"Muse" - ings on Rock & Life

Ed Sheeran in DSM tonight.  On the way home now, but suffice to say that it was a great show. Lots to take in and talk about, but that is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

The influx of new song ideas has had me reconsidering what the running order will be for the EP.  With today being a busy day (we picked up my sister-in-law in advance of the Ed Sheeran concert tomorrow!) I had no time in the studio, but plenty of time to think things over as we drove. I'm fairly certain that I've got things squared away as I sit here and type this, and I'm positive that the new song ideas changed things for the better.  Either tonight or (more likely) tomorrow, I need to sit down and work through these ideas to make sure that what looks good on paper (and sounds good in my head) actually works in reality. Today was a good mental day, tomorrow will be a good work day.

Today was, for the most part, a good day. The music tonight at church sounded the best it has to date (I thought).  Having some form of percussion really makes a huge difference. In the hour before everything got started, I sat in the quiet of the sanctuary and worked on the song idea that has captivated me this week.  It's coming into a bit clearer focus, and that part has been good. In fact, the only bummer of the day is that the new Jeff Tweedy record I ordered from Amazon has a big old scratch in it and will need to be swapped out for one that actually plays all the way through.

So, the Mrs. issued the formal challenge today: "Can you," she said, "Make the final decision on what songs you want to use for the EP by the end of the month?" My response: "If I have enough time at home between now and Friday?  Sure." Whether or not I'll get enough time to actually make that decision remains to be seen, but I'm sure as heck going to try anyway. New Tweedy came in the mail today, as I had expected.  It hasn't made the CD player yet tonight, and at this point, I'm thinking that the record is a likely candidate to be my drive in/out music for work tomorrow. Still feeling good about the writing side of things.  Hopefully tomorrow offers more time to focus on it than today did.

I'll tell you what's crazy to me... now that I've been more focused on thoughts of songwriting for the last few days, I'm finding chord progressions everywhere.  In a wrong note on a piano, a song faintly heard, a combination of voices.  I'm just finding inspiration all over the map right now. Even with that, I didn't have anything appreciable in the way of studio time today.  We had family here in the morning, and the afternoon was spent running errands and meeting up with people. I'm just really excited that things feel like they are moving again where the writing is concerned.

All kinds of things to write about today: 1.  M. and I played for church today, and I thought we acquitted ourselves well.  The songs were slower in tempo than I was hoping for, but the performances went well.  Afterwards we got a chance to run them with a bit of drums, and the extra propulsion that provided was awesome.  We really need to find a way to have someone drumming every time.  Wednesday looks even better after the way this morning went.  Following that , we sat around the piano and talked a bit more songwriting.  She played through something she had been working on, and I did the same with that melodic idea from the other day.  I've got chords to go underneath it now, so that's cool. 2.  After church, the Mrs. and I headed to DSM for a family event.  Of course, this coincided with a trip to B&N.  No new music, but I picked up a couple of magazines, and the Mrs. found me a songwriter's journal.  We had been ta...

Today was good. I spent a couple of hours rehearsing and planning with M.  We made what I thought was good progress, and I'm pretty sure we're ready for tomorrow and Wednesday.  Got a chance to listen to the new Justin Townes Earle on my way to and from rehearsals, and I really dig the new record. The other thing that happened today was a small bit of inadvertent songwriting.  In a short break from rehearsal this afternoon, I was playing around with chords when something jumped out at me.  I played it through a few more times, and then played it for M., which led us to a short conversation about writing music. All told, if I can find a bit of time to follow up on this fresh song idea tomorrow, all will be heading in the right direction.