After multiple weeks of keeping the guitars safe and sound in their carry bags within the office closet, we’ve finally created enough room where I can put out the two electrics again! My Gretsch (which is in dire need of cleaning and retuning, seems like) is now parked right next to my desk where I can pick it up and noodle around on it whenever I feel the need. My Fender P-Bass is nearby in front of one of the other bookcases.
I don’t remember if I’d mentioned it here before, but I’m thinking of getting rid of my two acoustics as they acquired more dust than play during the Spare Oom years. I enjoyed playing them, I just never found enough time for it. I’m thinking of selling them to Tall Toad up in Petaluma (where I bought my Gretsch), though whether for cash or store credit is up in the air. I doubt I’ll buy another guitar, but I could probably use the credit for recording hardware or something like that. We shall see.
Still, it’s great to see them out in the open again, and I’m looking forward to playing them again. After I give them a good cleaning, of course.
My friends circle on Discord has come up with something nifty as an alternative to the dreaded New Year’s Resolution that never seems to stick. Instead of declaring I will quit a bad habit or I will learn a new craft or I will lose weight or what have you, the idea is to come up with something you already like (or love!) to do but don’t always give yourself a chance to do it for one reason or another. Do it once a week for fifty-two weeks simply for enjoyment!
I got to thinking about it and I thought: I have four guitars collecting dust because I don’t pick them up all that often. I’d even bought new strings for the two six-strings (one acoustic, one electric) about six months ago but never got around to putting them on! So I figured, why not? Once a week I’ll pick up the guitar and either learn a new song, or write a new one! I do enjoy doing both, I’ve just not given myself the time over the last few years.
Sure, I’ve mentioned how annoyed I am with myself guitar-wise because when I do pick them up I end up playing the same handful of songs, and that gets boring really quickly. My dad used to do that on his piano and he enjoyed it, but I also really enjoy the creativity of learning or writing a new song and I haven’t done that in a LONG time. I want to do more than just play the same songs, I want new sounds to surface, just like when I write my novels!
So for the first two weekends, I allowed myself a related option: let’s start by putting on those new sets of strings. The acoustic was relatively easy, but restringing the Gretsch electric (see above, and pardon the dirtiness of the frets) was a bit of a chore, given that they’re held on there via the Bigsby bridge (aka the built-in vibrato bar) and a lot of tension, but it got done and it sounds great!
And just to make sure it was in tune, I taught myself the basic chord progression to REM’s “Radio Free Europe”, inspired by having just finished reading Peter Ames Carlin’s biography The Name of This Band Is REM. Learning that Peter Buck is self-taught and figured out his style by playing along with records — exactly how I did it — gave me the inspiration to keep going with this.
The aim here is not to be professional, or even release anything on Bandcamp or whatever (although I won’t rule it out if it sounds halfway decent), but just to revisit what I loved best about playing with The Flying Bohemians and jeb!: the pure enjoyment of musical creativity. Anything more than that will be a bonus.
The other day I ended a 391-day run of using the 750Words site, as I finally came to the conclusion that I was definitely repeating myself at that point. I’d run out of things to write about. It had become more about writing things than writing about things and that was getting very boring indeed. And to be honest, I was really missing writing entries for my blogs! I’m back to my normal schedule here once more.
But anyway! The other half of that title: stress. I’ve been thinking about what has been stressing me out lately at the Day Job, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of it really is petty irritation. Dumb things that I probably really shouldn’t get all bent out of shape over. Maybe that one coworker who’s reacting differently (and indifferently) to a huge wave of customers has the right idea, taking it one at a time? Maybe my expectations are too high? That’s a product of the Former Day Job and maybe a sprinkling of one of the managers here, so maybe I just need to reel it back a bit. It’s only eight hours, and the volume definitely changes from day to day.
That said…what have I been listening to lately? A bit of prog rock, it seems. I haven’t listened to King Crimson in I don’t know how long, and for years I only owned the debut In the Court of the Crimson King, the one with the title track, “I Talk to the Wind” and “Epitaph”. Stellar record and very much a product of late 60s and early 70s prog. I’ve recently acquired many of their later works, including the early 80s Adrian Belew era that my college freshman year roommate really liked. I remember him listening to Discipline quite a bit and this memorable track popping up on the stereo.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been playing much guitar or bass these last couple of months partly because I’ve been busy taking care of two extremely precocious young cats and focusing on other creative avenues. But…and I really hate to admit this…I just haven’t been inspired to play lately, which is bothersome.
I’d say over the last year or so, when I do pick up one of my guitars, I end up playing the same four or five songs or riffs over and over again, and that’s boring. I’m out of practice with writing new songs.
So I’ve decided that one of the projects I’d like to start this year is to go through the… *counts the mp3s* …roughly sixty demo riffs I’ve recorded on my phone over the last five years and make something out of them. They range anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes in length. I’ve mentioned before that I’d like to find a cheap multi-track software (and one that doesn’t take up much memory as I don’t have all that much space on my PC, unless I put it on my laptop instead) and lay these down just to see what I can do with them. I’ll start small, just going with instrumentals for now until I feel the need to add lyrics. I’ve even assigned myself Saturdays as Music Day on my whiteboard schedule.
The aim here isn’t actually to release or even make any money off them (though if they’re good enough quality I might put them up on Bandcamp for funsies), but to see if I can revive that inspiration. Otherwise these instruments of mine are just gathering dust. And I’d rather not keep doing that, thank you.
Now that I temporarily find myself with all the time in the world until further notice, I’m bound and determined to make the most of it. As much as I’d love to futz around with my mp3 collection and watch cat videos all day long, I know I’ve been given this time to do what needs doing.
In other words: remember all those times I’ve said “I’d love to do (x) if I only had time?” Well, NOW is that time. Let’s get crackin’.
One thing that’s been on my mind as of late is the fact that I have been woefully stuck at “amateur who knows some neat chords and solos but still plays the same damn songs over and over” level of guitar playing. I’ve been stuck at that level for years. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that if I want to stay at that level, but I want to be better. I want to get to the point where, if I felt like dropping some tunes on Bandcamp for sale, I could do so and be proud of the results. Sort of like how I’ve worked on my novels over the years.
I’ve heard all the stories about guitarists like George Harrison who would practice on their guitar until their fingers literally bled. Bryan Adams sings about it in the first verse of “Summer of ’69”. I’ve read so many music bios and memoirs about building up those fingertip calluses and strengthening those fingers and working on dexterity.
I think, now that I have the time, I really should start doing exactly that. I no longer want to just noodle around for ten minutes playing the same chords. I want to explore this avenue. I want to see and hear where it goes. I want to find my own true style and not just imitate my influences. I have the equipment for it, so there’s nothing to stop me right now.
I’m still a bit annoyed that I can’t seem to get my mp3 players (or my phone for that matter) to play any music through the car. Apparently our car stereo is so low tech that it doesn’t even have a line-in audio selection on the interface. It does have a few USB ports, but no UI that will let me access whatever I connect to it. [It of course has Bluetooth and iThingie interfaces, neither of which I need.] All I want is to listen to something aside from the same stations playing the same dang things over and over! Why is that so hard? Eesh.
Anyway, this reminds me of those days long ago when I used to bring my boombox along when I went on a roadtrip with my friends, or when I had that unwieldy and not-always-working connector to my cd walkman (which would eat up AA battery power at the rate of maybe two cd plays and skip at the slightest jolt). I don’t think it’s currently possible to upgrade our car stereo, so there’s not a lot I can do except figure out an alternative or see if I can find a lifehack online somewhere. Right now I’m contemplating keeping a small Bluetooth-ready speaker in the car, which I’d originally bought for my PC, and plug in my mp3 player that way. At least I can charge that thing rather than go through all those batteries.
I find this quite amusing, actually, as it almost feels like I’ve gone full circle: if I really want to listen to my own music, I’m going to have to carry it on me and have something to play it on, or in this case, through.
The downside to owning guitars, especially in places where the weather has notable temperature and humidity changes, is that they can go quite out of tune very quickly. Every six months or so I need to retune them. And I’ve been playing them for long enough that I can tell when they’re just a bit off. It’s not fun when you’re strumming a few chords and that one string is painfully flat.
One of the other downsides is having to restring them now and again. I’ll be honest, I don’t restring nearly as often as I should. I haven’t restrung my acoustic bass probably since I bought the thing, so the strings had lost their sheen as well as their resonance quite some time ago. I spent Sunday putting new ones on it, and let me tell you, it’s one hell of an awkward process. I’m used to restringing my electrics, which are easy to do. Acoustics are a bit tougher, because you’re not only working around a bigger body while you’re winding the string around the tuning peg mechanism, but you’re feeding the other end through a hole in the bridge and holding it there with a plastic peg that you hope won’t come flying out into your eye.
Anyway…once the new strings are on and secured, there’s the few weeks where the guitar sounds all too trebley and twangy. Or worse, when you’re in the middle of playing and the string slips just a little bit from its tuning peg or its bridge, and you jump back in case that G ends up flying loose and lacerating you.
But once everything settles and you get used to it all, everything is just fine.
First, here’s a video of The Smithereens playing “Blood and Roses”, one of their first hits and one of my favorite bass lines of the 80s:
Whenever I’m in a guitar store and checking out basses, I usually use that riff to test it out. It’s a relatively easy lick (even if technically it’s dropped down a half-step to E-flat) and if I can pull it off without my fingers cramping, then it’s a bass I can use. I’m posting it here because it’s also a riff that I like to use when I’m practicing.
So what’s the deal here? Drunken Owl? What?
That’s the name of my current music project, named from the 18th century British slang term “drunk as an owl” (thanks to A.’s wide-spanning reading material for the source). It’s one of those phrases that doesn’t quite sound right logically, but makes for a good band name.
I’ve been meaning to return to playing and recording music demos for quite some time, though, like with most of my other grand creative plans, it was put aside so I could finish the Great Trilogy Revision Project. So! Now that that behemoth is out of the way, I can finally move forward with it. I don’t plan on any grand masterpieces or anything…all I really want to do is lay down my songs. I’ve amassed a decent amount of them over the years, and I’m itching to write and record some new ones as well.
And like my books, I want to see how far I can DIY it. I’ve recorded a few demos on my phone, for starters. [The sound is mono, but the quality is actually pretty good, considering!] I plan on using the instruments I have already: the basses, the guitars, the keyboard, the funky lo-fi drum pad (it’s hiding behind my camera bag on the floor under the keyboard in that picture up top), and maybe some slightly better (but still relatively cheap) editing-mixing software.
Any plans on releasing them on Bandcamp or whatever? Eh, probably not, but we’ll see. I may just upload them to Soundcloud and share them here or elsewhere. The main reason for this ongoing project is mainly to make good on my lifelong loves of writing, music, and art. [Yeah, I’m trying to get my art up and running again as well.] The main goal here is to have fun with it!
[Edit: Just learned this morning that Soundcloud is going kerflooey. Guess I’ll have to find a different embedder!]
Walk In Silence 