Quiet, Not Quiet

It probably seems like I've been quiet for nearly a month.  Well, it's been anything but quiet over here, unfortunately.  Honestly, there's been too much going on and unfortunately a lot of its been drama based.

I'll spare the sob story of what I've been working on, mind you, but needless to say I've had yet another really great deep dive into vocal processing.  Wow.  Who knew vocals could be so dang tough?!  I mean, there are inherent reasons why I'm dealing with these issues, mind you, but just coming up with a strong overall vocal strategy going forward has been a bit of a dauting task.

Rather than going over the same ol' same ol', I'll just report this:  the Defrost Nixon mixes continue to evolve.  At this point, I think have 2-3 songs that I could almost say are "done", and then perhaps all of side 1, with a few minor exceptions, is slowly approaching a more complete phase.  Side 2, well, that one still needs work and I'll be fighting with it more this week, when I have time, that is.  Time has actually been a major problem over the past month, hence the ongoing delays.

On the horizon, my annual Labor Day week off is starting to loom and so I need to plan just exactly what I intend to accomplish during that time period.  The "Lost Weekend" remix was the original plan and does remain on the docket, however I believe I've made the choice to throw in recording 2 new acoustic based songs, literally brand new material that has popped up recently without trying.

It's strange because I've hit a point in music and guitar where I can literally not practice at all and still be pretty good.  Wow.  I never thought this would happen...ever.  Even stranger, it seems like each time I DO pick up a guitar, I end up writing a new song.  Not a bad place to be, mind you...

I also was toying around with yet another alternate tuning yesterday that I stumbled upon.  I'm growing quite fond of alternate tunings but there's of course one major downfall to them...it makes it really confusing to keep in your head what tuning you're in, and therefore you have that many more variations that you have to memorize.  Needless to say it'll probably be awhile before I pick up an alternate tuned guitar and play as if I know what I'm actually doing because you inevitably forget and start trying to play in standard tuning which, well, doesn't work :)

I may also have written the basis for a new piano song.  Yeah, it's been strange.  Maybe being stuck in this ridiculously long engineering stage has had some benefit to my writing?  Perhaps.  I have written about 7-8 songs in the past 3 months and without trying.  Thank goodness for handheld recorders (seriously, a must!).