Skip to main content

Day Ninety Five (Year Four)

Now that it's over, this week feels a little bit like one that got away.

That said, it was also a good chance for me to see where I need to improve.  More often than not this week, it wasn't a question of "oh, my playing isn't good enough there" (although a couple of times it was), it was more a question of knowing that, with more focus, things could be even better than they are right now.  I keep missing chances to work on specific things and feeling badly about it.  Things just felt very disorganized this week for me, music-wise.

Now I need to spend a serious chunk of time (tomorrow night) getting things put in order a bit more.  Basically, I’ve got all these things I want to get to, all these different areas that I can look to for motivation and improvement, and I really need to make sure I get to everything in an organized manner.  I need to find a way to make sure I get to everything, while at the same time, leaving enough of an opening for something that comes up on the fly.

The songwriting went well tonight, though, I can vouch for that.  I went back to see if what I had gotten the other night held any water whatsoever, and was happy to see that it held up just fine.  I need to record this thing while it's fresh and it still works.  Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow, too.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the music world has lost another star.  Lou Reed, gone at 71.

"One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."
                                                     - Lou Reed
  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Nine (Year Three)

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...
4 comments
Read more

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. 
Post a Comment
Read more