This time of year New years resolutions really come into focus. Goals to meet, changes in attitude, lifestyle and well being. I like most musicians, always have great intentions and dreams, and yet my personal follow through seems to be lacking on one level or another.
My 2017 resolutions were to play more. I did that. My cover band played some really cool gigs, and it was certainly a great learning experience in many ways.
One of my other resolutions was to get all of my guitars setup and configured in the optimum ways for my musical adventures. All the mods and changes I've thought would be cool would be finally achieved. I kinda fell short on that on a few instruments I own.
So for 2018, I want to continue 2017's promises to myself, with a few new angles:
1. Play more. Pretty simple to do, My cover band, The inbetweeners, will have some gigs, but I'd really like my original band "The Goodbye Theory", to get a couple of gigs as well. So I'm adding that challenge this year! We have alot of tunes that we like, and think others will like as well!
2. Guitar setups. Yes I want to finish this one too. Thankfully alot of them are already good to go. But I'm adding one big curveball. My 1993 PRS needs some serious love. I'll have a post on THAT project soon! My tele could use some electronics love, as well as some locking tuners. The White Floyd rose Strat could use some little touches, that when added up, will make it alot more playable. On the lower end of things, my Paul Westerburg First act needs some new tuners. Plus whatever mods for my Squier Mustang. So I'll be busy with those this year.
3. Recording. I recently got a focusrite 212 and a Digitech Cabdryvr Speaker/cab simulator, Studio one and well as some decent studio monitors. So I have no excuse to be able to write, record and produce some music at home. I'm not saying the recordings will be awesome, but I'd like to do this alot more. One idea I have is to do a track a month, with just one guitar. Yes it'll have bass and drums (or loops or samples), but the only one guitar to be used, Rhythms, overdubs, solos, and anything else. I have enough guitars to keep myself busy on this.
4. Less gear obsession. yes It's easy to say this now. Talk to me after Day #1 of NAMM2018. But I have enough gear and equipment to actually do stuff without any bottlenecks or road blocks. I can easily do the bulk of the meat and potatoes work. The rest should be the icing on the cake. Yes I have eaten cake icing right out of the container, but thats just a meal that doesn't fill you up in any way. So I'm looking at controlling my GAS for 2018. We'll see how that goes tho! I do have some pedalboard issues I'd like to sort out, but it's more on the side of getting what I have to work together better, rather than a new rig, but it;s a fine line between solving an existing gear problem versus getting new gear that'll get lumped on my existing rig.
5. Be more interactive, I'm already on facebook, instagram and Twitter, but I'd like this forum to also be a way to communicate. If you'd like to follow/subscribe to this blog that would be a great way to share our music/guitar related resolutions and interests.
We have 362 more days left in 2018, and I plan on making the most of them, not just musically but overall in my world. Considering music takes up alot of my time, I know it's alot of "more and the same", but I'm ok with that!
Happy New Year!
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