Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Fifty Seven (Year Four)

My brother and I went over to Uncle Ike's this morning before they left town.  I had hoped to either:

1) Find something I simply couldn't live without

or

2) Talk to someone about taking a few lessons.

Unfortunately, I failed on both counts.  There wasn't anything book or accessory-wise that I needed urgently, and by the time we were done looking around, there wasn't anyone around to ask about lessons.  Oh well, it's not like I won't be back in at some point in the near future.  Taking at least a few lessons is something I want to do when 2014 rolls around, but I want to be picky about who teaches them, so I'm not going to rush into it without doing my research first.

Also, I know I've talked about it a lot lately, but I broke down and bought that iTunes card today, just so I could finish off my "100 Riffs" playlist.  Now that I've got all of the songs, here's what's even more amazing about that video: he takes what is almost 7 hours of music, distills it down to 12 minutes and 14 seconds of the most memorable moments, and still manages to convey the character of every song on the list.

We never did get back to finishing off that song we tried to write the other night.  At least we got it started.  If nothing else, I can keep working on it, and maybe it will get finished when he comes back down in a couple of weeks.

One of the things I want to get to tomorrow sometime is a decent session in the studio.  I just need to get in some good time with a guitar in my hands.

Today was a good day, but a long one.  More playing tomorrow than there was today.

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...