Some Musings [Part 1: "Feelin' Fine"]

[I've had a lot on my mind recently, and i haven't written in a while. Halfway through writing this post i realized that it was getting way too long. So i'm breaking it up into a series; maybe one post every day or two for the next week.]

Part 1: "Feelin' Fine"

Ever since CULX, it seems like a lot of things have been coming together for me. I mean, my once-a-year visit with my awesome friends back home (love you guys!) is always a huge boost, but there's more going on. Partly it's the timing of various things (more on that in Part 3), but i think it's mostly my own attitude. Reflection of things that are good for me right now, as well as things that have the *potential* to be good. Add to that the promise of a kickass summer filled with concerts, weekend trips, and hitting my (long overdue) backlog of local activities and personal projects. And my fledgeling music project which enjoyed a major confidence boost from all of the wonderful encouragement and positive feedback on my first youtube video. Seriously, you guys, it means a lot to me, so thank you.

Out of the dozen or so songs on my "work-in-progress" list, i have two candidates for my next video. Both are songs i've loved ever since high school, and both translate well to a stripped-down acoustic setting. I'm keeping them under wraps for now, so lets call them songs A and B. I've been working on song A for several months now; it's still choppy, but coming along nicely, i think. Song B is much more difficult (almost entirely barre chords!), and i only started to learn it this week. I reeeally want to release this one next because it's so awesome, but it's going to take me a long time to get it up to scruff. So looks like song A will most likely be next. Although i have been working hard on song B, so we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

As with many of my projects, i cycle through phases including (but not limited to) energized/encouraged, mellow, demotivated/bummed out, frustrated, apathetic, stoic. Right now i'm definitely energized (seriously, i *love* this song, barre chords and all). So far i've noticed that i usually hit my highs when i start learning a new song, because fresh material is always exciting, and i can quickly get from "sucks" to "choppy-but-doable". It's much harder to go from there to "stable" - clean up my guitarwork (and vocals) to the point where i can actually play the song reliably. Progress is much slower in that phase, and i often feel like i'm stuck in the same spot for a long time. I usually offset this by working on a few other songs in parallel - sometimes shelving the song in question for weeks (or even months) at a time because i'm so frustrated and don't like the song anymore. I did this with Free World more times than i can remember. And with song A. Seeing the results of those efforts makes it easier to stay positive even through the frustration. "All we need is just a little patience."