Skip to main content

Day One Hundred Ninety One (Year Six)

So, I may have done something a little bit crazy.  Last night after I finished blogging, I was checking out some things people had posted on social media, and one of them happened to be a post about joining someone in writing 14 songs in February via FAWM.ORG.  Next thing I knew, I had actually gone ahead and signed up to give it a shot.  After 2 AM, it seems my inhibitions are lowered, and I can convince myself I can do anything.

I've talked about FAWM (February Album Writing Month) and the equally cool RPM Challenge in this space before, mostly in terms of the "one of these years I'm going to try that" school of thought.  A couple of years ago, I even bastardized together some bits from both websites, and tried it on my own (without signing up for either one, of course).  That got me twelve, really rough demos, which I hadn't done anything with since.  Side Note: Creating an EP out of some of those songs is on my list of things to do for this year, and that process had been started somewhat.

I regretted signing up so impulsively as soon as I woke up this morning, but I'm sticking with it, and the reason why didn't dawn on me until tonight... I've got three recording projects I want to get done this year.  The aforementioned EP, a double album (because I've always wanted to at least try writing one), and the power pop record that I've been dreaming of writing for almost as many years as the double album.  I've got 10 kernels of songs for the power pop record, but nothing other than that.  Finding an extra four ideas doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.  That's one idea a week for all of February.  So here's what I'm going to do...

Without putting a whole lot of pressure on myself, I'm going to try and rough out the power pop record in the month of February.  I'm going to try very hard not to let it take over everything I do musically for the whole month, as there are other things I've started that I'd really like to not drop for a month, but yeah.  This way, I'll make at least some headway on one of the projects during the next month for sure.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Three

Short one today. I've got a bunch of the DVDs that Guitar World has put out. Waded through those to see what I had, worked off of the lead guitar one. Just basic scales , but still a light place to begin. It was nice to just start loosening up my fingers again. Off from work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get a lot of playing done. Said I'd mention the other project I'm hoping to finish this year. Back when I was living in WI, I started a hard rock band with a friend of mine. She was heavily influenced by Evanescence, and so, with her as vocalist, we started writing songs. We had written and demoed almost a full album's worth of music by the time I moved to IA, and had even purchased a P.A. in preparation for eventual gigs. We never did find a permanent drummer or bassist, so our demos sound very rough (and not nearly loud enough). I'd like to finish those songs, and make an EP of the 4 or 5 strongest, just as a way to put a cap on that project. More tom...

Day Three Hundred Fifty Seven (Year Seven)

Today was okay.  It ended up being quieter than I wanted it to be, but I got in a few things. 1.  I got the music from the car hauled in and sorted out in advance of my road trip to Dubuque for a little longer than a day.  I'm taking the Radiohead reissue with me for that, since I haven't gotten a chance to sit down with it yet. 2.  I'm also taking an empty notebook along with me, in the hopes that I might start to get some lyric ideas down on paper while I'm gone.  I watched some cool videos early this morning about the idea of writing all of the music before writing lyrics, and the way things are going that is looking like what's going on with me. 3.  I wish there had been more playing today, but I'm still feeling good about where things are sitting.  This next week needs to include a lot of writing.

Day Ninety Three (Year Six)

Today was an interesting day. On one hand, it wasn't a day where I spent a ton of time in the studio, but on the other hand, it was a day where the time that I did spend in the studio was probably the most productive time I've had in a long time.  In short, even though I didn't spend all that much time working on the EP tonight, I feel like I got a whole lot closer to finishing it. I've been frustrated with myself lately for not finishing things a bit quicker, and struggling with the fact that, while I have been successful at finding a whole lot of kernels of songs, they haven't seemed to want to sprout into completed works.  Tonight, instead of freaking out and making myself more stressed out, I sat down and looked at a few favorite songs to see if I could sneak a peek behind the veil, if you will. The answers jumped out at me immediately.  I haven't been doing enough with the kernels.  Mostly, I haven't been facilitating the chord changes that will a...