Today wasn't a particularly unlucky day. I finally banged out what will be the opening track to the new album. The whole thing is going to be very unambitious. Just a few simple songs that repeat a bit and then end. I kind of figured it might be this way, since I'm so strapped for time and energy. I've been kind of out of it lately, and this week has been kind of frustrating since today was my only night off, and I had to say "no" to CVS in order to get it (they asked if I'd come in).
I hate having things to do. Why can't school just end already and why can't I not have to work in order to earn money. Why can't I just do what I want to do. Why can't life work that way. We all spend eighty percent of our lives doing what we'd rather not, and twenty percent dreading it. It's nice to have Heaven to look forward to. I guess.
I wish it were Sunday already. I'm kind of annoyed by how stagnant everything is. I can't seem to make any head way... but it's all my fault, really. I'm the one not doing anything.
This isn't a very happy post. Appropriate for the day, I guess. On a lighter note, I get to see my Rachel two days from now. She's about all I could think about all day.
I love her.
_Dr. M
Showing posts with label recording. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recording. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Vanilla Bean
I stayed up quite literally all of Friday night recording a new song. The deadline for that competition I mentioned a while back reared its ugly head, and I had to put my entry in the mail Saturday morning. Well, I'm back in the saddle, if I may wax stupid for a moment. That is to say I'm definitely ready to start recording again. I used Garageband this go-around, but I'm ready to start with Logic and maybe even finish an album by the end of the month. I wanted to start today (which is really Saturday, not Sunday) but maybe it's a little late.
The song I made is an instrumental, with a lot of contrasting sections. It sort of became a tribute to Joy Electric, my favorite band since I was eleven.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pp2mlp
You can download it there if you get to the link in time. I think it stops working after only a few days.
I'm so excited! I don't know why I waited so long. The album is going to be a lot of instrumentals like this one, only simpler and more rhythmic. I want to stop writing so I can get started! Ah, it's good to be motivated!
I wonder if there's any pizza left downstairs.
Me and Khai officially switched the name of our band to Twilight March. I like that name a whole hell of a lot more than Napenthi.
I went to see Rachel's play today (Saturday). She was the props coordinator. There weren't too many props in it, but hey, I'll take any excuse to see her. I drove down with her father, mother, and sister. It was a series of one-act plays, four of them, and it was... interesting. I don't know, unless there's a good story, characters I care about, or some kind of clear message, I just don't have much appreciation for straight drama. Two of them I liked (the one about two people falling in love and the one about two old people talking about ducks), one of them I didn't like (the one about a dysfunctional family -GROAN), and one of them was just confusing (I won't bother describing it).
The love one and the dysfunctional one were illustrations of universal themes anyone could connect with, first love and infidelity. That I got. But the problem was, both scenes were as generic and banal as you can get. Think of any scene where two people unexpectedly fall in love, or where a woman is trying to get her husband to confess to cheating, and you'll have these scenes. They had nothing new to say. The ducks one was extremely well acted (but way too long), and relied completely on snappy, clever dialogue and subtle humor. I enjoyed it the most, but... let's just say I'm not going to remember it fifty years from now when I'm old and gray.
Anyway, it was nice seeing Rachel and it got me thinking about plays I myself would like to write some time. Maybe I still will.
AH! Goodnight.
_Dr. M
The song I made is an instrumental, with a lot of contrasting sections. It sort of became a tribute to Joy Electric, my favorite band since I was eleven.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pp2mlp
You can download it there if you get to the link in time. I think it stops working after only a few days.
I'm so excited! I don't know why I waited so long. The album is going to be a lot of instrumentals like this one, only simpler and more rhythmic. I want to stop writing so I can get started! Ah, it's good to be motivated!
I wonder if there's any pizza left downstairs.
Me and Khai officially switched the name of our band to Twilight March. I like that name a whole hell of a lot more than Napenthi.
I went to see Rachel's play today (Saturday). She was the props coordinator. There weren't too many props in it, but hey, I'll take any excuse to see her. I drove down with her father, mother, and sister. It was a series of one-act plays, four of them, and it was... interesting. I don't know, unless there's a good story, characters I care about, or some kind of clear message, I just don't have much appreciation for straight drama. Two of them I liked (the one about two people falling in love and the one about two old people talking about ducks), one of them I didn't like (the one about a dysfunctional family -GROAN), and one of them was just confusing (I won't bother describing it).
The love one and the dysfunctional one were illustrations of universal themes anyone could connect with, first love and infidelity. That I got. But the problem was, both scenes were as generic and banal as you can get. Think of any scene where two people unexpectedly fall in love, or where a woman is trying to get her husband to confess to cheating, and you'll have these scenes. They had nothing new to say. The ducks one was extremely well acted (but way too long), and relied completely on snappy, clever dialogue and subtle humor. I enjoyed it the most, but... let's just say I'm not going to remember it fifty years from now when I'm old and gray.
Anyway, it was nice seeing Rachel and it got me thinking about plays I myself would like to write some time. Maybe I still will.
AH! Goodnight.
_Dr. M
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The GEE-TAR
Yesterday I called Misty's dad about guitar lessons, he didn't have his cell phone on, but I left a message and hopefully he'll get back to me. If not I'll take with somebody at the community school where my dad teaches piano.
I find I'm swiftly falling in love with the guitar -specifically blues guitar. More specifically slide finger guitar, but normal playing is good too. I love the rhythm of it, and the rawness. Delta blues seems to be the best description of the kind I like -just one guy and his guitar and maybe a harmonica. I'd like to listen to a lot more of it, the older stuff back when they first started recording in the twenties and thirties, and learn a lot of the songs, and use that mainly to perform when I get to college. This is one of those times when I get a little tingly feeling that runs all the way through my finger tips as I think about it and type about it... that's a good thing. I'm very excited and can't wait to start learning.
I've never worked very hard at learning an instrument in my life. I've taken lessons of various kinds, thought I was interested but never stuck with it. I guess I'm the most advanced right now at singing, though that's a funny thing to try and define, but I do know a good bit of vocal technique. I've absorbed some piano, if you sit me down in front of a piece and give me a while eventually I'll be able to play it. Well, this time it's going to be different. I want to become a really good guitarist. Never in my life have I looked a goal that would take hard work and dedication to achieve and said, "I am going to do this", and then do it. But I'm going to do it this time. Hopefully it will be a turning point for me.
The only thing stopping me from starting right this second is that my mom's old guitar that I'm tinkering around on is killing my fingers, and even with that I still can't sound a chord without extraneous buzzing (grr). I've never been one to put up with physical pain unless I know I'm doing whatever it is correctly, and the pain is the proper amount. For instance, if anyone is experiencing pain while singing, they're not doing it right and should stop immediately or they could irrevocably damage their voice. I'm not worried about damaging my fingers, but I want to see if it's a problem with the guitar, or something. I know some pain can be expected, but this is just a little bit overboard, and I still can't get it to sound good to boot. So some instruction might be good before going any further.
Misty's dad is an unbelievable musician and can probably teach me anything. The guy I'd take with where my dad teaches focuses mainly on rock guitar, but rock has its roots in the blues, right? I'd like to start out on acoustic, but I'm sure any competent guitarist could teach both. Anyway, I'm getting excited, like genuinely excited, about music, and it hasn't happened for a couple of months, since the beginning of this school year really, and that makes it all the better. I'm not as excited about recording, but I'm going to force myself to start the new album tomorrow, and once I start I think I'll be happier about it.
I feel like making an instrumental record. Overall I think I've had too much reliance on my voice, and on the melody and lyrics, so I think I'd like to push myself out of my comfort zone and focus on instruments and arranging. It will probably be more on the avant garde techno side of things, which is always fun. We'll see how it all goes down.
Yesterday was another day of school show. Some more guys didn't show up. We don't have many to spare, it doesn't look promising. We'll see though. Worse comes to worse we'll just do a review, which might actually be more fun than doing Joseph anyway.
I stayed home from school today. My mother wasn't around to wake me up (she was sick), and my dad woke me up late (I don't know why my alarm is incapable of doing this), so I just didn't get up. I said I was sick, and I might as well have been seeing as I didn't eat a thing until five. I'm going to bed on time tonight, even though I've only been awake for like ten hours. I'm definitely not sleeping in tomorrow. Ah school. Why must I hate waking up for you so darn much? Why must you start so freaking early?
Anyways, I have a bowl of Raman waiting for me that needs my immediate attention. So that's all for tonight.
_Dr. M
I find I'm swiftly falling in love with the guitar -specifically blues guitar. More specifically slide finger guitar, but normal playing is good too. I love the rhythm of it, and the rawness. Delta blues seems to be the best description of the kind I like -just one guy and his guitar and maybe a harmonica. I'd like to listen to a lot more of it, the older stuff back when they first started recording in the twenties and thirties, and learn a lot of the songs, and use that mainly to perform when I get to college. This is one of those times when I get a little tingly feeling that runs all the way through my finger tips as I think about it and type about it... that's a good thing. I'm very excited and can't wait to start learning.
I've never worked very hard at learning an instrument in my life. I've taken lessons of various kinds, thought I was interested but never stuck with it. I guess I'm the most advanced right now at singing, though that's a funny thing to try and define, but I do know a good bit of vocal technique. I've absorbed some piano, if you sit me down in front of a piece and give me a while eventually I'll be able to play it. Well, this time it's going to be different. I want to become a really good guitarist. Never in my life have I looked a goal that would take hard work and dedication to achieve and said, "I am going to do this", and then do it. But I'm going to do it this time. Hopefully it will be a turning point for me.
The only thing stopping me from starting right this second is that my mom's old guitar that I'm tinkering around on is killing my fingers, and even with that I still can't sound a chord without extraneous buzzing (grr). I've never been one to put up with physical pain unless I know I'm doing whatever it is correctly, and the pain is the proper amount. For instance, if anyone is experiencing pain while singing, they're not doing it right and should stop immediately or they could irrevocably damage their voice. I'm not worried about damaging my fingers, but I want to see if it's a problem with the guitar, or something. I know some pain can be expected, but this is just a little bit overboard, and I still can't get it to sound good to boot. So some instruction might be good before going any further.
Misty's dad is an unbelievable musician and can probably teach me anything. The guy I'd take with where my dad teaches focuses mainly on rock guitar, but rock has its roots in the blues, right? I'd like to start out on acoustic, but I'm sure any competent guitarist could teach both. Anyway, I'm getting excited, like genuinely excited, about music, and it hasn't happened for a couple of months, since the beginning of this school year really, and that makes it all the better. I'm not as excited about recording, but I'm going to force myself to start the new album tomorrow, and once I start I think I'll be happier about it.
I feel like making an instrumental record. Overall I think I've had too much reliance on my voice, and on the melody and lyrics, so I think I'd like to push myself out of my comfort zone and focus on instruments and arranging. It will probably be more on the avant garde techno side of things, which is always fun. We'll see how it all goes down.
Yesterday was another day of school show. Some more guys didn't show up. We don't have many to spare, it doesn't look promising. We'll see though. Worse comes to worse we'll just do a review, which might actually be more fun than doing Joseph anyway.
I stayed home from school today. My mother wasn't around to wake me up (she was sick), and my dad woke me up late (I don't know why my alarm is incapable of doing this), so I just didn't get up. I said I was sick, and I might as well have been seeing as I didn't eat a thing until five. I'm going to bed on time tonight, even though I've only been awake for like ten hours. I'm definitely not sleeping in tomorrow. Ah school. Why must I hate waking up for you so darn much? Why must you start so freaking early?
Anyways, I have a bowl of Raman waiting for me that needs my immediate attention. So that's all for tonight.
_Dr. M
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Snow Day
I slept all day today, due to school being canceled on account of the snow we got last night. Most of today it was raining, so the snow got all iced over and you couldn't even enjoy it. Pretty unfortunate. Anyway, yesterday I must not have done anything important since I can't really remember anything I did. I started reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I can't tell you how long it's been since I read anything that wasn't for English class, but Rachel wanted us to read it together and it's supposed to be good. I'm enjoying it so far, it's the kind of storytelling that's humorous, but doesn't exist solely for the sake of humor, which is good. Also it makes lots of cultural references, but not in an annoying way, which I was afraid of.
I also started a list of all the CDs I want to buy. I figure this way I'll be more enthusiastic about doing it, when I have a running list. Why wouldn't I be enthusiastic, you ask? I still have to remind myself all the time why I want CDs in the first place (rather than itunes downloads), and the whole thing of buying them one at a time seems rather tedious. I'm actually going to buy like three albums at a time probably, all by different artists, at least to start. Then when I find which ones I like more I'll buy more of their albums and less of other people's. It's going to be fun, as long as I have money to do it with. Not sure how long that will last of course, with the way this job thing is working out. The thought occurred to me today that they might be looking to shut down the store I'm working at, as there are two other CVS's in Reading already. We'll see.
Tomorrow is the school Poetry Out Loud competition! I'm really excited, and nervous. With no school today it's going to be really weird having it already tomorrow evening. I'm still pretty confident, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to post some video from it online.
My computer is giving me problems. We updated some programs and then itunes and Logic stopped working. Only like the two most important programs on the computer. At least the web browser still works (besides it crashing about every half an hour). Dan's going to fix everything tomorrow, here's hoping it stays fixed. It gets more complicated all the time.
But this delays learning to use Logic another day, which is bad because I'm supposed to be starting a new album in February and I'd like to not have to use Garageband. I'm doing this online challenge where I have to complete a new album, ten songs or thirty minutes of material, in one month. That won't be hard at all, well, that is to say the album probably won't be very good, but at least it will get done. And it will completely shatter this non-recording rut I'm in.
I would rather we have had just a late start today, instead of cancellation, since now we get one less day of Easter vacation, and we didn't get to find out about school show. I'll find out tomorrow hopefully.
My computer is telling me there is an update available for the program Growl. Growl, I have no idea what you are or what you do, but I'm sure you don't really want me to update you, if I do you'll probably stop working. I'm sorry.
_Dr. M
I also started a list of all the CDs I want to buy. I figure this way I'll be more enthusiastic about doing it, when I have a running list. Why wouldn't I be enthusiastic, you ask? I still have to remind myself all the time why I want CDs in the first place (rather than itunes downloads), and the whole thing of buying them one at a time seems rather tedious. I'm actually going to buy like three albums at a time probably, all by different artists, at least to start. Then when I find which ones I like more I'll buy more of their albums and less of other people's. It's going to be fun, as long as I have money to do it with. Not sure how long that will last of course, with the way this job thing is working out. The thought occurred to me today that they might be looking to shut down the store I'm working at, as there are two other CVS's in Reading already. We'll see.
Tomorrow is the school Poetry Out Loud competition! I'm really excited, and nervous. With no school today it's going to be really weird having it already tomorrow evening. I'm still pretty confident, but we'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to post some video from it online.
My computer is giving me problems. We updated some programs and then itunes and Logic stopped working. Only like the two most important programs on the computer. At least the web browser still works (besides it crashing about every half an hour). Dan's going to fix everything tomorrow, here's hoping it stays fixed. It gets more complicated all the time.
But this delays learning to use Logic another day, which is bad because I'm supposed to be starting a new album in February and I'd like to not have to use Garageband. I'm doing this online challenge where I have to complete a new album, ten songs or thirty minutes of material, in one month. That won't be hard at all, well, that is to say the album probably won't be very good, but at least it will get done. And it will completely shatter this non-recording rut I'm in.
I would rather we have had just a late start today, instead of cancellation, since now we get one less day of Easter vacation, and we didn't get to find out about school show. I'll find out tomorrow hopefully.
My computer is telling me there is an update available for the program Growl. Growl, I have no idea what you are or what you do, but I'm sure you don't really want me to update you, if I do you'll probably stop working. I'm sorry.
_Dr. M
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