Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Ninety Two (Year Four)

Before I say anything else tonight, I want to put this out there: I know I'm trying to write an album's worth of songs this month, but I'm not going to let that slow down work on my other goals this year.  To that end, I worked (successfully) through the lesson on Travis-picking from the Acoustic Goldmine book.

That said, I sat down in the studio a couple of different times today in an attempt to get started working on these songs that I've got 28 days to finish.  Seemingly like always when I sit down and start trying to write, I got a couple of things that I really liked, but they aren't anything close to completed songs.  At best, they are mini-sketches of verses and choruses to come.  My hope, at the end of this first day, is that these sketches will coalesce into something more.

I think what I struggled with the most today was the sound of everything.  I like the progressions, I just went searching for the identity of the whole project through the sound of things (capo placement, chord construction, etc.), and I probably did that too early.  Tomorrow and Monday, my plan is to just let things happen.  Let the pieces fall where they may, and the sounds pile up however they see fit to.  By the time I go back to work on Tuesday, though, I feel like I need to have some sense of where the first batch of ideas are heading.

Comments

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...

Day Two Hundred Ninety Nine (Year Four)

Tonight was one of those nights where absolutely nothing went right, but somehow, some way, I managed to get into the studio for a little bit, and make what felt like good progress, all things considered. I went back through the second half of last night's chapter in The Guitarist's Guide To Scales Over Chords , just to make sure that I had a decent grasp of everything that was covered, and then made the move to the next chapter. After the theory-heavy chapter I had just gotten through, it was a great relief to have the next one be more music (playing) centered.  It was all about putting the scale examples they cited in the early chapters to use in a musical context. I've seen a great number of books try to do this in a successful manner, and end up failing spectacularly, but so far I'm liking what this book is putting forward.  They give you "starter" examples, that don't necessarily make the best use of note choices, etc. and then present you with an...

Day Two Hundred Ninety Two (Year Five)

Today was the last seminary village cookout of the year. While we were all sitting around the picnic tables eating dinner, I got a chance to talk with a few of the Mrs.'s classmates about guitar related stuff. As it turns out, more than one of them wants to be more proficient on guitar. I'm not saying that this will lead to more teaching opportunities, but I told one of them that I would throw a folder together for them. Essentially, anytime I get a chance to talk shop is a great chance for me to reinforce some of the things I have been focusing on. If nothing else, it gets me thinking ahead to tomorrow's day off and a chance to get into the studio for a decent amount of time.