November 26, 2005

NaSoAlMo

I've been very busy lately and not particularly attentive to the postings. Aside from all the normal activities that keep me busy, I have also immersed myself in National Solo Album Month. This is a challenge inspired by National Novel Writing Month, only the goal here is to, well, write and record a solo album within the month of November. The album must be 29 minutes and nine seconds long and may contain one cover song if one so desires. These parameters are not arbitrary, but rather inspired by what the creator of NaSoALMo considers the "shortest inarguably awesome album that a lot of people have heard" : The Ramones first album. A couple of other album alternatives have been posted this year including Nick Drake's Pink Moon (28' 22"), so the final length seems to be up to interpretation.

I signed up for this last year and fell miserably short of the mark. Determined not to make the same mistakes this time, I changed my strategy, tried not to get too hung up on certain aspects of the project (like lyric writing and recording) and now feel quite confident about producing... something... by November 30th. Whether or not it will be worth listening to is another matter. Some of it perhaps. Three days left, right? Yeah. Ok.

I have over 30 minutes of music recorded; twelve songs with multi-tracked guitar parts and scattered percussion. If worse comes to worse, I at least have an "instrumental" album ready to go.