Whoo I just spent the entire afternoon/evening pre-recording songs for Maria! It’s because privacy is still difficult to come by, especially now that my father is also back in town so I won’t have use of his place either, and I will be out of town in Hong Kong from the 13th to the 17th. I know it seems long but trust me, it isn’t. I get on a train on the afternoon of the 13th because trains going south currently travel only on odd numbered days, I get in to Hong Kong on the afternoon of the 14th, and it’s too late to catch the even numbered north bound train for that day so I have to wait until the 16th. Have I written all this before? I get the sneaky suspicion that I have…maybe it’s just blogging deja vu. And did I blog about that also? I’m getting deja vu about my deja vu…hmmmmm…
Either way so I recorded 8 songs for Maria, and wow are these songs from different genres. I’m starting to re-realize all the songs I like, and all the different types of songs that I like, and in general having lots of fun singing and playing and recording them. It’s one of few things that I do right now that I’d like to classify under the heading of “purely for fun.” Too many other things I do have some purpose in one way or another; it’s good to be able to almost relax with something that’s just for fun.
Incidentally, I think I mentioned that I had broken my high E string for the last batch of songs. Well, I bought a new set of strings for this set of songs so while the previous had a lack in treble, for those who can discern this new batch will have a distinct “brightness” to it that’s due to the new brass strings; they’re lots of fun, though they’re not yet holding their tuning real well either so, well, bear with; as I said, for fun right? ;)
I also wonder if I should put these in some better order; at the moment, they’re pseudo alphabetical by batch, while the first bunch were just the ones that I did that day. The pseudo part is due to I number them after I record them…or after I record them all I’m not consistent about that…but it means that uh, they’re order is just all over the place, so I wonder, but don’t wonder too hard really.
This is almost literally all I did today, seeing as how I was exhausted yesterday, I managed to sleep until like 8:30 this morning, did a few things, then promptly fell back to sleep at like 10am until 1pm, at which time I got ready to come here and record. I don’t plan to do anything else today either. Tomorrow, I’m jammed packed full with freelance web work for my father and Cary; I wonder when and if I’ll ever get paid…
So today is Nirvana – Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam :) This is also one of the first songs I learned to sing and play on the guitar way the way back when…
2 Responses to "Maria in NYC Music Project – Day 13"
maria j. g. | July 12th, 2010 |
I also recently experienced deja vu deja vu! (It’s a glitch in the Matrix, you know.)
I realize you’re responding to my question about whether you felt your song quality was improving with the practice. Fun and progress are not mutually exclusive (discuss). As you’re aware, I often find my enjoyment of a leisure activity enhanced by the feeling that I’m building something, even something as flimsy as my Garmin running-route records. This helps structure my life, or at least helps conceal my true character as an aimless wanderer.
Yet you, at least at first, roundly rejected my suggestion that you might improve by this practice. I inferred that improvement obtained by this activity would actually be negative for you. Are we so different, you and I? ;)
[Exercise 1. How do you know when you're having fun? Is there an indicator light? Can you measure relative quantity/quality? Please create a formatted spreadsheet.]
sean x. l. | July 22nd, 2010 |
It’s not that I don’t think I’ll improve, as far as get used to playing and singing with the guitar again goes, through this project, it’s more that that’s not the goal per se. I mostly like the positive reaction I get from you when I send you these. That’s what I’m looking for, acknowledgment that you appreciate something that I am doing for you, and it makes me happy, makes me happy thinking about it even, which is why I record the songs in the first place. And it’s also a sort of trip down memory lane of sorts for me and my history with singing with the guitar; I’m re-visiting many old songs and old memories associated with them and though it’s kind of like wallowing, I enjoy the nostalgia. A bunch of these songs I even think about you now when I’m playing them!
As far as happiness indicators of the Sean, I’m not sure there are any; I’d like to think he’d have a kind of serene aura about him when he is happy; that’s kind of how he feels when he is, more serene than anything, in a peaceful kind of simple way.
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