Apr 5
It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but I thought I’d just go ahead and throw one up. Between new job, new baby, and just life overall, I haven’t been doing a whole lot to this site, but I hope that can change…
This is just an obligatory post to let people know I’m still alive, and that I haven’t given up on this site completely… 
We took the boys up to Salt Lake last night to go see the awesome Sarah Sample http://www.sarahsample.com/, and it made me realize that while it’s fun to do the singer/songwriter “guy with a guitar” thing, there is no substitute for having a full-time band.
Having a full-time job as a Dad prevents me from going out and getting involved in the local music scene around here. I love being a father and having a family, but I’ve always got this yearning to be out and doing something more creative. I always think that as the kids get older and more self-sufficient, that I’ll be able to go out and do that stuff, but in meantime, I’m just being kind of impatient.
I’ve got this small, part-time project with a friend and co-worker of mine where we get together every few weeks and jam. It’s fun and gives me that music fix, but I think I would be more serious with a project if I had better prospects of finding more people to play with that have similar tastes in music. But, you can’t really get to know people until you get more involved in a local music community. So, right now it’s kind of a Catch-22.
I guess the best I can do for the moment is just keep writing, and try to stay interested in the art of playing and writing, and see where life takes me. I’ll just have to get used to the fact that it’s currently moving pretty slowly.
No really… I’m learning that song.
The funny thing is that the song really holds up under an acoustic treatment. The chord progression is very straight forward, and the intro hook is pretty simple (especially if you have a guitar teacher to show it to you!)
Cover band continues to go pretty well, although slowly. At this point in time, I’m not in a hurry too much to get a band together. Other than the fact that we still don’t have a drummer, or any real motivation to step things up, we continue to have fun. It’s more just two guys jamming than anything organized, and right now it’s OK for me. My time is mostly consumed with Daddy duty anyway, so having the flexibility to still play a couple of time a month and continue to expand my repertoire is pretty cool.
I’m really glad the weather is warming up, even though it’s snowing here today. The oldest boy’s 3rd birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and we’re planning on having a party outside. So I hope Mother Nature blesses us with sunshine. *Knocks on wood*
We continue to wage war on the white walls of our house. Every time we put brush to the walls, another room falls to our multi-colored palete. I’m not sure who thought that a house full of pure-white rooms was a good idea, but if I could talk to them now, I’d probably slap them on their faces.
I’ve moved all my “Daddy Line of the Day” lines to my Twitter page, and I’ve got them up on my Facebook as well. Check them out, and sign up as a follower if you’d like. I only update them when inspiration strikes me, and with those two little boys continuing to run in all directions at once, inspirations comes often.
It’s time for my semi-regular update…
I’ve been writing different kinds of songs (other than hair-pulling metal), and it’s turned out to be much harder than I imagined. I mean, it’s easy to spew hatred and anger onto the page (for me anyway), but to actually put some thought and emotion into a song that has meaning is a little more daunting.
A good friend and co-worker has been coming over to the house and jamming, and I’ve been having lots of fun doing that. We’re playing mainly covers (from Counting Crows to Eric Clapton and some stuff in-between), and it got me started on writing some songs. Just a few “bridge” songs to get my writing chops dusted off, and to acclimate myself to a different style of music. It is a challenge.
I guess when you hard-wire your brain to write in a specific style for so many years, it takes a considerable amount of effort to change that programming. I’m not nearly the angry young man I was (mostly I’m not that young any more), but also I’m finding it much harder to write something simple and straightforward that doesn’t sound formulaic or just pedestrian.
The cool thing about metal music is that it is complex and involved, and I thought that writing blues and rock would be easier, because it’s usually just 3 chords and a bridge. But that’s the problem: metal didn’t have to sound melodic… but rock does. I found my first few attempts either just being blatant rip-offs of other songs I’ve heard, or they just didn’t sound right.
Compound upon that my current trend of learning how to solo over the blues, and you’ve found my current conundrum. It’s fun, and it’s a great learning experience… but damn it’s hard!
As the title implies, I have been writing some songs lately, and I’m trying to stretch my songwriting capabilities into new territory.
In the past, my song-writing talents have been limited strictly to metal songs. And they are not very hard to write. You shape a power chord, slide it up and down a few frets, and scream whatever you have to say into the mic. Done. OK, it’s not actually that easy, but it’s not necessarily what I could consider “hard”.
But writing songs where the key matters (and isn’t always just a down-tuned D), and you have to consider chord progressions and *gasp* guitar leads, it’s definitely a beast of a different sort. However, I have been making some headway.
I’m amazed at how much I have been influenced over the last few months to write, and not just because of the guitar lessons my wife got me (although that hasn’t hurt). More than anything else, it’s the style of music I’ve been listening to that has really helped stir my creative juices. A healthy does of bluegrass, folk singer-songwriters, some old classic rock and (of course) a sprinkling of thrash metal have given me a lot of room musically to just experiment and try to come up with something.
None of the material I’ve written is terribly original. In fact, I try desperately to hide its derivative nature. But I look at these songs as practice… something to get me started. Melody lines are a little hard for me (see paragraph one), so I am taking a lot of time making sure the melody fits the chords I am using in the song.
I’m pretty much just picking a key, and experimenting with chord combinations. As I have been watching and attending live music shows (for added inspiration), one thing that has so far baffled me is when to and when not to use the capo. I didn’t see much need for it. That is, until I was putting some chords to lyrics I wrote down yesterday. The chords I had sounded good, but they were just not in the key I wanted. For the roots of the melody I had in my head, they needed to be up a couple of notes.
Duh! I threw a capo on the 3rd fret and tried my chords again. Voila! The song sounded much closer to what I wanted, and I was able to get the first half of the song wrote, as well as putting down a melody line (the first time I’ve actually written down the notes to a vocal line). I was pretty excited!
My song-writing challenges continue. I feel like I’m working backwards a little. We’ve moved onto the electric guitar and classic rock/blues leads in my weekly lessons. But I am using the stuff I’ve learned on the acoustic to write these practice songs. I guess it’s just more what you are motivated to write, because all I want to do right now is write acoustic stuff. Maybe once I get more comfortable doing leads and getting confidence in that area, maybe I’ll have to throw out a rock song.
Who knows? It might even have a couple of power chords in it… and some screaming.
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