Refocused and Back in Action

Sometimes a girl just needs some time to take a breath, and now that I’ve done that I am ready to catch up!

I don’t have any specific topic for this post, just letting you guys know what the rest of the year will look like here.  Since I missed 7 weeks, for the next 7 weeks you will be hearing two songs a week.  After that I will go back to my normal 1 song a week for the rest of the year.  I am also going to finish up the “Lover’s Less Wild” series as far as writing, and I’ll probably be posting some interviews with other musicians as well.

For the next few weeks I am going to be doing a couple of different series.  One of them is to record some songs with only one take – this means no stopping and erasing and re-recording; select songs will be done straight through in one take or they won’t be done at all.  This was inspired by listening to a producer on NPR talk about how he gets the right sound from musicians he works with because he does not record digitally; basically, the musicians understand they have to do their best the first time because it’s not as easy as pressing “delete” to get another take.  I loved this idea, because all too often I will record the same song at least 20 times to get exactly the sound I’m looking for, or the sound that I think will impress you the most; my goal in this series is not only to practice more before recording, but also be okay with you all hearing small (or big) mistakes I make in the recording process.

I decided to post “Never Say Die” by the Dixie Chicks as my first song in this series.  Something a lot of people may not know about me is that I adore country music that has some twang, and feels old timey, at least a little.  I grew up spending long, hot, west Texas summers listening to George Jones, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Paycheck, Patsy Cline and other old country artists on my grandfather’s record player.  My grandfather had a strong belief about what country music should be.  I will never forget the day I let him listen to the Dixie Chicks while we sat on his porch one summer evening.  ”I guess this is pretty alright, Mandy,” was the only response I got from him, but I beamed thinking I had brought him something he liked.  It is one of my favorite memories of my grandfather.  I really wish he had lived long enough for me to play music for him.

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The other series came to me while trying to figure out how to pick songs for the rest of the year – 52 doesn’t sound like a huge number until you start making lists.  I decided to look at what the number 1 song was on the day I was born, and then checked it out for my birthday up until 2009.  The results were awesome, and so that’s something else I will be sharing with you all – number 1′s from August 9th every year since 1984.  Everything from Puff Daddy (when he was still Puff Daddy) to Christina Aguilera to Plain White Tees.  I am very excited about this project and it’s definitely going to stretch me as a musician.

August 9, 1985 the number 1 song was “Shout” by Tears For Fears.  At first I was really excited about this song because I like it.  When I started playing it, however, I quickly realized that it was kinda…boring, on guitar.  Okay, not kinda boring, it was really boring just on guitar or piano.  It repeats itself over and over, so I decided to try to a different approach and work with only the percussion loops in Garageband, try out some cool effects on my voice and see what happened.  I am pretty happy with how it turned out, and I think that you guys will like it, too.

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If you have any requests or suggestions for songs for the rest of the year I would love to hear them.  Throw something crazy at me, I’m willing to at least give it a run through and see what I can do with it.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their summer.  I would love to get a chance to communicate with my reader’s a bit more, so if you’re reading and don’t know me personally, could you leave a comment and introduce yourself?

Thanks for reading!