"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Today was a good day. For starters, my order of the Deluxe Edition of Tori Amos's Boys For Pele came in the mail. That would have been enough for me today, but secondly, we're headed out for a bit of the weekend in Dubuque (Thursday night thru sometime on Saturday), and while the Mrs. is meeting up with some people, I get to go look at instruments and play guitar at the hotel.  The truly awesome part about that for me is that it happens right at the start of December, so it gives me a bit of a chance to really sit down and plan out how I would like the month to go.  Aside from looking at instruments, that's the part of the next couple of days I'm looking forward to the most. I've already started setting aside what I'm taking with me, and while it's probably too much, it will let me have enough resources at my disposal to really dive into my hopes for December and beyond.  Should be a fun couple of days.

So, I finished off my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo tonight, and in that precise moment, I felt this huge weight lift off of my shoulders.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy doing that every November, but for the last couple of weeks I have really been missing the time I would normally get to spend in the studio.  With NaNo mostly out of the way for at least another eleven months, I can get back to transcribing the ideas on my recording gear in December, with an eye toward starting some serious writing and recording come the first of the year. There wasn't a whole lot of time tonight, but the work I did in other areas just served to clear out my schedule, so I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot more time coming very, very soon.

New issue of Guitar World came in the mail today.  I didn't take a whole lot of time to really dive into it yet, though, for the same reason as last night.  I spent most of the day focused on NaNoWriMo, and while I didn't quite finish my word count for the month (thereby freeing up most of my brain for music once again), I did put in a really solid day, and I should be able to finish the thing tomorrow if all goes well. That said, I spent a few minutes at the end of the day hanging out in the studio, doing a little bit of playing and reading/studying; and that time was good, productive time.  Considering the amount of time I haven't gotten to spend in the studio in the month of November, I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm sitting in regards to next month and the lead in to next year. It's definitely going to be an adventure from now until the end of the year, but I'm looking forward to seeing what I can get done.

I finally got started on hauling my finds from the trip up to MN down to the studio.  I managed to get all of the books brought down and put away.  It's just the couple of CD's I picked up that still need to be brought downstairs.  That can happen tomorrow, though. I tried to get some good work in tonight, I really did.  I started reading the book I just picked up on over coming songwriter's block, and I'm thinking that it's going to have some really good stuff in it. I picked up a guitar for a few minutes tonight, too, and didn't hit anything that truly inspired me. Honestly, the biggest problem I have right now is that I'm less than 5,000 words from meeting my goal for NaNoWriMo, and I have finally reached that point where I can't seem to think about anything else.  If all goes really, really well, I might be able to finish it off tomorrow and be able to refocus on the studio, where I know I have a lot of work to do and a lot of decisions to make...

Well, we're home.  No new instrument yet, we ran out of time for shopping.  I'll put it off at least until next weekend, when we'll be back in Dubuque, and I can stop at Uncle Ike's to see if they have the guitar I'm looking for.  That will also give me another week to do some looking around at my options. We did , however, stop at a Half Price Books on the way home.  I found some good stuff, including: Foo Fighters by Mick Wall Do Not Sell At Any Price by Amanda Petrusich Beating Songwriter's Block by Gary Ewer All good reads, all music related.  I also snagged a Pavement record and another disc that I can't recall at the moment.  Either way, it was a pretty great day for picking up new stuff.  I'm looking forward to the next two days, when I can actually be home and make some progress in the studio. 

Well, we're back up in the cities tonight, because my sister in law flies back to Colorado tomorrow afternoon.  We did our customary Black Friday shopping, only this time at the Mall of America, and the one thing I was really looking for, the two-disc deluxe reissue of Tori Amos' Boys For Pele , I had to special order. I also picked up the new Ron Howard film on The Beatles, because that seemed like a very good idea.  I'm hoping that, while we are still in the cities tomorrow morning/afternoon, I'll be able to seek out a guitar shop and take a look at an acoustic or two, just to see if I can't find lightning in a bottle and come home with whatever the new instrument will be.  Secretly, I'm also looking for a Telecaster, but I've pretty well resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to get such a great deal that I can bring them both back home with me. Should be a fun adventure either way, though.  Can't wait to get home tomorrow and spend ...

So much of the day in music was about sitting up late and talking with my brother about my plans for the end of the year and the start of 2017. Sometimes just bouncing ideas and hopes back and forth is exactly what I need. It was a great time catching up with family, and a great day overall.

Got down into the studio for a bit this evening, although family has started arriving for the holiday tomorrow, so naturally that occupied some of my night.  It was good to have dinner with some of them, and will be good to see the rest of them when they arrive in the morning. Mostly tonight, I sat with the acoustic and just played.  At one point, I ended up kicking around a few chord ideas, but I didn't take it far enough to have it actually turn into anything song-like.  Just sitting down there tonight, though, affirmed my belief that, after all of the craziness this year has brought with it, next year needs to be the year I write (or finish writing) a record.  Whether that will take the form of some of the things I've already quasi-begun (EP, Power Pop Album, Double Album) or whether it will evolve out of those and into something else entirely, I don't know right now.  Next year, though, needs to be the year. That's really all for tonight.  I was hop...

I didn't have a whole lot of time to spend in the studio tonight, but it was the first time I've really been down there with a decent chance to just sit and play in the last couple of days, and so even though I only got to spend about a half an hour down there, I'm still left feeling like I rescued a small piece of myself that desperately needed rescuing. I sat with the acoustic for a few minutes, and then did a small bit of listening.  It was the perfect end to an otherwise busy day, and while I wish I'd had the time to do some writing or try and work out a cool loop to mess around with over the holiday weekend, I just didn't have the energy for that tonight. The other cool thing that happened today was that my back issue of Guitar Techniques that I had missed in September finally got here from England!  Can't wait to sit down and go through that with a good bit of focus this week sometime. A much needed good day today.

Today was one of those days that was absolutely full of missed opportunities. I both got up too late and will be heading to bed too early to be able to find a chance to get much done. Could I hit the studio right now and at least say that I spent a chunk of time down there? Yes. Would it be quality time? Probably not. I am severely over tired and also heading into what promises to be a busy week of work, even if it is only a couple of days. I'm running on empty, and already looking forward to Wednesday night after work and the holiday weekend, even though that is likely to not really offer the respite I so desperately need.

Today was a quieter day than I was hoping for. When I made it into the studio tonight, I found the energy to do a small bit of acoustic playing, and to take a quick look at some of the theory stuff that has been on my plate for the last few days.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend all that much time with either one. I'm really hoping that tomorrow is a better, more productive day, because I really feel like I need it right now.

And just like that, the studio is whole again. The replacement looping pedal was waiting for me when we got home today.  I brought it inside, opened it up to make sure all of the pieces were there, and then hauled it downstairs where I plugged it right in.  Surprisingly, I didn't take the time to play around with it all that much.  That can happen tomorrow and Monday. I did , however, take a quick look at the guitar theory book that I had picked up recently, and I did just enough work with that to set myself up for some good successes in the next couple of days. It's good to be home again.  Even though we were only gone overnight, it feels like we were away for about a week.  It was a really good feeling to be able to get back into the studio tonight and set things to rights.  In a perfect world, I'll be able to spend a whole lot of time down there in the next couple days.

Short post today, filled with a mixture of good news and bummer news, and both happen to be related to the same thing. The good news: My looping pedal got here this morning! The bad news: It arrived about a half hour after we headed up to the Cities for the day. So, the real fun will have to wait until tomorrow afternoon sometime. The best thing about the day, though, was getting to spend the afternoon and evening with my brother.

Today was a really long day. To be completely honest, I didn't have a lot of time to spend in the studio today. I did manage, however, to get both the power supply for my looping pedal  (still not here, but closer now), as well as my fresh tablature hauled down to the studio. After the day I had at work today, I will take all of the victories I can today.

In a rather cruel twist of fate, the power supply for my replacement looping pedal arrived in the mail today from Amazon.  The pedal itself?  Oh, no.  That's still at a carrier facility out in Portland, Oregon, and isn't scheduled to get here until tomorrow at the earliest, or next Tuesday at the latest. I had time to do a little bit of thinking and plotting of things today, but not a lot of time to do much dirty work down in  the studio.  Tomorrow's my last day of work for the week, and while Friday is going to be a busy day mostly not spent within reach of a guitar, I'm really hoping that the weekend can be a productive one. With the looping pedal on its way, and the manuscript paper I ordered already here, I should be able to have some good fun this weekend, provided I can carve out the time to spend downstairs.  I might need a little bit of luck to get there, but we shall see what happens.

Short post today. A couple of really good things, though. 1. I got to talk to my brother for about an hour tonight, which means that I got the chance to hear about the concert that he went to in Michigan last weekend. He saw the Berlin Philharmonic, and I am incredibly jealous. 2. The tab books that I ordered the other day got here tonight, and they are exactly what I wanted. No news yet on the new looping pedal.

Well, after being here since the middle of June, today I finally gave up looking for my looping pedal, wrote it off as a loss, and ordered a replacement. Which means that I will, no doubt, find the original one in the next few weeks. Sadly, today wasn't as productive of a day as I was hoping for, but I am definitely looking forward to getting the tablature paper that I ordered in the mail tomorrow. That will let me get back to transcribing the riffs and progressions I have sitting on my recording gear. The other cool things that happened today involved finding a box of studio stuff out in the garage. Mostly it had notebooks and magazines in it, I think. I'm going to have to take a closer look at it tomorrow, though. All I know for sure is that it didn't have a looping pedal in it.

Today was another day where I ended up having a whole lot less time to spend in the studio than I was originally expecting to, but I still managed to spend a short period of quality time down there by the end of the day. I got a chance to look into a bit more of that theory book that I had picked up in Ames the other day.  Tonight was another night of small bits falling further into place.  I'm going to need to spend more time down there tomorrow than I did today, just to ensure that the things I worked on tonight don't slip away from me, but all things considered, I'm feeling better tonight than I have in a while. For once, as I head into Monday, I'm feeling like I can build on some small successes, as opposed to having to cram a whole weekend's worth of work into a single day.

I got a bit of time in the studio today.  Less than I had anticipated when I got up this morning, but enough to sit down and at least take a small bite out of the theory book I had picked up yesterday.  After spending a small amount of time with it, I'm more convinced than I was yesterday that it will help to fill in some of the missing pieces for me.  I'm really looking at the end of the year as a way to shore things up heading into January.  We shall see if it turns out that way, but right now I'm feeling pretty good. I'm hoping that tomorrow can be a day to build on the small successes of today, and that Monday can be a day where I am fully immersed in the studio and can really start putting things to work. I really hope that I can find a way to get downstairs a bit earlier tomorrow than I did today.  I'll be the first one to admit that NaNoWriMo is again having an impact on my music time, but I know I can do better than I have the last week or so. Tomo...

So, we were gone most of the day today, which didn't allow for studio time really at all. That being the case, I made it my business to find something musical in my day, and in that I was successful.  I picked up the latest issue of Guitar Techniques , I picked up a book on music theory as it applies to the guitar, and I picked up a CD/DVD combo of the Rolling Stones from their Steel Wheels era. All things considered, it felt like a good day for musical additions.  Tomorrow, when my day is free to be spent at home and in the studio, I can finally get to all of the things I have only been touching on all week long. Something tells me it is going to be a fun weekend for me.

After working all day, I got into the studio and bit on the late side tonight. I got started on a few things that I really want to get done this weekend, but most of that is related to the transcribing that I have to get through in order to move forward with my recording projects. Somewhere in there, I found out that we lost one of the great songwriters of our time: Leonard Cohen passed away tonight. 2016 has not been kind to the music world.

So, I said that I would get back to it today, but even I wasn't expecting to do that by getting something on the songwriting side of things. I was driving to work today, with nothing on the stereo for a change, when all of a sudden I started to get some words running through my head. I wound up repeating the phrases to myself over and over for the rest of my forty minute drive, just to ensure that I wouldn't forget them, and then I put them into my phone as soon as I pulled into the parking lot.  It wasn't much, I know, but any time the muse decides to make an appearance, I'm always happy for whatever shows up. I got home late tonight, so I didn't have a lot of time to do any follow up work down in the studio yet, but after work tomorrow I will definitely be getting down there and seeing what I can come up with. It may be nothing more than a trickle of ideas right now, but it's more than I've had of late.

So, thanks to the election this evening, I took a night off from the studio. Things will pick up again tomorrow morning, though, because I don't have to be in until noon.

Well, I was able to find my way into the studio today to get a little bit of transcribing done.  I'm making progress, it's just not as fast as I would like it to be.  I'm also not spending as much time on it as I'd like to right now, so I'm assuming that is most of my issue. I'm getting a lot of other things done... just not the stuff I really ought to be working on.  Either way, as long as I can get it finished in enough time to have sorted it all through and ready to be worked on starting in the middle of next month, I should be all right.  I'm not too worried about that particular timeline right now, though. I'm really hoping for a productive week coming up.  I need to do better with my weekend days, though.  I've been less focused than I ought to be, and I know it.  This weekend looks like it might be good for having time, though.  The Mrs. has a work thing on Saturday, so if I can be smart with my time then, I should have a good chunk of ...

So, I finally got started on the transcribing side of things today.  And the best part?  I had some success right away that is getting me even more pumped up for this whole process.  I started later in the day than I had otherwise hoped to, but that first bit of progress turned out well enough that, if I can get a good day in the studio tomorrow, I feel like I can make some really good progress. I'm bound and determined to cross some big things off of my list by the end of the year, and getting into the studio tomorrow and getting more work done is the first step in that process.

So, I had every intention of sitting down and working on that transcribing today, and then I got distracted by another project and another thing that has been on my mind, and I let my day get wrapped up in that.  Here's where my head was at: Way, way back in January, I had declared 2016 to be a "Finish Year," and I had a decent sized list of things that I was going to cross off of my musical To Do List during the ensuing twelve months.  And through the first couple of months of the year, I was actually making some decent progress.  Then March happened.  That was the month when our lives really started to get put on hold.  All the way through spring and summer and a little bit of fall.  Between my wife's graduation and job hunt and our move and getting the house somewhat settled and me starting my own job, things got a little busy in the middle six months of 2016. Not that I haven't gotten things up and running since we've been in the new place, because ...

Today was a weird day.  I didn't get down into the studio until really late in the day, and when I finally did make it down there, I found myself looking through the Dylan lesson in the new issue of Acoustic Guitar , and then picking up the acoustic for a bit of playing that wasn't really all that related to the lesson.  It was just good to sit and play. Tomorrow, I really need to start in on the serious work, and really get down to transcribing all of the progressions and riffs that are biding their time on my recording gear.  Refreshing myself on how to play all of that is the first step in making serious headway on all of the songwriting that I so desperately need to get started on before the end of the year.  In a perfect world, I'll get all of that done (and get started on breaking through my long running lyrical block) by the fifteenth of December, so that I can use my break from work to focus on getting some songs worked on.

Another low key day today, although I was able to get to the book store and pick up the latest issue of Acoustic Guitar .  They have Dylan on the cover this month. Really, the big news of today is that my weekend is finally here, and I will (at long last) get the time that I am so desperately needing in the studio.  There's a lot that I want to get done by the end of Monday, but most of the serious work on all of that will have to start in the morning, because today was a long day, and I'm beat.

Well, I didn't end up with as much time to spend in the studio today as I was hoping to, so as a result, the transcribing that I had hoped to get to this morning will have to be put on hold until tomorrow at the earliest, and the weekend at the latest. Instead, I spent the few minutes that I had in the studio today with a guitar in my hands, doing some playing before I had to go to work. Still a good day, even if it was not quite what I had expected it to be.

Today was a busy day, both at work and after it.  As a result, there wasn't a whole lot of time to spend in the studio tonight.  Even so, I was able to do a bit of plotting and a bit of studying during my down times at work today, and not having to go in until noon tomorrow gives me the morning to spend a bit more time down in the studio. I think I might try transcribing some of those old riffs in the morning.  Knowing where I'm headed when I get up will help me out a lot. Today was, I know, somewhat short, but as the week goes on, things are going to get better and better.