record a solo album in one month

Okay, here is a pic of me and my son at the Grand Tetons this year. It’d be nice to write music about something pretty like the mountains, but for me it’s all about the women in my past.

I have enough material written that I could do the album, but it’s so time consuming. Maybe I could get my s**t together and begin January 2nd. Does anyone read this stuff? Castorriver

Does being a non-singer, non-songwriter make posting this album the most embarrassing moment of my life? Hmmm…possibly. But the whole point of this experiment is to benefit from the release that ridiculous constraints require. Participants can’t overanalyze things or be too critical of their takes or their songs, they have to let go. So I am.

It’s mine. It’s done. It’s bad. It’s perfect.

NaSoAlMo makes All Things Considered.

An inspiring story, not because there’s a ragtag collection of 60 odd people doing this (compared to NaNoWriMo’s 60,000), but because apparently other people are making music that sounds just as bad as mine does and using comparably ludicrous themes and techniques to make it happen. I love us.

One week to go. I’m both way behind and somewhat confident that I’m going to get the record done on time. I polished off my first two tracks (ever!) over the weekend and recorded a framework of non-keeper takes for a third song tonight. The tempo of tonight’s attempt was too plodding, and while I did learn that you can adjust the tempo of a song in GarageBand even after recording it with live takes, some of the tracks end up a little warped during the process. The acoustic guitar had all sorts of new, strange harmonics going on (or being brought to the foreground, or whatever). Not a suprise that it’s an imperfect process to change the tempo of an already recorded song, and it’s actually quite handy that I still have the real audio tracks as guidelines as I’ve started to re-record them all faster.

The songs are coming in at about three minutes each, so I’m aiming to record at least ten (of fifteen or twenty basic ideas) to hit the minimum time – 29 minutes if you use the Ramones guideline, 28 if you use the Nick Drake one – guess who I favor? On a good day, I can flesh out a tune, scribble some lyrics, and get all the parts down within five or six hours, so with the holiday weekend approaching, I think I can make it. I’m saving the songs that could be recorded with a single instrument and voice for last, just in case I need to start cutting takes with extreme prejudice. The bad news is, I have to finish my final project for photo class on Saturday, then play a gig with Starlet on Sunday. Half the weekend is already shot. And several friends are hitting the High Dials show on Saturday night, as if to emphasize the point that I’m skipping unskippable shows in order to write stupid songs for strangers. The good news is, my housemate left town for a week as of tonight, so as the deadline approaches I can stop sleeping, record at odd hours, and never worry that anyone’s within earshot of the noise I make singing hastily written watermelon lyrics and wavering out of tune.

Well, I’m doing NaSoAlMo this month, fitting recording in whenever I have time. That is, not often. I’m way behind – in fact I haven’t even started tracking yet – but I’ve been having a blast so far just playing around with some ideas to see if they’ll bear fruit. So far I’m finding GarageBand to be a lot more inviting than Pro Tools. It has about everything I need for home recording and fits my brain a lot better than Pro Tools ever did.

Working titles for the record that I may or may not finish by November 30:

• first songs written by a guy as old as Mozart was when he was dead
• wait and hurry up
• sentimental songs for passersby
• watermelon songs

It’ll probably end up being the last one, so I have an excuse to write stupid, loosely themed lyrics instead of squandering precious recording time polishing real words. This competition is about shoddily recorded music, not poetry!

i’ve recorded an albu’s worth of songs, but it still needs producing. any takers?

I may have done this, but it’s taken me 15 years (and running). Damn, I’m old.