"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

So, I've been kicking the tires on an idea all day long.  I got a couple of opinions from people, but have mostly done the thinking in my head, and here's what I've come up with:  February is National Record Production Month.  There's an RPM Challenge, wherein you are supposed to write and record 10 songs (or 35 minutes) of music in February.  There's also the FAWM (February Album Writing Month) Challenge, where you're supposed to write (but not necessarily record) 14 songs in 28 days. I've talked about it in this space in years past, and even half-heartedly tried the RPM Challenge (I think) a couple of times. This year feels different.  Maybe it's "Put Up Or Shut Up" that has me feeling that way.  There's just something about 2014 that makes me think that, if there's a first time for everything, this is the first time for this.  I'm not sure I'll go so far as to sign up on either one of their respective websites (FAWM.org, ...

Tonight was good. I read through another chapter in Rikky Rooksby's book on lyric writing, and set aside a notebook I'm going to use for anything lyrical that happens this year. Studied a little bit of theory from the other book I ordered from amazon recently.  It's got 240 lessons that cover arpeggios, chords, and scales.  It seems like a really solid addition to my growing library of theory resources. As for the playing tonight, it was electric in nature, and closely related to the theory side of things.  With the random bouts of theory study I've been doing, it seems like one more piece falls into place each time I sit down.  I really feel like this year is going to be the one where everything finally comes together for me. All told, I feel like January has been a successful month for me music-wise.  Not as productive as it could have been, but still a solid beginning to my year.

Another really good day today. I got into the studio around 9:45 or so tonight, with the intention of reading the next chapter in the Rooksby book from last night, and seeing if I could make heads or tails of where I sit with my lyrical block.  Instead of doing that, however, I wound up working on the following: 1) I put another couple of songs into the notebook I've got for songs I've figured out off of radio and records.  If I can ever find all of the scraps of paper I've jotted that sort of stuff down on in the past, that notebook will fill up in a hurry.  For now, however, I shall content myself with filling it up one song at a time. 2) I worked a bit more on the block chords lesson from the Acoustic Goldmine book, and then turned the page to the Travis-picking lesson for a few minutes.  I'll probably go back through the first couple lessons in this section again, just to make sure I've got it all down, but it still felt good to move forward. 3) I starte...

I focused on some electric playing tonight.  More specifically, I sat down with the "100 Riffs" video, since I hadn't worked on that in what felt like forever .  I'm getting a little bit farther into it each time I go back, although tonight was mostly spent working on the first 6 riffs (I've already got those down pretty well).  That number feels like it ought to be a lot higher, but that's what I've got Thursday off for. Started in on Rikky Rooksby's book on lyric writing tonight, too.  That came from Amazon today, so I read the first chapter of that as a way to wade into it.  Lyric writing is one of those things I really want to work hard at improving this year, and this seemed like a pretty cool way to start doing that.  I've got about four or five of his other books, and I've really enjoyed them, so this one felt like the next step in that process. I did get around to the Acoustic Goldmine book tonight for a few minutes as well.  Focuse...

Today was a really good day musically.  It was the day I was hoping for when I got up this morning. I really wanted to get into the studio today and get some acoustic stuff done, and that's exactly what happened.  I got in there and went straight for the acoustic lessons that I haven't had as much time for lately as I would have hoped.  I started with the lesson on basic finger-picking, and it went a lot better than I had expected, considering the time off.  Like anything, I suppose, a bit of time off and a fresh run at it can produce positive results, and my fingers were more fluid tonight, better at picking up the angles and the distances. I moved on from there to the lesson on block chords, which went okay considering it was my first time through it.  Tomorrow will be a better day for that one, I suspect.  The second day on these lessons is almost always easier and more productive for me than the first. From there, I put down the guitar for a bit t...

So, normally in this space tonight's post would be devoted to my thoughts regarding The Grammys, but I find myself a little bit at a loss for words over the sheer strangeness of the night, so I think I'll hold off on those thoughts for at least a day, until I can better organize them into something a bit more coherent. Finished off sorting through the guitar-related emails today, then sat with the electric for a little while and just sort of enjoyed the freedom of sitting down and playing. Did a little bit of work later on tonight with the acoustic in my hands, but it was more focused on the song ideas I've come up with the last couple of days than it was anything else.  If these things are really going to take off, I'm going to need at least a few bits of lyric to go along with them. Today wasn't the bonanza of productivity I'd hoped it would be, but it was still a more productive day than Saturday was.  The Mrs. works tomorrow night, and I really need to...

Today was a good day. Music-wise, I started in on my list for the weekend and got a few things worked on.  I started by going through some of the guitar-related emails that have been piling up in my inbox of late.  I've signed up for a couple of newsletters with practice tips and the like in the last year or so, and while I'm usually pretty good about sorting through them, they had gotten to the point (since about the beginning of the year) where they were just adding up.  I didn't get through all of them, but I made a decent enough dent that I should be able to finish going through them all this week. I did a bit of listening today, too, in an attempt to (again) get caught up on some things that are piling up. Playing-wise, it was mostly electric in nature today.  And most of it was for fun, as opposed to being intensely focused on theory or anything else terribly serious that I've been working on of late.  My plan is to focus in on theory and acoustic s...

Today was a long day.  And yet, at the end of it, I found some time to sit in the studio with my acoustic, and go over the song thoughts I had last night.  They're all passable, but there were a couple of them that really seemed to get better in the last twenty four hours.  Those will be the couple new ones that I focus on over the weekend. Of course, one of my other goals for the next couple of days is to sort through everything that has made the cut in the last year or so, just to see if I can't pull together enough songs to form a project from those ideas.  I think there might just be a good chance in that regard.  Of course, having some idea of where the lyrics are headed would help that out, so we shall see. Other stuff I need to get done this weekend includes: - Theory studying - Acoustic Goldmine lessons - Work on 100 Riffs (it's been too long) - Lots of listening - Sorting through all of my guitar lesson related emails. That seems like a pret...

Tonight felt like one of those nights that could have used a rewind button.  I spent the first hour I was home fighting with the new iTunes update (which made me uninstall, and then completely re-install the program, all the while making me think I had just lost my entire music collection).  Finally got that figured out, and then uploaded the record that the Mrs. picked up today, Is There Anybody Out There? by a band called A Great Big World.  Their big single right now is a song called "Say Something," that I first heard because of its appearance on last season of The Voice.  I liked the song the first time I heard it, but had been wary of the rest of the disc (which was released this past Tuesday).  I'm happy to report that, in this case, the rest of the record is just as much fun as the single.  It's piano-based pop that's joyous and catchy.  It's almost like a more upbeat Dashboard Confessional, where the guitars are swapped out in favor of keyboar...

Tonight was a good night.  I got some of my Half-Price Books finds imported into iTunes (the Guster and Ben Lee records, specifically), and found a burn in my collection of Guster's 1999 disc, Lost & Gone Forever, so that got uploaded too. When I hit the studio, I did so with the intention of resuming work on the Acoustic Goldmine book, lessons on finger-picking be damned.  Instead, I picked up the acoustic and started strumming chords as a way to get my hands warmed up, only to have a cool chord progression come tumbling out.  Once that happened, I grabbed the notebook with all of my song ideas in it from off of the work table, opened up to a clean page, and jotted down what I had.  The more I played, the more cool ideas poured out.  All told tonight, I think I wound up with four or five cool sounding progressions.  They may be germs of ideas right now, but there's a bit of magic in them, I think. Once I had a few of them sorted out, I fired up the...

I exercised at least a little bit of restraint today, in that, I held off stopping at The Exclusive Company before I headed back to IA.  I did , however, stop at Half Price Books before I left WI.  Found a bunch of cool music, and a pretty awesome deal on a music DVD.  Here's what I snagged: Live From Bonnaroo 2005 - Ray LaMontagne Alice - Tom Waits Ripe - Ben Lee The Fame Monster - Lady GaGa Parachute - Guster Keep It Together - Guster The DVD was The History Of Rock & Roll .  I had seen some of it on PBS some time ago, and while it's not up to date, I'm excited to sit down and watch the whole thing. The other thing I got today was a Christmas present from my Mom, and it was both volumes of The Beatles Live at the BBC on CD.  Somehow those had escaped me thus far. So, yeah, with as much time as I spent in the car today, there wasn't a lot of time left over for playing.  I can't wait to dive back into that (and some listening) tomorrow ...

Drove up to WI this morning. True to form, I brought a guitar along with me.  The electric, actually, along with a bit of my theory stuff, a fresh notebook, and the Blues Goldmine book in case I needed further encouragement. Found a lot of vinyl when we stopped at my Grandma's house.  Mostly LP's, but there was a pretty good sized stack of 45's as well.  Not all of it is rock & roll, but it should all make a good addition to my ever-growing collection. I'll probably hit up Exclusive tomorrow before I leave town, but I'm not looking for anything too crazy, so hopefully I'll find something (but not too much). For now, though, I'm off to sit with the guitar for a few minutes before I pass out for the night.  It was a really good day.  Not quite as musical as it would have been had I stayed home, but still a great day. Tomorrow will have more music in it, I promise you that.

So, I told myself heading into today that I needed to get at least three of the things on my list from Friday crossed off.  I even did myself a few favors by hand-picking what three items they would be. I wanted to charge and update the iPod with some of the newer stuff that hasn't gotten put on there yet.  Mostly, what got added was a couple of records by Old 97's ( Too Far To Care, Blame It On Gravity ), and then the first two records by Waxahatchee ( American Weekend, Cerulean Salt ).  That done, I'm charging and syncing the iPod as I type this.  The two most recent discs I picked up (new releases by Springsteen and Sharon Jones) are still on rotation in the car, which will be good, because I'm headed up to WI tomorrow morning to spend a bit of time helping out my Mom with stuff.  That said, I'm hoping to be able to cross another item off my list, and pick up some guitar mags (mostly Guitar World Acoustic ) while I'm up there. One of the other things I go...

Today was a good day.  I got things squared away in the studio to the point where I feel like I actually have space enough to breathe, learn, and create again. I sat with the acoustic for a bit, but instead of working on the finger-picking stuff, I glanced at some of the lessons in the pile of guitar magazines that have piled up.  In the end, the only ones I kept out were the current month's issues. I still need a bookshelf in that room to complete everything, but with all of the moves happening for family members in the next month or two, I'm sure I'll end up with one, so I'm holding off. The other thing I did tonight was to start playing around with a few song ideas.  I know it wasn't on my list yesterday, but I'd really like to sit down and do some songwriting this weekend, too.  And speaking of my list from yesterday, the things that will get done tomorrow are as follows: 6) Charging and updating the iPod. 7) Creating a notebook for all of the songs...

Friday nights are always a bit more relaxed for me than others when it comes to music.  If I'm going to make everything out of this year that I possibly can, that might need to change at some point, but tonight's studio time was part laid back time with the acoustic, and part massive planning session for the weekend. Here's why: I've got both Monday and Tuesday off next week.  And while I'm hoping to beat the snow and dash up to see family for at least a little bit of that time, it still offers a LOT of time to devote to music.  So, did I relax and start figuring out some Justin Townes Earle on acoustic tonight?  Absolutely I did.  But while that was happening, I was also plotting out the following in my head: 1) More time on the acoustic lessons. 2) Theory study. 3) A good electric session (100 Riffs?). 4) Getting a handle on the studio mess. 5) Grabbing some music magazines (if I head up north). 6) Charging and updating the iPod. 7) Creating a notebo...

Yesterday's post felt like a mini-milestone along the path.  What could have been a roadblock to success was instead correctly identified as a stepping stone.  I got back into the studio tonight, and did what they recommend, I took things slowly and worked to isolate and improve each part of the process.  Slowly but surely, I'm seeing improvement.  It was a good way to build on the successes of last night.  I'll take this set of lessons as slowly as I have to in order to master it, and then move forward. The other cool thing about this process is that, as the lessons go by, it's bringing up some cool ideas, and helping push forward my desire to sit with the acoustic and write again.  Didn't really do much with the electric tonight... or the theory stuff, for that matter, but I'm feeling really good about the last couple of days, and I'm excited to find out where a long weekend with time to be devoted to playing will take me. All told, a good day....

So, since the start of the year, I've labeled all of my blog posts with the phrase "put up or shut up."  Tonight was the first night I figured out exactly why I'm doing that. I've known for a couple of days now that the next lesson in that Acoustic Goldmine book of lessons has to do with finger picking.  As I mentioned in Monday's post, my technique when it comes to finger picking is haphazard.  So, naturally, the idea that my next lesson was focused on this topic had me a little bit intimidated.  my brain started coming up with all these excuses (I play more chords than anything, I'm better with a pick, etc).   That's all well and good, but, you know what?  At the end of the day I want to do everything I possibly can to become a better musician this year, and that means confronting my fears.  So, tonight, when I got into the studio, I headed straight for the acoustic stuff.  I dove right into the lesson, and made it through, but it was rough....

So it seems I've settled into an alternating day routine.  A day spent with the electric followed by a day full of acoustic stuff.  This plan seems to be working thus far. You know what's cool?  I've been associating the theory stuff I've been working on lately with the electric side of things, so when I sat down with the guitar tonight, I did so with theory study in mind.  What always  gets me is that, each resource I add finds a slightly different way to approach things.  It seems like there is always one more bit of fresh information. Those small nuggets of information are working together to form a clearer picture each time I sit down to study.  The progress is happening, it just isn't all the way there yet. With the day off tomorrow, I'm hoping that I can get in an electric/theory session, as well as work my way through that finger picking stuff on the acoustic side of things. Today was a good day, tomorrow will be even better.

After playing guitar, mostly from the couch, for the last few days, I finally took my electric and my recent theory information and got back into the studio tonight.  It just felt good to get back in there and see what sort of a mess I had left.  In a related story, some of my day off on Wednesday really needs to be spent in the studio getting things put away (again).  I can't help it if I start working in there and one thing leads to another which leads to books and magazines being strewn about, hither and yon. Know what else felt good?  Getting back to the acoustic stuff!  Tonight's lessons out of the Acoustic Goldmine book were pretty simple ones.  One of them was about moving open position cowboy chords (C,A,D,E, and G specifically) up the neck to create different chord voicings, and the second lesson focused in on the many uses for a capo. After getting those two crossed off, I turned the page and found a lesson that I'm going to want to devote a g...

Made some really good music progress today!  Oddly enough, it wasn't acoustic-related.  I know I had said last night that I needed to get back into the acoustic stuff today for at least an hour, so I didn't lose the thread on that, but after finding some of the theory stuff I did today, and working through that on the electric, I feel less badly about not getting anything acoustic-related done today.  That said, I need to get back in touch with the acoustic tomorrow night during my studio time. Every so often, I Google phrases associated with guitar, just to see if any cool resources pop up in the search.  I did that today with the phrase "fretboard theory," and found a really cool PDF by that name that will definitely add something to my recent theory studies. Heading into today, I'm almost two weeks into the new year, and I was looking for something as a little bit of a pick-me-up, even though I feel like the year is off to a pretty good start.  I'm pr...

Today was a mostly quiet day that continued on the electric theme I established last night.  I worked for a little bit on the Refreshments stuff that I had started in on yesterday, and had a blast doing that.  I hadn't intended to take the day off from my acoustic pursuits, but that's exactly what wound up happening.  Even as I sit here and type tonight, I'm really missing that part of my playing.  Got to get back into it tomorrow, and, to be fair, I probably need to spend a good chunk of time (at least an hour, if not a little more) working at it in order to feel really good about where I sit at the end of the weekend. The last thing I want to have happen is to get out of the habit of something this early in the year.  Too often, I've started things strongly, only to not have the follow through required to make real progress, and I'm not about to let the mistakes and failures of the past define my year. Sometimes it just takes the courage to close the doo...

So, the anticipated "electric" night happened tonight instead of last night.  I don't know that I was consciously thinking about it, and I did pick up the acoustic for a few minutes first, but eventually, I strapped on the electric, and started to break down a song that has gotten the 4th most number of plays in my iTunes library over the last 3 years: "Preacher's Daughter" by The Refreshments.  It's a I-IV-V progression in the key of D (D-G-A), and much of the solo happens up around the 12th fret.  It will definitely be fun to dive a bit deeper into that tomorrow, on my day off. I also printed out chords (and solos) for "Banditos" by The Refreshments as well.  It's arguably their most famous song, and again with this one, the chords were fairly easy to put together.  Another one that will be fun to crank up at some point tomorrow. As for acoustic stuff, I took the night off from the Acoustic Goldmine book, and worked a little bit on a ...

So, I know I said last night that today was feeling like it might be an electric sort of day.  That idea was all well and good, except for the simple fact that, when I got into the studio tonight, I headed straight for the acoustic so that I could keep going on the couple of lessons I had been working on last night. I finished up the lesson on adding bass lines pretty quickly.  There are still going to be a few things to sort out in that regard, recurring things to focus on and so forth.  One of those has to do with always making sure to find the easiest ways to fret the bass notes within the overall context of the chord progression. After that, I moved on to the lesson on "sus" chords that I touched on last night.  I'm feeling better about that one tonight than I was yesterday, but there are still a few spots that need touching up.  Mostly, it comes down to finger strength on acoustic with the barre chords up the neck.  Knowing what they are, and where...

So, I'm finding I can only get through two of these lessons from the Acoustic Goldmine book in any given day.  And, if I'm being completely honest with myself, I should probably limit it to one of them each day, just to make absolutely certain that I'm doing the best I can with them.  Tonight I tried to do even more than that, though, what with going back through the bluegrass lesson from yesterday, tackling the next one in line (on adding bass lines into your playing), and then having a quick look at the following lesson (on sus chords) before giving it a rest for the night.  I'm getting the feeling that tomorrow might be an electric day.  I'm sure I'll toss another acoustic lesson in there somehow, but I'm just getting the urge to be loud for a little bit. Picked up the latest round of guitar magazines today on my afternoon off.  New issues of all three ( Guitar World, Acoustic Guitar, Guitar Techniques ) came home with me today, as did a book on Big S...

One of the things I'm really enjoying about this more intense focus on my acoustic playing is that it has really highlighted the difference between acoustic and electric instruments for me.  There's so much more attention to detail and slight adjusting to be done when it comes to the acoustic (for my playing, anyway). I worked on a lesson tonight on fundamental bluegrass rhythms.  Not something I would have immediately sought out, but also something that, when taken in context with the lessons I worked on right before it, made perfect sense to me, and tied in brilliantly with the skills I was already brushing up on.  I got 95% of the lesson down pretty well, but the last example bumps the tempo way up, and I'm not quite fast enough to get it down yet.  With a little bit more work tomorrow afternoon/evening, though, I know I'll get there. I said last night that I needed to spend just a little bit more time than normal in the studio going forward, and I didn't qui...

I used tonight as a night of review in the studio. I've spent the last week starting in on an acoustic regimen that has already shown results, and so tonight, I went back through some of the lessons I've worked on in the last few days.  I just wanted to iron out some of the little things that have cropped up needing a bit of touching up. The best part about tonight's studio time was that I'm starting to notice my fingers getting stronger as they get used to the thicker neck and strings of the acoustic.  Scales are getting easier and more fluid.  Melody lines had a bit more bite to them tonight. All told, I'm really happy with the progress I've made in the last week.  I know I need to make an effort to spend a little bit more time in the studio than I have the last couple of days, but that should be easy to do with a little bit more focus.  Being home this week, and having Wednesday afternoon off will no doubt help with that. Tonight's post feels a bi...

We got home late tonight from our brief trip to NW Iowa. That said, not a lot of time to spend in the studio, but I did get a few things done. After getting my guitar and bag of music stuff from the trip safely stashed away back in the studio, I sat down for about a half an hour with the acoustic, and made my way through another couple of lessons out of the Acoustic Goldmine book.  What I like about (at least) the early stages of it is that each lesson really seems to build onto the next.  I've spent more dedicated time with the acoustic in the last five days than I had in the few months before that, and already I can see improvements in my playing. The trick this week is going to be keeping up with the acoustic focus while incorporating some electric stuff into my routine.  I know I can do this.  I'm more focused now than I have been in the last four years, I'm establishing more definite goals, I've got the confidence that this year can be the year things real...

Broke down and brought the electric with me on the trip to NW Iowa.  I also packed a bagful of theory resources and other lessons to fill up the small amount of down time I knew we would have. I grabbed the first chance I had (which wound up being quite late tonight) to sneak in a few minutes of time with the guitar in my hands.  I didn't have that much time, but it still felt good to crack open a book and sit with a guitar for a few minutes at least. Having brought along a book on music theory, the Rock Goldmine book, and the book of lessons from Guitar One , it was the last of the three that I went for tonight, because, with my time constraints, that one seemed the least likely to have me falling into it for multiple hours at the end of a long day. We did some listening on the way here today.  The Mrs. had picked up the new Lady GaGa record (not my usual listening choice), and then I stumbled onto the new Stone Temple Pilots EP at one of our stops along the way. ...

I spent about 45 minutes or so in the studio tonight, once again, with the acoustic slung over my shoulder. Tonight, I pulled out the Acoustic Goldmine book of lessons.  I had bought the whole series (Blues, Rock, Country, Jazz, & Acoustic) throughout the last year, and all of them are crammed full of great lessons.  I paged through the book for a bit, trying to decide where to dive in, and then decided that, if I was going to do it, and do it right, I was going to have to start from the beginning.  The first few lessons were pretty easy (I made it through 3 of them), but I also learned that all of the electric playing I've been doing has taken a little bit of the edge out of my fingers.  Barre chords on acoustic are always harder to play than they are on electric, and coming back to the acoustic after a bit of a layoff, it took me a bit to whip them back into some sort of shape. We're heading out of town for a day or so tomorrow morning.  Haven't yet de...

Over the years, I've talked about doing a lot of things in this space.  I've mentioned (a lot) the desire to even out the time I spend with the electric guitar vs. the time I spend with an acoustic in my hands.  I've talked about wanting to make records.  I've talked about wanting to put together a set list and play some gigs.  I've talked about wanting to be a more well-rounded musician. Here's what dawned on me tonight: absolutely everything on this list centers on the acoustic.  When I sit down to write music, it's not the electric I reach for first.  When I sit down to record, sure, I may lay down an electric riff as it goes through my head, but I'm always trying to block the song out on acoustic.  When I think about playing live, 99% of solo singer-songwriters play acoustic (and as much as I love the idea of making a solo-electric singer-songwriter record, I'm not there right now). Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of days this ye...

So, I started the year off by syncing the iPod, charging up my mini-speakers, and getting the floor space in the studio cleaned up and back to useable after my brother's 3 days of sleeping in there while he was here.  I also took an objective look at what needs to be added in order to finish off item #7 on my list of goals for the year: finish off the last bit of studio organization . To the best of my knowledge, the only thing I really and truly need is one more bookshelf that would fit nicely into a corner, and also hold everything I'm currently working on.  The only other thing that might be cool to have in there would be a different table.  On one hand, it would be nice to have something a little more solid than a card table as a work space in the studio, but at the same time, anything bigger than that would seriously impact the amount of space I have in there.  The last thing I want is to have more furniture than I need, and less space to work. I did a littl...