Resurrection

Given that I abjectly failed, I'm re-purposing this blog. This is going to be an outlet for any music I do or don't record, notes on such, and ideas for music. It seems fairly clear I don't do well with deadlines, so we'll see if I can cope without.

Month 2, Day 20

It might seem like I've been keeping radio silence because I suck. This is not, in fact, the case. I have finally procured me a fancy microphone, as of about 6.00 today. Expect to see demos. I threw together an ugly kind of cover of a Jenny Lewis song in about half an hour just to test it out, and you can listen to it or download it here, but I warn you, it's kind of rough.

Anyway. Watch this space.

Day One

Today is the first day, so here's a bit of an action plan. It's an action plan ... of ACTION.

Going on a capacity of 80 minutes for a CD, giving 3 1/2 minutes for a track, that's 23 tracks. Obviously, I'm not going to use every track I write, or every minute on the CD. I think 24 tracks is a good number to write, if I'm going to finish up with about twelve. In four months, that's six songs a month, and a month left over at the end to tie everything up (and pass my exams).

So from here on, it's a song about every five days. For four months.

This suddenly seems a bit more difficult than I had imagined. But not impossible. However, I'll need some kind of guitar. Luckily, I've just replaced the strings and bought a nice big 100W Fender amp. Unluckily, the amp is large and heavy and still at the shop, and the guitar is still in London. Oh, and my DS-10 shipped, but it hasn't arrived yet. Still, excitement.

Oh well, I'll just keep on thinking. And watching Futurama.

Minus one week

Listed here is the sum total of the equipment and instruments I currently own which may be useful in creating this album, which I'm going to give the (working) title of 'Five Months', because that's how long I have to make it:

One Ibanez Artcore AGS semi-acoustic guitar, antique burst finish
One Roland Micro Cube guitar amplifier
Two guitar leads, one long, one short
One 3.5 mm jack cable
One OS-2 Boss Overdrive/Distortion pedal
One Crybaby Hendrix wah pedal
Various picks, slide, capo
One six-piece Premier drumkit with various cymbals and accessories, glossy black finish
Various drumsticks
One Ghanaian djembe
One pair bongos
One half-moon tambourine, black
Two egg shakers, if I can find them
One harmonica in A
One (very sharp, old and generally falling apart) harmonica in C
One tin whistle in D
One tin whistle in Bb
Access to various pianos, including relatively isolated Steinway baby grand
One Korg MS-10 emulator
One old, but serviceable fiddle
One Jupiter alto saxophone
One toy ukelele
One HP laptop PC
One custom desktop PC
Access to Sibelius 4.0
Nervous optimism

I know I will need to somehow acquire (buy, steal or borrow):

Some kind of recording equipment, most probably a USB microphone and Audacity
A bass guitar
An amp with a reasonable wattage (read; greater than 2)
A new set of electric guitar strings
Patience/perseverance
An acceptable mark in exams
And probably a bunch of other stuff I can't think of.