DW Recording: Day 32

This recording is taking forever… but, I think I got the vocals recorded for song number 14 (Muddy Ditch,) today.  It’s scary to think about how much my voice has changed over the past two years.  These songs were mostly written back then… and now, when I try to sing some of the parts… it’s just sad.  I don’t really know why… other than age, I guess.

As far as actually getting the songs out… like I said on the main website, I’m hoping for a November release of Dream World: Part I.  Still probably going to try releasing one song at a time (maybe one song a week,) so that I can get the songs out… but still be somewhat happy with how the final result comes out for each song.

DW Recording: Day 31

Thanks in part to the day off, the rhythm part for song number 14 (Muddy Ditch,) was recorded today.  Haven’t played guitar in a while… but using light electric guitar strings does have some good sides, haha.

Unfortunately, I’m getting away from a normal narrative in some of these recent songs.  The first album is fairly clear in conveying some sort of storyline… but when the second album comes around, the songs begin to get a bit more abstract.  I still want the story to make sense to the listener… but I have the feeling that the second part will just be confusing.

Ah well; if it gets to be a problem, I’ll just change out some songs.

MySQL and Perl

Initially, I thought that getting MySQL to talk to Perl would be easy.  In theory, you should just be able to get the packages that do the talking… and everything would just work.  But, getting them to talk to each other under Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) has taken a while.

Here’s what I did to get it all up and running:

  1. Downloaded and installed MySQL.
  2. Downloaded and installed DBD-mysql.
  3. Added this line to my .bash_profile: export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/mysql/lib/
  4. Added this line to my httpd.conf: SetEnv DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/local/mysql/lib/
  5. Restarted Apache.
Why was this so hard? 🙂

DW Recording: Day 30

Day 30 of recording the Dream World project.  I had the opportunity to get the vocals recorded for song number 13 (Like a Shadow,) today.  Kind of hard to get back into the emotions of a two year old song… but, I hope it sounds authentic in the end.  Now it’s back to recording guitar for a little while…

Another Old Language

On the topic of old computer languages… I’ve recently been going back through books on the Perl programming language.  It was one of the first scripting languages I tried to learn back in high school… but I never felt like I really understood it.  Years later, I realize now that it really is a confusing programming language.  Even though it’s fairly simple to get up and going with Perl, it’s such a creative (or expressive,) language that programs can easily become confusing pieces of mangled artwork.  Perl.

I still like it, though.

DW Recording: Day 29

Recorded vocal parts for the twelfth song (Mother of Waters,) in the Dream World series, tonight.  I wish I hadn’t written down so many syllables in the verses… because it quickly became hard to sing without running out of breath, haha.  Even while taking breaths before each new line of words… it was challenging; not sure what I was thinking when I wrote the lyrics.  It’s like my brain is not in contact with my body, sometimes.  Communication, body, communication!

Old Languages

Been thinking about getting another degree.  Not sure, though, even if I could.  But it’s given me reason to go back and study up on an old computer language called C++.  I started out using it back in early college days… but it was a hard language for me to understand.  Looking back at  it now, it makes a lot more sense.  In the past, I guess I was just over-thinking the whole idea that C++ itself seems to be a really simple, bare-bones language.

Still have a lot to learn, though.

DW Recording: Day 28

Had time to get vocals recorded for song number 11 (Lonely Girl,) tonight.  It’s the first song on the second part of the Dream World project; a new start for the next album.  I have the feeling that the second album won’t vary (musically,) very much from the first part… but each song continues to tell the story that is Dream World.

Other than vocals, I’ve been working on arrangements for the first album (Dream,) lately.  Still aiming for getting it all done by sometime in November.

On Performing

Had the opportunity to play a couple of songs for an elderly-appreciation event at church, today.  Only had a week to figure out what songs I’d play… and how the arrangement would go.  The performance itself was pretty terrible.  Pretty dry… missed notes… boring rhythm.  I remembered why I kind of hate the piano, in some ways, and why I haven’t played it for a long time.  But more… I remembered how I both hate and love performing.

I hate performing because I will never perform perfectly.  And I love performing because of the attention.  I don’t want attention, though.  It’s kind of hypocritical.  My self wants attention… but my spirit is desiring to change; to not desire attention for my own sake… or at all.

Anyway, I hate performing.  And I feel sorry for the listeners who were in the audience, today. 🙂  Good thing it’s not all about me, anyway.  Glad to have the chance to spend a little time with people who often go unnoticed.