Taking a trip down….
Memory lane, but of course! Greetings all and welcome to week 4 in my recuperation from open heart surgery and the heart valve replacement project. Happy to report that while slow, progress is being made (believe I did hear them mention that progress is to be measured by weeks and not days, so with that in mind, yes on progress) and we are currently up to 2 fifteen minute continuous walks per day, plus the usual walking to and from fridge and restroom (which, let me tell you, is often when they have you on Lasix, designed to remove water weight from the body, need I say more?). Anyway, still have a few side issues (half blind in one eye, extreme numbness in one hand/arm) but I am adapting to them and the fact that I am typing this is a very good sign, considering I am having trouble seeing the keyboard. So baby steps with no regressions since hospital discharge, considering this to be good and will continue on the road to normal (normal’ish should be close enough)!
In keeping with my current “be mellow” rehab, did some digging and pulled out a bunch of demo music cassette tapes I made back in the day. The fact that I said “cassette tapes” should be a clear give away on time frame and let’s just suffice it to say “pre home computer and computer recording programs” which may help narrow it in. Let’s also add in “Tascam Porta 03 Mini Studio 4 track recording device” and now you are caught up. That’s right, pre home computer, everything got done on to tape and through the use of multi-track recording devices (which, in my case, was the Tascam just mentioned, an extremely basic home recording machine). As it turns out, the demo tapes I pulled out were numbered 1 through 9 and were actually the original ones I had recorded with the Tascam, aka, meaning they are fairly worthless on a regular cassette tape player as those only read half of the cassette tape (remember you could listen to both sides of a cassette, just flip it over, essentially listening to have the tape on one side and half the tape on the other). Considering it a blessing that the Tascam 4 Track actually turned right on when I plugged it in (and tapes played just fine, they don’t build them like that anymore). What the 4 track does is to use the entire cassette tape, laying down 4 individual tracks and thus the ability to record enough to give you some semblance of a song be it guitar, vocal, drum and bass or any combination of those or other instruments as you see fit. You can also get tricky with this process and record out to another tape and then bring it back in and add additional tracks, but I digress. The point being that there was a means for getting music down and saving it so you could refer to it at a later date!
And that is a good thing because as it turns out, I had written a bunch of songs that I had completely forgotten about and certainly have no idea on how to play them now. One might think this is probably a good thing, as in, if they weren’t remembered, they probably deserve to be forgotten. While this is the case with a few, many were actually quite good (albeit, that is in my opinion) and may deserve a second shot, if you will. The fact that I had a real guitar tuning issue back in those days, couldn't play very well and certainly didn’t know how to sing are all irrelevant if I can hear the basis for a potentially good song now. And having increased skills on all fronts plus a much more advance means for recording, well, let’s just say, we’ve got some work to do and couldn’t come at a better time (as the post surgery rehab continues). Docs are all very happy with guitar playing as well, good therapy they say.
In the midst of transposing those lost relics now onto current sheets of music with notes so I can begin the re-learning process. Much to my surprise, seems I didn’t actually write down the notes for a lot of the music so having to re-figure that out as well! Back to it. Posted a couple new pics from this week on the New Pulp page, have a look. See you all next week!
