One Thing a Month

I haven't forgotten about making one thing a month

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 13:38:53 -0500

I’ve just been busy. And from that busy-ness comes March’s thing.

Yesterday, I was part of the team that put on BarcampICR. If you don’t know what a Barcamp is, it’s a user-generated conference. People show up, pitch ideas, attendees vote, and the most popular talks are scheduled throughout the day. I was asked to help out in January and it was a great experience.

I shot about 25 minutes of video throughout the day yesterday, so this month’s thing will be a 90-second to 2-minute video about BarcampICR. It’s going to take a little while, since I’m not getting any less busy, but I’m excited for it.

I’m going to be consolidating all of my Thingamonth posts over at my main blog. You can follow me there or just track the thingamonth tag.

So I've been thinking

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 18:00:05 -0500

I might stop using this sub-Tumblr and move my thingamonth posts over to my main site and just tag them with thingamonth. I feel like I’m not paying much attention to this site as I’m wrapped up in actually doing the things rather than writing about them. Thoughts?

Lessons for Feb. 12

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:11:13 -0500

I can mess up sewing even more quickly when I use a sewing machine!

So my first pocket square is done. If all of them look like...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:35:42 -0500

The front doesn't look bad from far away

You can see my stitches are uneven

The back looks pretty crummy

So my first pocket square is done. If all of them look like this, though, this month’s thing will be a pretty big failure.

The front looks all right from a distance, but my stitches are still unevenly spaced and the back looks pretty terrible. I think this weekend I’m going to use the sewing machine and hope that makes it some better.

I was not kidding when I said I’m inept with a needle.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:27:00 -0500

I was not kidding when I said I’m inept with a needle.

Four days in and I feel way behind. Finally got around to...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:17:20 -0500

Four days in and I feel way behind. Finally got around to cutting fabric for the pocket squares. I thought I’d be able to get more than one out of each shirt. Tomorrow I start stitching. Anyone want to lay bets on how long I stitch before drawing blood?

It's February, so it's on to the next thing

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:30:27 -0500

One of the (many, many) skills that I’m lacking is the ability to sew. I can re-attach a button, given enough time, but other than that, I’m useless with a needle and thread.

Part of the reason is because my mother and my aunt are both skilled seamstresses. Another part is that I’m lazy.

So to remedy my lack of sewing skills, I am going to make between five and 10 pocket squares this month.

I’m going to work from this tutorial, and I’m going to use old shirts that I don’t wear anymore, but aren’t in good enough shape to give to a charity. I’m planning to make at least two by hand and then christen the sewing machine Emily and I got for our wedding (four and a half years ago!) and do the rest by machine.

By the time February is over, I should have at least one pocket square for each work day, and I’ll start wearing them to work in my jacket pocket.

January's lessons

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:02:29 -0500

Ten years ago, as I was getting ready to graduate from college, I had no idea what I was going to do for a job. I knew I loved music, but that I wasn’t good enough to be a professional singer or guitar player. I loved my campus job of running live sound for events, though, so I applied to the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Tempe, Ariz. I got in, which I don’t think was a major feat, but there was a 9-month backlog. By the time I was supposed to be heading out to Tempe, I was working at a newspaper and I loved what I was doing. So I put it aside and forgot about it.

That’s part of the reason I tried to record a song as my first project—to use the skills I once prided myself on. It didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, but it’s passable, at least, and I learned a lot this month.

First, I miss making and recording music. Years of apartment living and being busy with work have meant I don’t practice very much anymore. That sucks, because it means when I try to play, I have to start nearly from scratch. I think I’ll be playing music a lot this year to keep myself fresh.

Second, I love the editing part of the process. I already knew that, to some extent. I love shooting video, but what I love more is taking the raw footage and turning it into something. That was my favorite part of this month’s project.

Some smaller lessons:

It takes a lot of work to put together a coherent cover of a song that’s both original and honors the spirit of the song.
I need a keyboard, even if it’s a cheap USB midi one, to improve synth parts.
My guitar teacher in college was right: Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

So here it is: My thing for January. I covered Warren...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:59:49 -0500

So here it is: My thing for January.

I covered Warren Zevon’s “My Ride’s Here.” I was going for a more rock feel than either the album version or Bruce Springsteen’s (perhaps better known) live cover, so I upped the speed. Zevon was a studio musician at heart and a hell of a producer, so the original has the slick sound you’d expect from him, and the Springsteen cover is clearly a live piece. I wanted to take a middle way. I thought just playing the guitar and singing would be too simple for this project, so I added the keys and drums. I hope the ghost of Warren Zevon doesn’t haunt me for ruining one of his songs.

The Good: My vocals are pretty much in tune, and I created everything except the drum track myself. I used a loop for that because 1) I don’t have a drum set and 2) I can’t play the drums, hence my not owning a drum set.

The Less Good: My vocal tone/timbre and guitar playing are pretty weak these days. Lack of use will kill proficiency. I can still make the chord shapes and everything, but I’m 10 years removed from daily practice and that makes a difference. The key/synth sounds are a bit cheesier than I’d like. That’s mostly because I don’t have a keyboard, so I had to enter the notes by hand into a sequencer, which made them less expressive than I was hoping for.

I want to write up a few of the things I learned this month, and then it’s on to the next thing!

Some early lessons from this month

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:41:08 -0500

Things have been hectic at Chez OTAM, but I have all the tracks laid down. I’m likely going to re-record the vocals tonight, then mix it and should post it soon. But I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned. I don’t think everything we do teaches us a lesson, but I have gotten a few out of this month.

1) I’m not sure how to blog about the progress I make on a single thing without becoming repetitive. If I decide to build or sew something, it’s easy to mark progress. But writing: “Still recording vocals” or “On my nth draft” doesn’t sound very interesting.

2) Ironic distance and creativity don’t mix very well. As I posted yesterday, you have to commit to something, and holding it at arm’s length doesn’t work. That is hardly a unique idea, but one I need to bear in mind.

3) I don’t know that I’ll ever be happy with the things I make. I’ve tried to make the song as good as I can—not easy, I’m a so-so musician at best—and I think that’s a start.

4) Sometimes I feel like this resolution was really on to re-wire my brain so I can focus on things other than work and sitting on the couch. We’re 22 days into the year and not one has passed where I haven’t at least thought about this project. And I’ve been busy at work, as well.

The trick is to commit

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:33:58 -0500

whether that’s a vocal track or a poetry reading or a home improvement project.

I just need to remember that.

Quiet doesn't mean I haven't been working

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:54:48 -0500

It’s been a long time since I’ve spent this big a chunk of my waking hours with a single song. When it’s quiet, I hear parts of the song in my head. I’ll post a final version of the song this weekend, and then it’ll be on to my next thing.

Speaking of which: I have about 20 possible projects and 11 months left to make them. The problem will be choosing.

I've been somewhat absent

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:40:09 -0500

And somewhat distracted. I realized after a lot of effort that the sound I was getting from using MIDI wasn’t the sound I wanted for the song. So it’s not entirely back to the drawing board, but that was a false start.

I might have a rough edit done by this weekend, though.

I’ve been quiet, because the past few days have been a...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:34:43 -0500

I’ve been quiet, because the past few days have been a crash course in all the things I’ve missed in digital audio production in, oh, the last decade or so.

Hint: It was a lot.

"There are an infinite number of boring things to do in science, he told me. But we live these short..."

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:33:13 -0500

“There are an infinite number of boring things to do in science, he told me. But we live these short life spans. Why not do the thing thats the coolest thing in the world to do?”

- David Eagleman and Mysteries of the Brain : The New Yorker

Take out “in science” and you have part of the rationale for the existence of this site.

Our first submission: The Mister's Sweater

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:58:08 -0500

From raiselm:

I’ve been promising him a sweater for close to 20 years. I just finished the front and he thinks it’s on the small side (I disagree). Anyway, I will rip out a bit at the top and make it longer at the V up to the shoulder line. It is a gorgeous plum wool/cashmere/silk marled yarn. It will take me more than a month.

Tell me about your thing

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:08:28 -0500

Tell me about your thing:

So I’m hoping that some of you will come along on this ride, and if you’d like to let others know about the cool things you’re doing, well, I just made that easier for you.

Some lessons I've learned tonight

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:40:08 -0500

You should start building up hand strength before you have to worry about learning a song.
Going more than five years without regular practice means your skills come back very slowly if at all.
It’s easy to copy someone else’s arrangement, but much more challenging to develop your own and make sure it works well.
I hope every thing I make this year is as much of a stretch goal as this one; it could fail spectacularly, but at least I’ll learn something.

This guitar has led what can only be called a hard life. Emily...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:28:52 -0500

This guitar has led what can only be called a hard life. Emily took it away to college with her, and the headstock was broken when she took it on an airplane. They fixed it, but not very well, because when we moved into our first apartment it broke again.

I had a friend re-glue the crack, and he installed a screw at the joint, and then added this brass plate for strength.

Even after all it’s been through, it still sounds good, though, so it’ll be the main guitar I use on this month’s thing.

Forgive the terrible logo

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:50:31 -0500

I was sick of the default tumblr icon and figured worrying about logos is just a distraction from the task at hand.

And huge thanks to Toni/Makearoo for mentioning what I’m trying to do here. I’m excited, and I’m thrilled people want to watch as I try this out.