| Sunday, June 21st, 2009 |
| 9:15 am |
I'm at about the mid-point of the mandolin part for my new song, which really means that I'm almost done. There's one bit to work out where the song shifts from a space march to a swingy dance hall number for a handful of measures, then the rest is just repetitions of earlier parts. I'm eager to work in a part for my new tenor uke, but I really should move to the melody next. Once the bottleneck guitar part is written, I'll have a much better sense of what I need in the way of fills and boosts. |
| Sunday, May 17th, 2009 |
| 6:32 pm |
Spend most of the weekend programming (I work for fun, go figure), but I did work out the hardest part of my sci-fi song. I wanted to write in a part where the song switches scenes to a dance hall. Then the monster attacks in a bit of clashing themes, and the song stabilizes and returns to just the silly ambling monster rhythm. Clearly, I listen to Ives a bit too much for a starting composer... Music nerdery follows: Anyway, the song is in Em and I realized that I could leverage the Am chord of the key to switch to the key of C (Am and C have the same number of sharps and flats. None.), and the G chord of that to switch to the key of G for the dance hall. Since the C chord is in G, I can introduce the main theme's Am part during the dance hall's C. This is gonna be hella fun. :D |
| Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 |
| 2:06 pm |
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| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 |
| 3:53 pm |
I had a good night with the uke last night. I need to spend more time with my stringed pretties. I still haven't finished the rhythm part of my next song, but I did write the uke tabs for most of what is there. I have to finish a noodly bit and then just drop in repetitions of earlier phrases. It should clock in right around two minutes, which frankly fits right into the ethos of Ukubilly that I've been developing... |
| Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 |
| 11:22 am |
I've discovered that "Beep Beep" is a fantastic warm-up for ukulele. It only uses two strings, but you need to use a minimum of 7 frets and it speeds up every time through. My uke went plink, plink, plink (plink! plink!) |
| Thursday, April 16th, 2009 |
| 9:14 pm |
Picked up a small booklet on using slides for guitars. There were a few decent tips just flipping through it, so that was good enough for a purchase. Also got a book with chord progressions for different uke types in different styles. Not essential, but at the price a handy enough reference. |
| Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 |
| 9:58 pm |
The music store across from my office is having a sale. I wish I needed something, as opposed to merely wanting things. Maybe I'll see if they have the Warren Zevon songbook. That's arguably a necessity. |
| 8:23 am |
Turns out the song I'm actually working on is an instro. I plan to use my VeeWee with a bottle-neck slide and see how far I can distort it. With luck it'll sound vaguely like a theriman, but I don't expect that will be the case. Should be fun, though. Also, I need to finish a script for Nate this month. Also part two, I need to finish a "special project" for Mr. Lehnerer. |
| Sunday, March 29th, 2009 |
| 6:45 pm |
Today I began to sift through stacks Of statements, receipts and stuff So that we can calculate our tax And see if we've paid enough |
| Saturday, March 28th, 2009 |
| 11:19 am |
Wyeth saw the vet For yearly shots and exam He hates us today |
| Friday, March 27th, 2009 |
| 5:17 pm |
Worked from home today My wife was not feeling well I got a lot done |
| Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 |
| 8:05 am |
I'm currently battering a number of songs until one of them resembles a shape. I hope to be recording again by spring. The likeliest candidates are a stream-of-consciousness autobiographical punk song or a skiffle version of a traditional folk song with new lyrics about my cat throwing up. I'm not aiming for the Top 40 market. :) |
| Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 |
| 6:48 pm |
I would just like to say "The Former President G.W. Bush". Aaaaaahhhhhhh. |
| Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 |
| 9:24 pm |
A chat with Nate tonight convinced me that my focus right now should be on writing Furry Widdle Bunny #2. We've talked about doing it for quite a while, and gosh darn it it's time! |
| Saturday, January 10th, 2009 |
| 10:03 pm |
I've been playing around with some jazzy rhythm lines for my Christmas song. It's a lot of fun, and I'm getting closer to something that should work. That's good, because I should really work on the melody sometime.... And I'm getting distracted because I want to write a musical play. I don't know why, since I don't know any stage directors or producers. Or how to format a play. I just think it would be a lot of fun. |
| Monday, November 24th, 2008 |
| 8:57 pm |
"Ray Milland" is off to the US Copyright Office, and it's back to the grindstone for me. I've got an idea for a rather faster project. Also, it's less time critical so I'll be able to get back to the long-neglected projects of Big Damn Spider podcasts and Franz's World strips. Yay! |
| Thursday, November 20th, 2008 |
| 8:02 am |
I've officially fooled around long enough. "Ray Milland" needs to be done by Thanksgiving (US), and I've fussed over the instrument tracks and inserted sound clips and adjusted levels and... and everything except actually record the lyrics. So tonight I'll record some vocal demos to see what I actually have to work with, and hopefully by the weekend I'll have a plan for how to record the vocals in a manner that's at least fittingly awful. I sounded good in the shower this morning, but I still haven't figured out how to hook my ears into the Mac... |
| Friday, November 14th, 2008 |
| 8:34 am |
This morning I played around a little on my baritone uke, applying some tips about rhythm from my instructor. (This is for the alien Christmas song I'm writing, not the song about Ray Milland that's in production.) I'm moving away from a standard play-the-chord-in-a-pattern approach to more of a mixed chord and single note style with some bends, and it's sounding wicked. I'll be messing around with the ideas for a while yet, but it's a lot of fun and very encouraging. Also, I now have only one mandolin track to fix from the production disaster on "Ray Milland" the other night. Yay me, I guess. I'll start practicing the vocals after I get that fixed and maybe be ready to record them later next week. In the meantime I need to start searching through movies for sound clips and balancing the existing tracks... |
| Thursday, November 13th, 2008 |
| 8:18 am |
Last night was a learning experience... I discovered that certain edits become non-undoable in GarageBand after you save. As I'm a compulsive saver from my days writing a novel on SEs in the UM Fish Bowl, I discovered this in an extremely unfortunate way. Several seconds near the beginning of "Ray Milland" are hopelessly munged now. Fortunately I still have most of the original takes for the instrument tracks involved, and all of the segments concerned are repeated later in the song, so it's a recoverable mistake. It's just a blow to have been so close to moving on to actual mixing and have to devote time to regaining ground. On the plus side, I've discovered that the automatic blending of overlapping clips works very nicely. There were a few jarring transitions in the ukulele track that are now smooth as a freshly shaved baby's behind. What? You don't shave baby butts? You people are weird. |
| Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 |
| 9:09 am |
In laying down the MIDI vocal guide to practice against, I noticed that there are still inconsistencies between tracks where the beat is concerned. I'm trying to ignore it, but I may have to do some more tweaks dangit. In general, it's starting to sound pretty good. I can't wait to really start on the production work - levels, mixing, etc. Hopefully this weekend I'll be doing the last recording, so it looks as though my goal of a Thanksgiving release is still viable. I may even be able to work in those clips of Ray Milland dialog that I wanted to put in. :) |
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