Skip to main content

Day Eleven (Year Seven)

Today was a songwriting day, and it came about from a rather odd source.  I was going through posts on social media from this day in years past, and I had written something five years ago that, tonight, struck me as a line for a song.  I know a few basics about it... the song's in the key of C, and it's primarily acoustic in nature.  I can hear parts of it in my head, and tomorrow will be at least somewhat devoted to mining those parts and seeing what comes of them.

This was the first mental push from the songwriting side since I made up my mind about the four areas of study, and it was good.

The other thing I decided tonight is that, if I'm really going to get serious about the songwriting (and with three potential recording projects that will all need songs, I really ought to), one of the obvious things that I can do to help myself out as I get started again is to go through my iTunes, and make myself a playlist of songs I wish I had written, and then take at least a few of them each week and break them down, see how they're put together, see what makes them tick, and see what I can learn from them.  Initially, in my head, the thought was to look at one each day, but for fear of over-extending myself, I might knock it back to three a week at first, and then, if that feels like too much, knock it back even further.

This week has been a week of smaller victories, but it's only Wednesday, and there's still time for some of the big stuff to break through.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Three Hundred Fifty Four

Today was a hodgepodge of musical stuff. Here's a list of the stuff it included... 1) I uncovered two more songs to add to my ongoing list of "supremely catchy pop music." One of the songs is the first song on the latest record by the Smoking Popes, who I saw the other day. It's called "Wish We Were," and it's a glorious pop-punk distillation of unannounced love.  The second song is by a band called the Vaccines. It's called "Norgaard," and it comes off as a mix of 60's California pop, punk energy, and surf rock. 2) Found a poster frame for my Alkaline Trio poster. 3) Heard from B. via text tonight. Apparently she has rediscovered her knack for "creepy, cool lyric writing again." I couldn't be more excited about this. When she hits that kind of stride, B. usually comes up with some pretty great stuff. She tells me she got an entire lyric tonight. Some rough ideas about melody, but nothing concrete yet. As for me,...
Post a Comment
Read more