Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Ninety One (Year Four)

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, rpmchallenge.com), but I think I'll pull aspects of both sites into my own thing.  They both have suggestions and motivators that will do me some good, I think.

Here's my (slightly adjusted) challenge to myself:

1) I'm going to try to write 14 songs in 28 days, but I'm going to allow that 4 of them won't turn out as anything good enough to put on a finished record, so in the end I hope to end up with 10 finished songs that I like enough to put onto a record of some sort.

2) I'd like to have lyrics done for at least some of them, but I won't be shocked if that doesn't happen.

3) In a perfect world, I'll get them all recorded in 28 days as well, but realistically, I'll be happy to just get them written in that time.  If the writing is all that's finished by the end of the month, I'll try to get the recording done in March.

I'm trying to be optimistic in my goal setting, while still realizing that I'll be working a lot and life will be busy.

But yeah, it starts tomorrow.  Bring it on!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Three Hundred Nine (Year Seven)

Well, it happened.  We came, we saw, and we (sort of) conquered.  I'm not sure how great we played all the way through, but there were definite moments that went really well, and all things considered (from my side anyway), it was an absolute blast and I hope we get to play again for something that's not church related. The set list, as it was, went like this: 1.  I'll Fly Away 2.  From This Valley 3.  Crazy 4.  My Church 5.  Jolene 6.  Long December 7.  You & I 8.  Can't Help Falling In Love 9.  Hey Jude It was an interestingly eclectic group of songs, with more bluegrass and country than I would have expected. It definitely took us a little while to get our feet under us, and on some level I felt like we were just getting warmed up by the time "Hey Jude" ended, but it was a start, and I'll take that any day.

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...

Day One Hundred Forty Two

So, I haven't been sleeping much lately, and I've been staying up late. listening to music, doing a bit of playing, and watching old episodes of Behind The Music on the internet. It's funny, you know, because I never met the rest of my "band," I've become the critic. It's all right, don't get me wrong, but for a decade now I've always hoped that I'd find a way to release something. It'll happen, I know it will, but it's continually happened slower than I expected it to. I've gotten close to getting something released, as I've documented before here before, but with the winter coming and the cold closing in, I'm facing another chance to make something musical of the winter. I'm going to start by finishing up the old things that have gotten pushed to the sides in the last few months. With the buildup of everything since the summer, it should be easier. Even if all I do is spend the winter writing lyrics, trying to g...