Sunday June 27 • 19:55

mood: ambitious
song: e a d g b e

My wrist feels like it’s stuck holding the shape of a C# minor. But it’s the inversion of it where my hand feels like it’s twisting open a jar. It doesn’t hurt, it just feels like a C# minor.

And secretly, I like it when I’ve played a song so much that my hands automatically form the shape of the chords — on the steering wheel when I’m driving somewhere, when I wave, when I tap my fingers on the desk, or most of all, when I pick up my guitar. It makes me feel the giddy feeling of working hard.

Working with results — the ultimate reward, especially when I’m recording.

And today, as I take a short break to turn on the air conditioner and let my studio cool off again and eat more cookies, I look at some of the results I’ve been getting. I’m recording guitar today, to tracks the band had laid down at the lovely Red Dot recording studio in Tracy, CA. So far it has been going rather well: fired up the Motu 828 through Digital Performer, set up a new session, got tones with the much loved CAD E-350, set the tempo to 82bpm — no, wait, I want 8th notes, 164bpm — clicked the red button and away I went. Dude, I even vacuumed before I started; I am this excited to be recording again.

And, it’s going well — which with recording is not always the case.

And if not, what I have a hard time doing is letting go, getting up, taking a break. It’s when I am most determined to fix whatever the problems are and finish what I am doing, that I work myself up and things get worse. I don’t know when to walk away. It becomes miserable.

I am learning. Today, just in case, I set myself a limit — every two hours, take a break, turn on the air (which I can’t leave on whilst recording) and walk around. Then come back and record some more. Just a different bit of scenery helps, even if it’s staring at a different wall.

And the cool thing about guitar tracks is I can eat in between takes! (Yum!) If I were recording vocals right now, I would have to wait until I was done for the day before I could eat again. Or at least wait a few hours after a meal before I could record again. See, food sticks to the inside of one’s throat, making it much harder to get the tone/performance/quality from a voice… Basically it’ll sound like a burrito.

But here, with the guitar… let’s see, I’ve got cookies, more cookies, water, soda, and more cookies…

Oh, the studio is probably cool again. Where’s that red button?

Yours,
megan

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Sunday June 6 • 01:00

mood: not bad
song: “The Rainbow Connection” Kermit the Frog/Sarah McLachlan

Salmon.

I have fins. Compare me to the salmon. Maybe not the most majestic creature; you can slap me down on a bed of mixed baby greens and call me $25; or cut the hook out of my lip and throw me back in the water, saying, “Sorry little fish.”

See, really, I am the hobo of the music industry: the struggling indie artist. The artist that slowly wraps body, mind, and soul over every living inch of my passion until it consumes me, and either makes me successful, or insane.

And I am prepared to take either conclusion.

I have an imagination. I am a songwriter, a singer, a guitar-aholic, and will be until the very moment I close my eyes for the last time of my existence. Maybe the indie artist is not the most majestic creature; throw me in a coffee shop, in a state far away from home, with a Cup o’ Joe tip jar next to an overlooked display of CDs. Or, perhaps I’ve somehow made this business work to the point that people tell stories about the lunch I ate.

So, let’s make this an analogy: I, the indie musician, am the same as a salmon.

I plow my head through the river, swimming upstream, against the laws of the music industry; against the waters, against the currents, against my own chance of survival. I know that there are thousands and thousands of us, we all do the same — yet only a small handful of us will make it out to the ocean†— and I know this. The rest of us will die in the process.

It sounds so hopeless to be salmon.

But.

I am a salmon. And that’s what I do.

Peace,
megan

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