Skip to main content

Day Two Hundred Twenty Eight (Year Four)

Today was a lot closer to what I've come to expect out of myself this year.

I got into the studio a couple different times today.  The first time I got in there, I focused my attention on finishing up my list of songs I'd like to incorporate into a set list at some point this year.  I'm sure there will be things added to it as the year goes along, but for right now, I like what I have.

The second time I got into the studio tonight was more focused on the electric side of things than the acoustic side of things (initially, anyway).  I worked my way through the riff from 100 Riffs that had me stuck earlier in the week (I really have it down now), and then got through the next two in fairly short order.

In between those times I got a chance to do a bunch of listening, and get a bit farther in the Big Star biography I've been reading.

Really, the only thing I didn't get to this weekend is the record.  That's weird to me, if only because it was the one thing that, heading into the weekend, I knew I should make time for.  I want to see if I can't get at least a few final guitar parts cranked out before this weekend.  I'm headed up to WI for a Cory Chisel concert that he's playing with the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra.  My brother and I wound up with tickets through my step-mom (who was concert master of the FVSO for almost 20 years).  Knowing that I've got a 3+ hour drive ahead of me on Friday night, I'd love to have at least a few songs closer to finished, if only to hear how they sound in the car.  Plus, it would be cool to have something tangible my brother could listen to.  Guess the record will be at the top of the list for tomorrow.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Two)

So, the new Springsteen disc is amazing.  There's enough of a mixture of his upbeat rockers, his ballads, and his message songs to make this his best record since The Rising .  And speaking of that record... Buying The Boss the day it comes out always takes me back to a specific moment in life.  It was July 30th, 2002, the year after 9/11, the year after someone on the streets of New York told Springsteen "we need you now."  I had driven to Oshkosh, WI to visit some friends, when I remembered that Springsteen's disc was scheduled to come out that day.  I drove downtown to The Exclusive Company, but had to park a few blocks back.  At the time, there wasn't much going on downtown, but when I got out of the car, I could hear this music coming from up the block somewhere.  The closer I got to Exclusive, the more it began to dawn on me, they had set up a giant set of speakers in their upstairs windows, and were blasting the new album out into the streets....

Day Two Hundred Twenty Six (Year Four)

So I dove back into 100 Riffs tonight, going into it with the hope that the hand written tabs I did last night would help me unlock the issue I was having transitioning from the first half of the riff to the second half.  It worked.  With both halves clearly written in front of me, I was able to work through the transition that had been tripping me up when the screen cut off was happening on SoundSlice.  That's going to be a nice thing to have in my bag of tricks for the times when I get stumped figuring these things out. I played a little bit of acoustic tonight as well, trying to be better about finding the balance between both instruments.  Late 90's-early 2000's rock has come up a lot in conversations at work of late, so in that spirit, I picked a song from that time period out of my set list notebook ("Your Winter" by Sister Hazel), and took a quick look at it.  Admittedly, it's a song I had mostly learned a long time ago, so the essential parts of it w...

Day Two Hundred Thirteen (Year Five)

Finally!  A really good day.  And one that I really needed after the frustration with the rest of the weekend. I took a step back from a few things today, and got what I hope will be a bit of clarity in the process.  Instead of worrying about the progress I really haven't been making on the EP, I told myself that I needed to be happy with the few bits of lyric I stumbled across today, and that maybe I needed to focus my attention elsewhere, at least for today. I had picked up a really cool book on music theory as it applies to guitar last Tuesday when I was out and about, and having spent a little bit of time paging through it over the last few days, I focused in on it tonight and started reading, taking notes, and reinforcing some things.  It felt like progress.  It was great. When I had worked through some of that, I moved on to the whole "100 Riffs" thing, and got myself moving on that again.  It's astounding how much I can get inside my own head a...