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Day Three Hundred Fifty Nine (Year Five)

So, in the way that I was wanting yesterday to be full of action and productivity and steps forward, I went into today fully expecting it to be a low key sort of day where I got a few things done this morning (hopefully), and maybe found a bit of time at the end of the day to sneak into the studio.

In short, I knew I had family coming in, so I wasn't expecting a whole lot.  I was wrong.  So, so wrong.

1) My Mom and my Aunt got here later than anticipated, which gave me a bit of extra time to putter around this morning.  I put that time to use by finishing off the end of the alphabet on my iTunes project.  I've now got a complete playlist set up of songs to transfer over to the new computer.  Once I get that done, I can finally get back to working on my list of songs to learn, which was what kickstarted this whole iTunes business in the first place.

2) When my Mom & Aunt did arrive, they had with them my step-dad's old iMac.  He upgraded recently, and basically flat out told me he would give me his old one for free.  I believe the conversation started something like, "So, do you know anyone who might be interested in a computer that has GarageBand on it?"  He'd had it for a good number of years, but I'm always up for anything that might help me in getting my songs recorded.  So there's that.

3) Over the years, I've been smart/foolish enough to sign up for any number of guitar-related emails.  They never end up giving me a whole lot of useable information, mostly just small bits of info surrounded by sales pitches, and every so often I unsubscribe from all of them and start fresh.  Tonight, though, one of them sent me something interesting regarding songwriting.  I thought it was going to be the usual "unlock the secrets of hit songwriting" drivel with the "buy this course to learn it all" pitch at the end.  This one actually outlined some thoughts on the process itself, backed up with examples.  Now, I'm not one to jump all over formula and trumpet it as great, but as I sat in my studio tonight with the acoustic in my hands, I thought to myself, "why not jump-start the process with a small bit of formula, and then break the rules once I re-familiarize myself with the basics.  It's essentially a crash course in pop songwriting that I can mess around with until I'm feeling comfortable again.  And if I get something cool sounding out of it, then all the better.

Knowing that, I opened up the email and scrawled the relevant information into my notebook of song ideas before the link disappeared.  It's a starting point, and something to come back to when I need a small bit of inspiration to help out the progressions I've written that want so desperately to be finished songs.

It's always the days that feel like they won't amount to much of anything that end up being the really good ones.
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