Well, i’ve taken my first cold shower of the Blogathon, but not because i was tired: i was soaked to the skin from playing guitar and doing various performance aerobics in my fourth floor attic bedroom and when i went to take a shower someone downstairs flushed the toilet or something. So, cold and wet, and definitely very awake.
Gina just left, and while she was here we basically recorded an entire EP of her, which includes the absolutely stunning Say It Ain’t So – the first time she’s ever sang the song with me. Also, note Lindsay’s first ever recorded guitar performance on the picked open-chord acoustic. I’ll be peppering the rest of the night with some Gina tunes, especially an amazing one she did with Dante (yes, another musician) accompanying her on the talking drum. And then all the gals sans Kate came up here to record a little surprise, and so now i’m left with twenty minutes to decide what (that i haven’t recorded already) i would like Dante to lend some of his multi-instrumental talents to. And then i think Jack still wants to record some Bowie. And then i have to do requests.
So, for those of you keeping score, YES, i am actually recording almost all twenty four songs in a single twenty four hour period. Beat that.
over-achievement
Ten thirty in the morning and already re-re-recording had begun, as i decided that i was less than satisfied with the next two songs i had scheduled. Part of the today’s challenge for me is not only getting a song up every hour, but making sure that i don’t use up all of my voice too early in the day. As such, the next two songs find me comfortably singing Bass parts rather than Baritone, which is my preferred solo voice part.
Blogging is not a daily column. I don’t even have to post everyday, as one of my readers just reminded me as i lamented my headache-induced writer’s block. I don’t have to post every day because i’m only posting for me… i’m putting up the effort, and the editing, and the $30 a month that keeps my website functional as my bank account gets inexorably smaller and smaller.
Are you starting to see where those other posts were headed? I am tired… tired of having to learn all of the foundations that lay beneath the successful artifice of art, and having to be responsible for them all on my own. I am tired of spending endless hours programming my site and weeks in the studio just for a paltry 100 copies of my demo and a thousand readers a week. I am tired just at the thought of having to create a new layout or having to mix down another demo. I don’t want to do it. I just want to play, and to write, and to have an amount of attention paid to me that has some relation to the effort that i put into my work and the quality that emerges. Even double the readers, or five times the listeners, probably wouldn’t be enough for me … because even after my in front of the scenes work is paid adequate attention i’m still stuck behind the scenes like the Wizard behind the damned curtain, sweating away as he produces such a spectacular show.
I don’t think this means anything… i’m obviously not quitting or going away. I’m just so tired… tired of having to spend a year on music courses so i could have a key to the studio that i hate, and tired of earning A’s in programming just so i can properly sort out the PHP i program the site with. Tired of having to beg to be a mere assistant stage manager when we all know i’d rather be in front of any curtain, anywhere. I just… i don’t know how i’m supposed to be heard at all, otherwise. Maybe you could call it paying my dues, or maybe it’s just my own particular burden (and not such a bad one, at that), but the charm is wearing off … what was once exciting is now my dread of quarter inch to eighth inch cable adapters, and my absolute dread of photoshop, and my remorse over spending half of my education learning how to make what i want to do work, instead of doing what i want to do.
Conclusion? Who knows… either one step closer to sending out demos, or one closer to subway busking. Two steps forward, two steps back, same old me.
The shape of this quarter is starting to reveal itself to me… when i’ll wake up in the morning and when i’ll get home at night and when i’ll even think to spare a glance towards my computer. Yesterday my first instructor (a non-professor… my only one) assigned us what turned out to be a forty page reading assignment due for this morning, and i didn’t get done class until around nine last night. My bet is that she won’t possibly cover the latter fifteen pages of the assignment in one hour of class today, so i only read up to that point. When the instructor asked the class for a show of hands by non-business majors i was the only person to have fingers tickling the air; she assures me that i need not have taken any other business class to understand International Business Law, but i still remain skeptical.
I’m always whining about how boring and unobstructed my life and schedule typically are, but i’m starting to think that that just reflected the fact that i’ve never before in my life completed all of the work assigned to me in any one given academic subject. And, so far, i have accumulated a GPA that is just shy of the Dean’s List in the absence of any motivated effort on my part to do anything other than show up for class and write my papers. So, this semester i’m conducting an experiment … i’m taking seven courses loaded with reading and practicum skills and i’m only allowed to slack off in one of them (which has yet to be determined). So… we’ll see if working harder actually earns me a straight 4.0 or not in a matter of months, but i can tell you already that it’s not exactly doing wonders for my social life.
Thank god i don’t have much of a science requirement, that’s all i have to say about that…
#1 problem with my at-home lack of internet access? Being unable to chip a couple dozen more points of my JunkBot score so i can rank in the international top100 (right now i’m 175 145 133 125 109)! Aside from the obvious connection to my intense need to dominate simple contests where i have an unfair advantage of time, age, or resources, my non-stop marathon of junking actually gave my spacial geometry skills a much-needed boost just in time for my moving process. So, any effective interior design i’ve done this week directly results from Lego.Com. And, that you just have to love.