"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

So I may have written last night that I had been through every part of "Stairway" except for the solo. I was wrong. I forgot about the decidedly rockin' bit after the solo that goes (primarily) Am-G-F. You know, the bit that starts with the line "and as we wind on down the road..." Nevertheless, I took care of that tonight. The only part of it that took me at all by surprise was the full Fmaj7 chord near the end. It wasn't hard, so much as it was unexpected, and once I got it down, I was fine. So now, officially, the solo is all that hasn't fully been explored. What's fun about that is the fact that, in looking back on when I officially got started working on "Stairway," it turns out that it was the 6th of November. This means that I technically have until December 6th to get it all down. Which gives me a week to learn the solo and put all the pieces together. Considering how much I'll be working in the next 7 days, that still...

To say that today took a different path than I was expecting is an understatement. There was a little Zeppelin worked on (although not nearly as much as I had hoped), some reading in relation to music that got accomplished, and a bit of messing around with hard rock type stuff. I woke up in a decidedly Evanescence mood today. That hasn't happened in quite some time. I went from there to We Are The Fallen, only to re-confirm my theory that their record isn't sequenced right. I miss my band tonight... even if it was never a "full" band, I still miss it.

I can't even begin to express how tempting it was to start doing serious work on the "Stairway" solo tonight! I held off, though, thinking that a decent night's sleep and a day off from work will make that experience a better, more productive one. I did listen all the way through again, though, for the first time in a few weeks, and it dawns on me that the song seems to be slowing down in my head. This is good. Most of the sections are quite repetitive, and with the exception of the solo, should be easy to master once everything is sorted out in my head. Even the solo sounds slower. The triplets are going to be the roughest part, I think. Getting the speed and clarity right ought to be a wicked bit of fun. Still feeling good, and still making progress!

Another day of working followed by Zeppelin. I did some reading on the band (that's right, I'm getting closer to being done with that giant biography I feel like I've been mentioning here for ages), and then picked away at the bridges and the solo some more, worried more about continuity when it comes to the bridges, and more about stretching out my fingers when it came to the solo. I didn't get as much done as I could have, but nonetheless I still feel as though I made some progress. Soon, probably Monday on my day off, I'm going to break down and get out the guitar trainer I have that slows things down and lets you play along, and make use of that in the context of "Stairway," because I haven't done that yet. I expect that, with that in play, the solo will really start to come along nicely. The way my schedule breaks down, I've effectively got two days off between Sunday evening and Tuesday afternoon, so I'm hoping there will be ample op...

I dove back into "Stairway" tonight, starting with the first bridge, and working my way through the verse progressions and up to the solo. It feels like it's starting to gel a little bit. There are still things that I struggle with, and spots where I need to go slowly, but it's getting easier. I even moved one of my music stands (I have two), from the bedroom back into the living room in order to make approaching this easier. The other thing that helped was that I just did it. I didn't think too much as I went, and I kept going until I got stuck, and then just worked on the section I had just gone through. Slowly but surely I'm unlocking the secrets of this song, and at the same time, I'm figuring out the level of dedication necessary to get to where I want to be. The work is starting to pay off, if only in small dividends, but I can see it. Some things (which definitely include sight reading of tablature, and making it sound like the record) are g...

It felt good to get back to the Zeppelin today. I stubbornly started with the beginning, and worked my way through some of the bridge. The opening went really well, considering that I've been away from it for a while, and as for the bridge... that went smoothly too, if only because I actually focused in on what the music was telling me. I stopped worrying so much about where my fingers were going and just reacted to it, and surprisingly, it started to resemble Zeppelin. Four months into this, and I still can't get over how even the smallest bit of playing makes my hands feel good. Progress may still be slower than I hoped it would be, but it feels like progress by god! Having the last two days off has helped to clear my mind a bit, which no doubt helps. Creativity is so often stunted by having too much on your mind, and yet at the same time, it's having all that on your mind in the first place that puts you in a spot where the music can help you process. It's a b...

The hardest part about starting to work on a record, especially when you have the ability to pull from years of stored ideas, is the ideas themselves. It's getting past all these small nuggets of music that I really like, and trying to make a cohesive something out of all of them. If I'm doing it solo (which at this point I assume I am), I know I need to center everything around the acoustic. So, why then am I unable to get the electric out of my hands? Something tells me it might be a good idea to turn back to "Stairway," because while I want/need this record to be made, I think I need to sit with its direction a little bit longer.