Yay! Blog!

I didn't do much with music tonight. I'd planned to start writing something, but found myself in no mood. On the way home, I risked my life by writing things in my notebook. It was a list of things that other people enjoy that I just don't get. Things like:

• Happy hour
• Beer
• Fancy shoes
• "Desperate Housewives"
• "Sex in the City"
• Mandatory fun at work
• Free concerts

I doubt it will materialize into a song.

I played my keyboard for about 5 minutes, but nothing AT ALL was coming out of it that was good. It was disappointing because I thought I was better than that.

I picked up my guitar and found a new (to me) chord. That might materialize into a song and brought me a little hope, but I still wasn't feeling up to much.

So instead, I opened a delicious.com account and started collecting some bookmarks. I remembered I had a delicious.com account before and closed it because it felt like clutter to me. I would add stuff to it, but never once used it to find anything later. I'm going to try again.

The high point was talking to my bgff Shann. She made me laugh, and that was like a french fry to a starving artist. Or something.

I re-recorded the keyboard part that I did wrong when I originally recorded "This Summer." I also recorded some guitar strumming for the bridge, but I'm not sure if it'll really fit because I didn't have much time to work on it given that it's a weeknight.

I'm having a little crisis, though. Since I might submit this song for Coverville Idol, I want it to be as good as it can be. Sadly, I think it's the worst song I've recorded so far. I fear I'll spend too much time trying to figure out how to make it better. I still need to write at least two more songs to finish the NaSoAlMo challenge and if I goof around with this song too long, I'll mess that up.

I should probably try to write on the weeknights and limit recording to the weekends.

Today I started recording "This Summer", a song by Squeeze. It'll be my one NaSoAlMo cover song, and I'll also submit it for Coverville Idol. I got most of it recorded, but I recorded the keyboard part wrong in one spot. It still sounds fine, just different from the original. I'm going to leave it that way, but I need to record the bass in that one spot over again because I recorded the bass part like the original, and it clashes.

There's an instrumental break, and I'm not super happy with the sound of the melody instrument, but I haven't found anything better. I might add more stuff to it, but I really need to wrap it up and start working on the 2-3 new songs I have to write to fill up the last 6:30 minutes of the album.

I'm happy with my progress so far; I just hope I can get two more songs written soon.

I finished recording "Sugar and the Supersweet Trio: a folk opera in five acts" tonight. I use the the word "finished" loosely. If I didn't have other songs to write and record this month, I'd probably add some bass and some random percussion. Maybe I can do that later if I finish early.

This one clocked in at 6:29 because it's really 5 short songs in one.

I have 9:58 to go.

• NaSoAlMo 1: The Lake and the Leaning Tree (done: 3:54 minutes)
• NaSoAlMo 2: Saturday (done: 3:06 minutes)
• NaSoAlMo 3: Fandango (done: 3:41 minutes)
• NaSoAlMo 4: Sugar and the Supersweet Trio (done: 6:29)
• NaSoAlMo 5: Nine Things That Are Not Other Things (done: 2:01 minutes)
• NaSoAlMo 6: Manual Hold Condition (Just an idea that might not pan out)
• NaSoAlMo 7: Squeeze cover song (I think I'm doing "This Summer")
• NaSoAlMo 8: Unnamed (Merely a guitar chord progression I like so far)

After a severe case of PMS with much crying and anger and feeling like it's the end of life as I know it, I recovered and worked on lyrics for the folk opera I'm writing about Sugar, Saccharin, Aspartame and Sucralose. I finished the lyrics and tested them with the chords I'd worked out last week.

I was off work for the holiday, and I should have gotten more done, but it felt like a Saturday, so after lunch I napped away the afternoon.

The Texas Legislature started filing bills today. Hundreds of them! I forgot how much fun it is to look at the bills they're filing. I spent the last hour looking at the list instead of writing and recording an album. Some notables:

• SB204 Trans Fat Prohibited - Part of the bill says: "A food service establishment may not package, store, or use a trans fat to prepare or serve food, except for a trans fat used to deep-fry yeast dough or cake batter." I think that means you can still have good donuts. Starbucks quit selling things made with trans-fat a while back, and I thought it was going to be a good thing, but now I don't care all that much for any of their pastries. They lost their zing!
• SB138 Election Days as state holiday - More holidays. Yay!
• HB81 Can't use public funds to print public documents in languages other than English - I don't know what's behind this one, but I suspect it will get the hispanic population up in arms.
• HB90 Prohibiting the sale of novelty lighters - Kinda like when they prohibited cartoon characters selling cigarettes. They don't want lighters that kids will think are cool.
• HB135 Elimination of straight-party voting - I like the idea of not encouraging voting for a party. Vote for the person, not the party.
• SB28 Zombies and Botnets - Awesome... this prohibits the use of zombie computers and botnets to do bad stuff. I love a law with the word "zombies" in it! See for yourself.
• SB131 Hybrid Motor Vehicles in the HOV lane - This would give people who drive hybrid vehicles the right to drive in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane (as long as it wouldn't cost us federal dollars).
• HB76 Electronic Pay Cards - If I read this right, state employees who don't want direct deposit would start getting a payment card (kinda like a debit card, I guess) instead of a paycheck. I get direct deposit, so it won't affect me.

I'm trying to survive NaSoAlMo burnout. Or maybe I'm not trying. Today, I decided not to work on music because I'm sick of it. I did some housework and watched some TV. But then I thought maybe I could deal with trying to learn a Squeeze song to serve a dual purpose: 1) the cover song for my album and 2) an entry in Coverville Idol.

I tried "Hourglass" with the idea of slowing it down, but after failing to work it out well on guitar or keyboard, I threw that idea out. I quit music again for an hour or so and then once again found myself at iTunes to see what Squeeze songs they had. This time "This Summer" caught my ear. I downloaded it and looked up the chords. Not a guitar song, but maybe I could play keyboard.

Again, I set music aside for a while. I was sitting at the computer feeling a little depressed when I reached over for my guitar and within a couple of minutes found a picking chord pattern that I liked. Maybe that will turn into a song later. I didn't want to do anything more with it tonight.

Later, I took the chords for "This Summer" into the music room to attempt keyboard. I think it'll work out. I have 21 more days to come up with the rest of my album (minus about 3 days for Thanksgiving travel and such). Right now, I don't think I'm going to push myself. I have a feeling if it's going to happen, it'll happen. And if it doesn't, I will have written and recorded more songs in the last week than I have in the last year. Go me!