Heart Like a River - Day 3

Did a vocal run through from the top. I felt relaxed and natural and thought it was a good performance. I didn't know if Steve was recording since I was doing it as a warm-up but I hoped he was. It turns out that he did catch it.

Worked out where to place the notes for the final verse. I didn't get to record it last session.

The first take was good and usable but we did a second take anyways, and got lots of good bits out of it. I liked how I closed the R's on "river" and "scars" in the refrain - I have had challenges with ending on R's on past projects. We also came up with some different variations on the three repetitions of the "fingerprints of life" line.

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Heart Like a River - Day 2

Second session - laid down ghost vocals. Got lots of coaching from Steve, feels like a partnership, a collaboration rather than a session artist for hire.

Worked on phrasing.

I had a tight schedule and had to leave the session before I had a chance to do the vocals for the final verse.

Getting things done

Allen, David (2001). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

So I've read a book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen. I'm experimenting with getting my own GTD system set up.

The book describes various key disciplines, or best practices for being organized and productive; however, there are a few key disciplines that I've started practicing that are making a difference for me. These are:
- Inventory of all my projects
- Identify at least one next action for each project
- Associate each next action with a context in which the action can be performed

Inventory of Projects:
I find it useful to have a list where I've written down all my projects. It gets them out of my head and into a tangible form, and it's good to have a place to list any project ideas that come up. It's like the adage, a place for everything and everything in its place - well, that applies to ideas too.

Next Action:
The discipline of identifying a next action for each project helps keep my projects moving along. Even if I don't feel like working on a given project right now, as long as I can think of what next action I can take and write it down then even that helps keep the project moving. Often the projects that stall are the ones for which I don't have a next action. I haven't got this done for all my projects yet, maybe about 40%-60% of them but that's enough for me to feel the difference. I feel like I can keep all of those 40%-60% projects moving along rather than feeling like I can only handle three or four at a time.

Context Lists:
The GTD notion of a context is that it is a place or set of resources that I have access to in order to accomplish my tasks. Some examples are @Home, @Office, @Computer, @Errands, @Calls, etc. The idea is to have a separate list for each context; bydoing so, I can look at all the tasks that I can do in a given situation without being distracted by tasks I cannot do right here. For example, if I am at work and something occurs to me that I need to do at home, I put it on the @Home list. While I am at the office I can look at the @Office tasks and not get frustrated because I have an @Home task that I can't do.

Having separate context lists also helps me see where my bottlenecks are. When I see that my @Errands list is growing and giving me anxiety then I know I can run a series of errands say on a Saturday morning and knock a bunch of things off my list. Similarly if my @Home list is getting too large and I know I've been going out a lot then I know it's time to spend some time at home getting stuff done.

I have a challenge making calls while at work, and some calls need to be made during business hours. When my @Calls list starts piling up then I know I need to make a special effort to take a break from work and take care of those calls.

Heart Like a River - Day 1

I've written previously about my friend Jan who is recovering from an aneurysm she had in February (see Soul of a Poet). Her cousins are organizing a fundraiser, to be held in November, to raise funds for her treatments. They have asked for donations of items for an auction.

An awesome idea popped into my head - why not make a studio recording of Heart Like a River, the song I wrote that was inspired by an article on Jan's blog. The recording would be my contribution to the auction. Since I already had a session scheduled to do Painted Smiles, I decided to use that session to start Heart Like a River instead.

The session went really well (as they usually do) and I am pleased with the tracks we've put down so far. All I brought in to the studio with me to start was a copy of the "quick and dirty" arrangement I made in June and a file on my LifeDrive with a "lyrical treatment" that I'd written. That's being a lot less prepared than I usually aim to be before starting a new studio project; however, the experience has changed my idea of what being "prepared for the studio" can mean.

I was singing to give Steve something to play to, and I was still getting a feel for where the melody can go on various lines, and Steve was feeding off that and tuning in to where the guitar could go and where the synth strings could go, and there was a moment of this is life; a recognition that creation was happening, and this was exactly where I was supposed to be and this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing in that moment.

It was interesting that the next morning when I was driving to work, I had this feeling that the time in the studio was my real work, and this job thing was an extracurricular activity; it was a good feeling.

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