I have latched on with a couple of "promises" from some people on projects that they have talked about starting. These have usually lasted about a month, with discussion just eventually fading in the wind.
None of this is meant to sound like a "Please, take pity on me" rant. This is all just to explain the drastic measures I have recently taken on my quest to finally get some music written and recorded
CATHARTIC RAMBLING: Many times I have stopped and thought to myself "Why am I doing this? Why not just be a guy who watched TV and sits on the couch? Go hunting, get into sports, or things like that? Why keep trying to be a 21 year old Rock Star?" The reality is that I am not so sure I can stop. I set aside my music when I had a family. I kept playing, but my actual drive faded away. I had a chance at one point to join up with my buddy Todd in the band The Gaza Strippers. Two things kept me from trying to go for it: I had just gotten married, and I also didn't think I was good enough for the role of a lead guitarist. I probably could have got the chops in time if I had worked at it, but the other obstacle kept me from going for it.
So, here I am 25 years after that situation. I was 25 when that offer was made. That is a long time. In that time period I recorded 4 songs with my buddy Larry doing drums. The songs were written previous to that day, then he learned them within two hours and we recorded them to a 4-track.
Then, pretty much silence. Some dabbling here and there, but nothing really substantial.
So here we are. I decided to take it all into my own hands.
In the past I have tried using drum machines and programs. I really suck at that. Plus, it bores me to tears and I just don't enjoy the idea of programming drums. So I knew I wanted actually drumming. I have been able to play basic beats on drums for years. Never a great drummer, by any means, but enough that I believed I could learn to be better.
But my house is not the biggest place, and space is a little tough to really make, especially taking into consideration my music collection. My wife was cool with the idea of a drum set moving in with usm but we had to figure out the space. Her suggestion of getting rid of the rest of my stuff, while thoughtful in my desire to get a kit, was not quite the suggestion I was looking for.
So the idea of an electronic kit came to my mind. They are smaller, they are extremely quiet, and they can record directly into a recording program. For my situation this seemed ideal. Plus, when I started looking into them, they really were not out of my league as far as price is concerned. Oh, sure, some were stupid expensive. But I am not a pro, and I am just looking to learn to get better at drums. I just needed an affordable drum kit.
I bought the thing, brought it home, and set it up. My initial plan was to buy it, let it sit for a little bit in the box, then when I had plenty of time to mess around with it, break it out then. But, I got home later that same night, and just started to take it out of the box to look at the parts. About a little over an hour later I sat there with the parts all assembled. I picked it up and moved it to the spot it was going to live in for a little while.
The next night I went about wiring it up and giving it a test run. Much to my surprise it wired up fairly easy. Flipping the power switch also gave me the results I was not fully expecting: IT WORKED!!! I proceeded that night to mess around with it a little bit, just to see how it all worked.
I am glad to say, it all worked exactly how I had hoped it would. Everything about the kit is exactly what my research had said it would be. Simple to use, sounds nice, and seems like it will be easy enough to expand parts and sounds. I still haven't spent much time setting up the sounds. For the time being I am just using the thing. I will get into the fancy side once I am fully at ease with what I am doing and am getting closer to the ultimate goal of recording.
So, now I have my kit. It is in the basement, and now I sit here just over a week and a half later. The big question is . . . what the Hell have I been doing? Well, come back for the next exciting chapter in our adventure to find out!!!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to explain this blog and what I am going to be doing here. The ultimate goal with this kit is to finally record again. Finally get a project done. None of my old bands ever actually released anything. None of our demos ever made the way to people. Close friends had copies, but we never pressed anything, never had actual covers, nothing. Our demos were sent to clubs and friends, and that was it. So the goal here is to actually have a finished product. Will it see light of day as actual physical media, or will it just be posted as a download somewhere? I don't know. But it will be an actual product.
This site is basically going to chronicle the journey. From my learning to play the drums, to my doing the first recordings (what those are, you will have to wait a few days to find out, but the title will be an old title I used before, Pieces of Time), to my writing the new songs for the actual album I am planning, to my working out the songs and eventually recording them. It should be a fairly interesting journey, I hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment