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Day One Hundred Ninety Five (Year Four)

This album-in-a-month thing is going to be interesting.  Lessons to remember from tonight's studio session include the following: 

1) I need to learn to temper expectations on days that I work this month.

I had really high hopes going into tonight's studio time.  Truthfully, I expected a repeat of yesterday's progress.  It didn't matter that yesterday was the culmination of a weekend off, where I had the previous two days to work my way up to the musical explosion that was yesterday.  Two days to try out ideas, to see if this chord change worked better than another one, to make sure that all of the pieces were in place so that the progress on the first day where I really needed to come through in a big way would actually be there.  Oh, no.  Today I was going to go in there and do it again, and be halfway home on my goal of 14 songs after only 4 days...

Yeah, right.  It was tough tonight.  I got a full verse (or chorus) section that I think is going to turn out amazing when all of the pieces are in place, but I struggled mightily when it came to finding something to go with it.  No, let me re-phrase that.  I struggled mightily when it came to finding something I liked to go with it.  I definitely found something that's at least passable.  It will work for now, and if I happen to find something else for that spot in the next 24 days, then so be it.  Which brings me to the second thing I had to stop and remind myself of tonight:

2) Today is only the 4th day of the month!  I've still got more than three weeks left to finish this thing off, I've gotten five songs mostly blocked out in four days, and I'm freaking out already that I'll run out of time.  This would have been the point in the past where I'd have gotten frustrated that tonight wasn't as productive as yesterday.  This year is different.  This year I feel like I can finally see the forest for the trees.  I'm not going to freak out.  I'm not going to get discouraged.  I made some progress today!  That's a good thing!  I need to stop and remember what I'm up against: 14 songs in 28 days, 10 of which will be good enough (I hope) to include on a full record.  If I keep those goals in mind, then the music could be halfway done for whatever the finished product ends up being.

Tonight was just one of those nights where I had to remind myself to stop, take a breath, and realize that I'm doing pretty well so far.

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