Skip to main content

Day Two Hundred Twenty Three (Year Four)

After taking a look back at my goals for the year yesterday, I wanted to not only enjoy getting back in the studio again, but also look to make some gains in what was really my first day where I felt like I had a substantial amount of time since the end of last month.  I feel like I was able to accomplish that today.  I,

1) Dove back into the Acoustic Goldmine book a little bit.  I stepped back a lesson or two in the stuff I had been working through, to the lesson on block chords, just because I wanted an excuse to stretch out my fingers a little bit, and get them reacquainted with some of the key concepts in this run of lessons on finger-picking.

2) Listened back to a couple of the demos for the songs I wrote last month, and was pleasantly surprised to still be happy with what I got done.  It's always a true test for me to step away for a little bit, and then go back to something and see if my opinions change.  Definitely looking forward to working on getting those songs cleaned up and sounding the way I want them to.

3) Lastly tonight, I wanted to at least touch on one of the things in my list that I hadn't even looked at yet.  The building of a set list made the most sense in that regard, so I grabbed a notebook and my iPod, and started jotting down songs that seemed like they would be fun to learn, but that would also make some sense in an acoustic setting.  I found almost a page full of songs in a short period of time, so that's cool, and it also means that I can say I've started in on another one of my goals for the year.

Tomorrow, I really want to do a little bit of electric stuff.  Find my way back into learning those 100 Riffs, that sort of thing.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Forty Two (Year Four)

Tonight was a slightly unfocused night in the studio. It was a night of acoustic stuff, but most of what I got accomplished involved tinkering with different songs by Jackie Greene and Johnny Cash.  If nothing else, I set up the next list of songs I want to figure out. Tomorrow night I need to start getting back to the Acoustic Goldmine book, as well.  Every time I sit down with the acoustic for an extended period of time, I reconnect with the emotional side of that instrument.  There's so much to learn still in that book, so much information designed to improve my playing.  I need to take better advantage of it. I know it's crazy, but I'm already looking forward to Friday.  I really need to spend a lot of the day in the studio.  Getting a weekday off of work is such a rare commodity.  I need to do a good job of using my time wisely. 
Post a Comment
Read more