One song a day 'til Nov. 30, a collaboration with @Horse_ebooks.
Twitter: @davehayden
2.20: Canadian
It’s a cliche song! Missing are: Mike Meyers and Celine Dion, Kraft dinner, the Centigrade temperature scale, tuques, patios, “eh?”, and national health care.
Yes, I’m trying to do more songs with words and choruses and verses and all that crap, even though I have to do a couple dozen takes to get a (just barely) passable recording. It’s good practice, or something like that.
2.11: (MUSIC ) and then he said, ( MUS IC ) well how much do you have? (MUSIC ) I said I said (MUSIC ) I ve got about two hundred
So, with that out of the way, here’s (finally!) a new ‘ukemo. (Turns out everymonth is Ukulele Month!) I forgot that the laptop mic has such a narrow field, so the guitar isn’t as loud as it should be, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to do another take. (The weird phasing effect wasn’t intentional, either—must be echoes in the room canceling each other out or something. Odd.)
[posting this again, let’s see if it works this time..]
I got an excuse, so I’m using it! Last weekend I had a little run-in with my trim router and shaved a sizable chunk of meat off my left thumb. I was being stupid, trying to do too much at once and not thinking about what could go wrong. I stopped pushing against the spin of the bit, it kicked and jumped right onto my other hand holding the piece of wood. I was also very lucky: it missed the fingernail and the knuckle, and didn’t get all the way down to the bone. The thumb is healing nicely and it’s actually been really cool to watch the flesh rebuild itself—I’ve never had this serious a wound where I could see it up close.
Anyway, now that I can play without too much discomfort, here’s a quick song about router safety.
1.26: “On-Your-Way-Bicycle-Boy… What-Do-You-Know?”
It’s my new baritone uke! I had a crappy $30 Chinese one, and thought all baritone ukes sucked. But then I got to try a friend’s Lanikai baritone and it was so much easier to play. I got the electric version of the same ukulele and love it. Still haven’t plugged it in, though.
Anyway, here’s a song on the new axe (hatchet?). It’s the same chord form moved around with the low note open and droning. Really simple, and I still stumbled in the middle. If I do any more takes, though, I’ll break my throat. So here you go.
1.19: read a list of names and find one
I was about to head out to work when I remembered I had a song to record. The words are kind of wedged in there (it’s no “rubber rubber, rubber”), but there’s some finger picking to make up for it.
And now, I bike.
1.12: Rubber Rubber. Rubber. Rubber Rubber Rubber Rubber Rubber Rubber Rubber. Rubber belting, packing, gaskets, and hose boots, and shoes boots,
…plus a mystery bonus song!
Well, I said I’d try to find other sources of inspiration, but I haven’t looked very hard. I had some worries the other day that @Horse_ebooks was getting a little cocky, a bit big for its horsey britches and posting just a bit too much, but everything turned out okay. I’d expected the meme to have started its decline by now, but it seems to be picking up steam, if anything, and the prime time sitcom isn’t far off now. I look forward to pirating the first episode, calling it total crap, and telling everyone that I was into the Horse back before he sold out.
1.3: The views of a lemon
Hello from the future! You’ll be disappointed to hear that we STILL don’t have jetpacks and sexbots in 2012—but at least we’ve got @Horse_ebooks.
If you’ve ever tried to write a song but worried that your lyrics were too trite or nonsensical, go do karaoke some time. Every pop song ever is 10% awesome hook that everyone remembers and 90% waiting for the awesome hook.
12.23: Is the dance floor calling? No.
Okay, first: I was going to do another take, promise, but getting everything wired up for this was a crazy hack (alligator clips were involved, just sayin’) and by that time I couldn’t get the iphone connector thing un-shorted. I can only blame myself.. last year. So I’ll go ahead and post this one where I didn’t keep the speaker on my lap pointed at the computer and I found the cheesy synth strings somehow hilarious. [disclaimer: bourbon was involved.]
And next: yeah, synth strings. I got a M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 today (insert affiliate link here), and it’s really fun. Certainly called for some dicking around in Garage Band, and this is the result. I’d throw it out normally, but in the spirit of NaNoUkeMo, I’m posting the damn thing.
Our new motto: Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can embarrass yourself with today.
12.19: .I AM THE UNDISPUTED KING OF CASH AND I AM UTTERLY FREE
Okay, no, I’m not going away completely… I had so much fun doing this (yes, even the one with the awful cold) I want to keep it up, though probably not every day. I’ll aim for one a week. I’ll also look for words from other places, since @Horse_ebooks has been, like, totally lame ever since it got hacked. (That’s a joke. But I should expand my horizons so I’m not totally lost when @Horse_ebooks gets a movie deal and becomes unbearable.)
I did have a request, frighteningly enough, for the songs in MP3 format. I’ll get that up tomorrow.
So, thank you for joining me on this crazy adventure! I had a great time, I learned a lot, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
