Skip to main content

Day Eighty (Year Five)

I knew heading into the day last night's post didn't have all that much bite to it, and so I really tried to make up for that, at least somewhat.

I got into the studio for two sessions today.  The first one, early this morning, wound up being more focused on sprucing up the music for one of the songs that will make the EP I'm still hoping to get finished by the end of the year.  I had been frustrated with the sound of the song for a while, even though I liked the basic idea of it.  A bit of thought, and a few minutes with a capo changed everything, though, as the issue turned out to have more to do with the key I was playing it in than anything else.  What I really need to do next in order for finishing that to be realistic by the end of the year is make sure that I've got recordings that are passable, and then just drive around with the music in my car for a while, and see what lyric ideas start to pop up.

Tonight's session was more focused on the scales & soloing side of things.  It was an admittedly shorter session than I thought I might get tonight, but it did focus not only on the information out of the columns I've been working from, but also a bit of the Vai 30 hour workout.  I haven't had the kind of time available to be able to dive headlong into that yet (or perhaps haven't made the best use of the time I've had), but I am definitely looking at Wednesday (my day off this week) as a chance to do just that.  Should be a good week.
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 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...
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