tkdunning

[tkdunning]

(107)

Practiced "for real" for the first time in forever since I'm trying to clean up my lifestyle and good lord I sucked at playing while standing up.

[tkdunning]

(106)

Super tired today, but still decent progress on Lenny. Continuing to iron out small mistakes. Fixing a lot of picking patterns since I was overusing downstrokes out of laziness.

[tkdunning]

(105)

All of Lenny committed to memory. There are a few spots where I learned things incorrectly but most of them are pretty simple fixes. From this point onwards it's really about cleaning everything up and then slowly building up to full speed. Getting to full speed is the lowest priority task that should come naturally with enough refinement.

[tkdunning]

(104)

Finally learning the last phrase of Lenny, after like months of not doing it for absolutely no reason. It's not even difficult. Signed up for some blues guitar workshops a couple weeks from now so I'm gonna do improv practice again. Focusing on theory will help as well. Not that I need to since it's a beginner class, but the anxiety about "underperforming" will help motivate me to learn.

[tkdunning]

(103)

Beginning to learn O.D. - Polyphia. Ngl I really really hate songs with tapping and Polyphia sprinkles them in a lot of their songs. Still... gotta learn the stuff that sucks ig. Tapping is "modern" and honestly probably super useful in songwriting for single guitar too.

[tkdunning]

(102)

Reinvigorated and practicing with intent again. The days feel better when my fingers are raw from playing.

[tkdunning]

(101)

Not much to say other than that I've been doing vocal drills in the car. This process will take a long time, but I'm starting to have a good baseline of understanding. I wanted to write a good ending for the first instrumental song on the album but I feel like the way I had it ending before makes more sense. Adding additional phrases makes it feel like I'm dragging things out. Also, there are sections (namely the chromatic bridge section) that I'm not really satisfied with but I'm not really sure how to fix. It's possible I'm overthinking it. I'm also considering not including the song on the album at all because while it's decent songwriting, I'm not sure if it's really what I want. Maybe it could be an interlude? It makes the most sense as an intro, but I don't want the intro to an album to be weak and this song feels kinda weak to me right now.

[tkdunning]

(100)

Going to try and self-learn how to sing. I think that's what I want, since it opens up the avenue to "true songwriting". I really want to be able to put my own lyrics into songs. I will keep my expectations low since I know I have never done this before, but:

My pitch is very accurate I think bc I played violin at a very early age, so the hardest battle has already been fought. That's a comforting thought.

I've noticed from recording and just trying out that my issue really is in steadiness and delivery of the voice. It's hard to stay exactly on a note because my voice is oscillating and I think that's something that can be corrected with singing technique.

I think my lyrics are pretty basic at the moment so that will be another thing to learn. I am capable of writing pretty compelling poem-esque thoughts. As in I'm able to convey a meaning decently well in a poetic way, keeping things from being too wordy or descriptive or specific. I think that will be useful once I get a sense of how to fit words into songwriting/a melody.

Keeping my expectations realistic - I don't have to be a fucking opera singer or band frontman type singer. It just needs to be good enough to convey the song messages effectively. Obviously better singing will help the emotional delivery, but, as I learned from vocal production, those two factors can be entirely different things. A mediocre singer might deliver an emotional line better in a take than a really gifted singer.

I think it's a good time to dive back into studying the theory/method books. I think practicing songs can take the sideline for a while. Guitar theory will help me write way more than perfecting songs. Reading a bit of theory each morning will grow me much faster than doing the same old honing of guitar playing.

[tkdunning]

(99) I am writing it all down This is my only way of keeping this alive My soul is breaking

[tkdunning]

(98) Doing absolute psychotic behavior right now recording my emotional breakdowns so I can use them for my album I know that it's the best way of using this pain I'm feeling right now. I don't care about being vulnerable anymore. Everything hurts beyond belief but I will create something beautiful and timeless out of it. And it is in this way that I will immortalize the most precious essence of what we had.

[tkdunning]

(97)

Thinking about making a short instrumental album and just releasing it into the wild

[tkdunning]

(96)

I need to get some fret files because the cold weather is making the frets stick out like knives and my left index finger just keeps getting shredded while playing.

[tkdunning]

(95)

Making progress on memorizing major triads. I'm finding it easier to think of them in their cross-string shapes and then memorizing up each set of 3 strings.

These should be somewhat similar to scales/modes in that once the major scale shapes are familiar, all the other types become easier to find. In this case, all I have to do is move the 3rd or the 5th for minor, dim, aug chords

[tkdunning]

(94)

Did research on silent stage setups and amp sims for DI. it seems to be a valid approach to both live and home setups - not having to carry around a huge amp and also having IEMs and quiet recording. Right now I can just use the voxengo boogex vst for something kind of similar. Just really want to try and dial in a good guitar tone for recording via DI even though I know mic'ing the amp sounds way better in almost every way except maybe noise/ambience (which can be desirable sometimes). I don't think any of these issues are super important until I'm actually trying to record "real" songs, but it does help me feel better about not getting a better amp than my $50 used orange crush 12. Ultimately I really should not be overthinking/overvaluing gear at this point in time because practicing/playing/writing better is kind of what I need to focus on for actual results. Then again, an amp sim would let me use my pedals with headphones which doubles their value. But I already have a mustang micro headphone amp so maybe I'm just talking myself into thinking I actually need more expensive gear.

Yes. Right. Also... I think that making fun throwaway songs is a good exercise but writing from a EDM loop/phrasing format really does not challenge the songwriting side of things. I can arrange loop songs in my sleep but I need to be thinking more in broad song structure. For example, I need to write a bridge that has continuity with the rest of the song rather that doing a sonic dropout type thing. In phrasing, I need to work less in 'AAAA' or 'ABAB' chunks and more in 'ABAC' or 'ABCD' variations. The ending of the phrases should thoughtfully connect to the next instead of how I lazily do it by chopping things into loops when I'm not invested or don't care enough. This was way easier to do when writing songs by hand, since cheating via copy+paste is impossible. I think maybe writing more one-track guitar songs would be good for this, and would force me to stop using single-line melodies. I'll get a deeper familiarity with the fretboard if I do this too.

[tkdunning]

(93)

[tkdunning]

(92)

Working on committing the end of 'Lenny' to memory, then I can really hone in on cleaning up all the details. It's a nice song to practice.

Finally got the strymon flint v2 I've been eyeing for months. It sounds glorious even though I can't even use it to it's full potential on my bedroom amp.

My pedalboard is now complete in terms of pedals. Really powerful low gain sound that should get enhanced further if I ever get a good amp. I will eventually want an actual board to put them on, plus a cioks dc7 instead of the onespot im using now

Only other additions I can think of are: Empress paraEQ deluxe (expensive af but has so much control), Lillian phaser (looks and sounds cool, but honestly really niche usage. I kinda just want it for the aesthetic lmao), some sort of metal dirt pedal with tone controls (might not need one if there's an EQ and I'm using the amp OD), fuzz pedal?, maybe a delay? For now I'm content. Really the only super useful one is the EQ. I can always add effects in the mixing stage until I actually have to perform or play with other people.

[tkdunning]

(91)

have been having trouble dialing in a good heavy rhythm guitar tone. I don't think what I'm looking for is attainable with a bd-2. I want a tumnus but I should get a RAT since the tumnus only enhances the current strengths of my board.

I need to stop recording "bass" tracks by pitching down my guitar instead of just grabbing the actual bass guitar like 4 ft away from me.

Finally went back to the amp after days of using DI. I think maybe I don't need a RAT if I just mic higher gain rhythm parts. This might change if the guitar/amp combination change but for now it doesn't really matter. It just sucks (for the neighbors) that the loudest thing I'd want to record sounds the best if I'm doing it over amp