with something you'd just ...

Finished up last night's project for the Start Experiment tonight.  It feels awesome to have the drums laid down for this first song.  It's amazing to me just how much more like music this progression sounds with a drum track behind it. Tonight's project is recording the bass line, which should go pretty smoothly, considering that it's already written... I just haven't gotten around to it yet.  Granted, it took me about an hour to get the drums set up so the patterns were recorded in the right order.  Even with notes, these things take a lot of time, I guess. Two things dawned on me today that need sharing: 1) I haven't done much listening at all this week, except for what has happened in the car.  It's still Drive-By Truckers right now, but that needs to change tomorrow. and 2) There hasn't been a whole lot of work on the Buddy Holly tune in the last couple of days.  That needs to change tomorrow and Saturday if I'm going to feel good abou...

I know I said it last night, but it bears repeating: Out of all the days during this first run-through of doing a song in 8 days for the Start Experiment, today was the day I was the most worried about.  Why, you ask?  Simple.  Out of all the times I've sat down with a guitar and put down an idea on my recording gear, out of all the times demos got finished back when B. and I were working on hard rock stuff, out of all the solo acoustic/power pop type songs I've recorded some of over the years, do you know how many of them have actually had drums behind them  (Yes, even the somewhat canned drums that I'm using for demo purposes during this project)?  Maybe two.  And they were the first couple of songs J. and I ever recorded together, almost twelve years ago . So yeah, in the grand scheme of things, figuring out and piecing together a drum track was number one on my list of things to be worried about.  But guess what???  I punched fear in the f...

So, yeah, I got the bass lines for this week's song figured out tonight.  As fate would have it, they turned out a little bit differently than I had originally heard them in my head, but all told I'm really happy with the way they came out. Truthfully, if I'm worried about any specific part of the process, it's tomorrow that has me nervous.  Setting up the metronome and the click track is no big deal, but finding even scratch drums that work seems like it could be a lengthy process.  Fingers crossed on that one.  The Buddy Holly tab book came today.  There are a few slight differences between the GT transcription I have, and the transcription of "That'll Be The Day" that's in the book.  Mostly to do with one particular stretch in the solo, but having looked at it, I think the version that came today will serve to make things easier, so I'll dip into that a bit, maybe tomorrow. Taught today, too.  We spent almost the entire lesson talking abou...

Got our first email from Jon Acuff for the Start Experiment today.  It said we had to break one of our risks into 1-3 small actions, and then follow through with them.  Start small, he says, gain a bit of confidence, and the rest becomes easier.  Having already broken down the songwriting and recording into small, manageable steps, I went the other direction and did the same for the Buddy Holly tune.  Today I focused my attention on the intro.  It's getting easier, as I would hope, with work.  I'll keep going after it, though.  Tomorrow or Wednesday are probably the days for busting out the guitar trainer and playing along. I was less worried about the Holly tune today, however, than I was about the first step on the way to having three songs finished in the next 24 days.  Step 1, as you may recall, was "Finish Progression & Get Tempo."  The tempo part wasn't all that tough, I just sat with the blue acoustic and a metronome, and messe...

I had a couple of simple goals heading into today.  They were: 1) Get the studio corner cleaned up and set for recording heading into the first week of the Start Experiment. 2) Figure out what 3 songs I'm going to try and record in the next 24 days. I was successful on both counts .  I got the piles of blank CDs that the cats had knocked over settled into a safer place, picked up and re-organized my effects units, and just made that corner of the living room a happier, more productive place to be. Tonight was centered on the songs.  At the beginning of the evening, I was fairly certain of which three songs I was going to use.  And then something unexpected happened, I sat with the acoustic I brought home last night, threw the capo on the 3rd fret, and out fell a great chorus... so I guess I'm using that .  I've got a rough idea of how the verses are going to go, as well. So, as it sits tonight, I've got: 1) One song essentially finished 2) The song I...

Really enjoying the Buddy Holly thing right now.  Did a little bit of research today regarding Guitar Recorded Versions of his stuff.  There's a Hal Leonard collection that looks pretty great.  Might have to order that sometime soon here. They FINALLY posted the setlist from the Brandi Carlile show we went to last weekend!  Here's how it all went down: Set List Hard Way Home Raise Hell What Can I Say Dying Day Dreams Looking Out (Solo) Closer To You Heart Young 100 Promise To Keep The Chain Again Today That Wasn't Me Bleeding Out (The Lone Bellow Takeover) The Story Encore Nothing Compares Pride & Joy Folsom I know I said it the other day, but it was yet another great show by a brilliant artist. Excited to sit down and write tomorrow.  Grabbed my blue acoustic from the church today.  Didn't want to just leave it there while the Mrs. is gone for a week.  As flawed as the instrument is, that guitar has always been good...

Getting closer to the end of year three.  Only twelve days now.  It's kind of cool to me that the start of year four will happen in the middle of this Start Experiment. We got our group assignments today.  That makes it real.  No more chance to chicken out at the last minute.  It's funny, now that Friday is over, and the whole project starts in 48 hours, I'm afraid to do too much beforehand, out of fear that I'll burn myself out before the whole thing starts.  That said, tonight I: 1) Got back to the Buddy Holly tonight.  Played through the sections that might give me the most trouble (the intro, and the solo), going slowly to get the notes under my fingers. 2) Went to my giant wall of CDs and pulled a Buddy Holly disc, then found, and plugged in the guitar trainer, and listened to the sections slowed down.  I think this is going to go smoothly.  The only issue is that the echo that was so common on 50's era recordings is doubling som...

I know I said in last night's post that today was the day I was going back to Buddy Holly.  I was wrong.  I kept working on the song ideas from the night before.  Here's why: I had to be late for work today because of a cement mixer, here's proof: They're fixing the top half of our driveway, and right as I was walking out the door today, they were backing the cement truck up the driveway.  Left with another fifteen minutes with which to operate, it was very easy for me to sit down in the living room, pick up the electric, open the notebook, and keep going on the songs I had been working on the night before.  Made some progress, too!  I've got a two line progression that's going to turn into the second song I suspect will be on the EP, and I've got a three chord progression that will likely evolve into the 3rd. Feeling really good about where I sit heading into the weekend.  If I stay steady and put in the work in the next three days, I should ...

First things first: The Start Experiment officially begins on the 15th.  From there on out, it's 24 days of non-stop, head down, "can't hear you, in the music room, playing music" progress. That being said, anything I can do to get some sort of a jumpSTART (see what I did there?) between now and next Monday seems like fair game.  So I sat down tonight and figured a few things out.  Things like, if I'm going to finish and record three songs in twenty four days, what sort of schedule am I going to have to stick to in order to make that happen?  Here's my answer: And, with "Finish Progression" still on the list, I know that I can free up a lot of time if I can decide on which song ideas I'm going to use for this, and finish them (or at least one of them ) in advance of Monday. So in that spirit, I sat down with the acoustic tonight to see if I could make any progress in deciding.  I've got one for sure that is going to be a contender, a...

So, at the tail end of last night's post, I mentioned that I had other music-related news.  I also let slip that it was related to this Start Experiment that I signed up for.  Here's what has gone down... Our first "assignment" in this whole crazy experience was to fill out a survey with two questions in it.  They were: 1) What kind of a team do you want to be on? 2) Share one thing you're going to "risk" during this 24 day experiment. I chose a location-based team, just because it seemed like a whole lot of fun to have a chance to meet up with some people who are also trying this experiment. As for the second question: the word "risk" in this case is synonymous with "what are your goals?" Mine were two-fold.  They were: 1) To write and record a 3 song EP 2) To learn a Buddy Holly song (more specifically, "That'll Be The Day") To anyone who has been following for a long time, the first goal is an obvious ...

The above photo was taken from Brandi's Instagram account.  Gotta give credit where credit is due. So, yeah, got home at 2 this morning.  Made it through my day on 4 hours of sleep, but it was SO WORTH IT! The Lone Bellow opened for Brandi last night at Simon Estes, and while I've loved their debut record since it came out, and was hoping that they were as good live as they were on the album, I didn't expect them to blow the recording out of the water!  Their harmonies were tight, their musicianship was incredible, and they really gave the headliner a run for her money. I've searched all night for set lists for both Brandi and The Lone Bellow to no avail.  I'll keep digging the next few days, and if one shows up, I'll make sure to post it. Going into the BC portion of the show, there were certain things I was hoping for that didn't happen: 1) "Wasted" 2) "Turpentine," with the three part harmonies 3) "Crazy" Cer...

Headed out to DSM for Brandi Carlile & The Lone Bellow!  Won't get back until like, two in the morning, so this will have to suffice as my post for the day.  Tomorrow's post will be insanely long, and have a concert review plus a whole bunch of other stuff!  Stop by to check it all out.

So, I was all set to go to ZZ Ward today... and then I traded that experience for what promises to be an even cooler one tomorrow.  One of my best friends from the DSM dropped me a line to ask if I was going to the Brandi Carlile/Lone Belllow gig at Simon Estes in Des Moines tomorrow night.  I had totally forgotten about that show!  And, yeah, I think I'd trade a ZZ Ward gig for a BC gig pretty much any day of the week. Did a lot of listening today.  Some Springsteen, some Counting Crows, some Brandi Carlile, and a little bit of the Gaslight Anthem to top it off.  A very good day in that department. Not so great playing-wise, but then again, I worked this morning, left right after, and just got home, so yeah.  That explains that. I've been doing a lot of thinking about my playing heading into the move and the studio.  Nothing I feel is fleshed out enough to post here yet, but I'm getting closer to that moment.  Another couple of days should ...

So, the Mrs. called from Sioux City tonight with some cool news.  She's there for family reunion stuff, while I had to work.  Apparently ZZ Ward is going to be at Saturday In The Park in Sioux City tomorrow afternoon.  She's someone that I've been following since the middle of last year, when we got an in-store play at B&N.  I bought her full-length when it came out, and we've seen her on a host of talk shows in the last few weeks.  The gig is at an outdoor venue tomorrow, so hopefully the weather will be good.  Either way, it will be fun, I haven't been to a concert in a while. Did some playing tonight.  I'm feeling really good about where my head is at right now when it comes to music.  It just feels like everything is right at my fingertips, just out of reach.  And with this Start Experiment beginning on Monday, I can only imagine all of the progress that will be made with the power of a huge group of people supporting me.  Can'...

Had a fun, and safe 4th of July... I still have all of my fingers. MTV and VH1 celebrated "Music Independence Day" today, where they showed videos all day long, and also promoted the independent artist.  It was cool to see music videos again.  It was also fun to sit on the couch with a guitar in my hands and try to steal cool chords from the live performance videos they aired.  Which I managed to do in at least one instance.  Go me. In other news, after picking up file folders last week, today I stumbled upon a 10-pack of bankers file boxes on clearance when we went to Storm Lake for lunch and a bit of shopping.  Snapped those up, because I figure that they, of all things, will accommodate my hanging files, at least until I can find myself a file cabinet.  And who knows, maybe, if I get the system right, I won't need the cabinet because I got the boxes.  Either way, now I feel like I can really start to make serious progress in getting all of my mu...

Had a couple of (obvious) new thoughts today, as I continue to assemble what will become my own guide to rock & roll mastery (ha, ha).  They were: 1) That I need to find all of my backing tracks, be they from magazines, ones that I've been given, or ones that I've created myself, and get them all onto a single CD.  Practicing scales is great, but it doesn't mean much in the long run if you can't take that knowledge and put it to practical use. 2) I need to sit down and evaluate my playing as if I were a student coming to take lessons from myself.  It takes a bit to wrap your head around that statement, but once I did, it made a lot of sense to me.  What would/will I hear in my own playing that, as a teacher, I could change or improve?  How would I explain the things that I struggle with to someone else who was having the same issue?  These are the questions I need to be asking myself as I strive, each day, to get better. On some level, it's just n...

Finally got a chance to sit down and play for a while.  Found myself doing what I usually do when the hour grows late and I'm the only one awake in the house.  I grab the unplugged electric and the notebook full of song ideas and just page through, strumming whatever seems interesting at the moment to see if it holds up.  Mind you, I know full-well that it's infinitely easier to write on acoustic, but when the hour grows late, I'm always conscious of trying to make the least amount of noise possible.  Maybe when I've got my own studio space on a different floor from the one that the Mrs. will be asleep on I'll feel differently. Been listening to Nowhere Nights by Kasey Anderson & The Honkies tonight.  It's been that kind of a week, really.  Some rockers on that disc to get you pumped up, but a quieter soul to the record.  Sleep has been elusive this week, and somehow the feel of that record just fits right now. I've had the new Stephen Kellog...

So, my order of Stephen Kellogg's Blunderstone Rookery from last week's trip to Dubuque showed up today (finally).  Hooray for media mail.  In other exciting new release news (that may well be old news by now), new discs by The Civil Wars and KT Tunstall both drop on August 6th, the day after my birthday.  I can pretty much guarantee at least two of my presents now. Don't teach tomorrow night.  My student has something going on.  Maybe I can use that time to get somewhere on my own music.  I got a chance to play for a little bit today, but nothing all that productive came out of it, which is to say that it wasn't quite the marathon session I had been hoping for at the start of the day.  Guess today wasn't as busy music-wise as I thought it was. More tomorrow, and better.  Way Better.