It’s the end of the weekend! Surprisingly I did not have a hookup. I was just not into it. I chatted with a few people but they were either too pushy or I was just interested in other things.

This weekend I put my pedal board together. I was worried I would fuck it up, but once all the velcro strips were on and things were plugged in, it worked great. I had to play around with the gain on the pedals so that they were even with each other. But other than that, not a lot of issues. One pedal sounded terrible though and I needed the 9 volt power supply for it anyway, so I got rid of it. All my other pedals fit on my pedal board and I was having a nice time playing around with it. It definitely is easier to play with pedals now, because I can put them away easier and get them out easier. Damn, wish I had a pedalboard this whole time, it was such a mess when they were all on the floor. I was fiddling around with my telecaster and trying out some chords together and coming up with these nice little song fragments. I also wrote this really tense little riff. I don’t think these fragments all belong together in one song, but it’s nice having a few pieces of music that might be a thing someday.

I’m back in guitar classes, I only took one week off. But my singing classes have been paused all month, and now start again tomorrow. So I want to think of some new songs to bring to him to work on with me. I was getting into Fleetwood Mac, but I don’t know, I think I need some other stuff. Maybe a Johnny Cash song. I don’t know. I was learning Ring of Fire on my guitar last summer, but we’re mostly doing electric guitar these days. And that was on acoustic.

It’s memorizing the order of all the parts that I have a hard time with. I can generally learn the pieces, but putting them together in one song is challenging for me. Singing is easier to remember the parts, but guitar is tricky. Some of it goes over a few pages, but singing is generally all on one page.

I’m learning Past the Mission on keyboard. Oh man I haven’t practiced that hardly at all though. My keyboard teacher found an entire PDF of the piano and vocal music sheets for Under the Pink album by Tori Amos. She’s so good! I love Tori. But we were working on The Chase and OMFG I didn’t realize how technically complicated her piano music is. I knew it was good. But omg. It’s hard!

I’ve also recently gotten into Angine De Poitrine since they won the Polaris. So freaking catchy but also like, when I listen to it my brain is trying to make sense of it all and it’s very complicated guitar/bass playing. If I knew how to play drums I would probably be able to give an opinion on them too. But also what a fun band! I love their look. Anyway, the more I learn about how to play music, the more I learn to appreciate technically difficult music.

I saw a young singer recently (not at Polaris) who was opening for a big name and they were throwing this guitar around pretending they were playing it or doing a solo or something, but they were just waving it around and fake strumming. I was watching and feeling so annoyed at the artifice. And I was on an edible so it got me to thinking about the world in general and how much stuff is faked around us. Sort of like seeing the cracks in this manufactured reality we have. And then she was singing and you could still hear her singing when she held the mic far away from her face. Okay, that’s definitely a recording. But the audience loved it so like who am I to stand up in Scotiabank Arena and yell “Faker! faker!” Plus this singer’s music was being processed through autotune, so I mean, she wasn’t getting famous off real singing. I’m sure someone is going to leave a snotty note about the validity of autotune now ha ha.

But anyway, learning how music is made has definitely given me some opinions about music I didn’t have before. Before I just liked it or didn’t like it. Now I know why I like or don’t like it. So that’s a step up.

I’m working on a bunch of things otherwise. Keeping up with projects. I’m going to read my novel in the next bit and starting in October get into doing a second draft. I’m hoping I can finish a third draft next year and then see what kind of state it is in.

I’m doing Duolingo Spanish every day. I finally was able to pay for a subscription so I can actually use it properly. Doing the video calls and the radio exercises and the story exercises are annoying, but also I do see how they are improving my Spanish vocabulary. I finished Section 1 and am into Section 2, right now learning about fruits at the market. Seems to mainly be piñas, duraznos, naranjas, and sandias. Not a lot of other fruits yet. I also looked at the music lessons they started doing. I don’t think I was into it, I’d much rather learn music stuff on an instrument. The other languages I want to work on again are French, German, and Portuguese. I know it’s Brazilian Portuguese on the app though, and it’s more likely I would be in Portugal. Although who knows, I can’t say I would never go to Brazil. Maybe I would. It seems if I go to Brazil, I should stand on the beach in a speedo.

I’m back at the gym. I took time off when I couldn’t pay my membership, and then it was paid but I was busy. But today I made myself go and it was good, I got my exercise and I wasn’t weaker than the last time I was there.

Not much else to report. Social media detox is still going. My nervous system has completely changed. I’m not sure how I can go back. It was putting me in such a negative mindset, and now it’s just not in my face all the time telling me worrying things. I still have to do publicity and stuff so I will have to go back. But being off is nice. I have stayed in touch with some friends. Generally the people I care about are people I had other ways to contact anyway.