Flashback Friday- Eighth Note Kicks

The first time I synced up 8th note kicks under quarter note hi-hat strokes was during a sushi dinner with my parents. 

I had been trying to air drum Brainstew by Green Day, but I couldn’t get the kick pattern. I always doubled the quarter note hi hat stroke to 8th notes to match the kicks on the 1. 

But then… for whatever reason… everything clicked while we were waiting for the miso soup. I was air drumming with chopsticks and under the table, I finally figured out the 8th note kicks on the 1. 

It’s a huge dopamine hit to finally get a challenging musical technique into your body. And it’s always fun to chase that feeling again and again. 

Guitar Practice Log #3

Picked up my guitar for the 10th day in a row. I can fairly honestly say I’m not sure I’ve done that in over a decade…

Workshopping a lot of old Oh Girl songs at the moment. There is a lot of good stuff that Adrian and I never revisited after we made up the songs on the spot.

Playing guitar standing up is like riding a bike…?

Funny how some songs just come back to you. 

Fingers are hurting less!

Connect the Dots

It’s easier to do in retrospect. 

When you’re in the midst of something, it can seem like it’s its own unique thing. But nothing exists in a vacuum. 

Sometimes looking back can reveal something entirely different than what you thought in the moment. 

Yes. This is vague. But it’s also exciting. 

Oh, girl!!

Failing…

… become easier to deal with over time. 

Especially when you realize that failing means you’re one step closer to actually succeeding. 

Reflections on Songwriting

It doesn’t have to be good. Most of the time it won’t be good. Become comfortable with the not good. 

The most important part is that it gets done. 

And break up your sessions by trying things you’ve never done before. Play one chord and see if you can’t craft a song out of it using rhythm and melody. Write progressions using only open chords. Write using only single notes. Move into Drop D tuning. Put some distortion on the guitar. Play with a pick. Play using only fingerpicking. 

You never know where inspiration will come from so try anything and everything. 

Guitar Practice Log #2

30 minutes on the solo from John Mayer’s New Light. 

I enjoyed learning this solo for a couple reasons. 

First, it’s not super difficult, so getting the notes and fingering was fairly straightforward. 

Second… with the notes being simple, the tone and feel of the solo is hard to replicate because it is all about dynamics. Which is great for me to work on, especially since I don’t consider myself a good soloist to begin with. 

It was fun to tweak the pickup selection, the volume, and tone knobs on the guitar to try to replicate the tone, too. 

It’s weird to think that I’ve been playing guitar for almost 24 years, and I’ve never tried to exactly match a solo before, definitely not in as much detail as I attempted tonight. 

My fingers are definitely out of guitar shape. I need to develop some callouses. 

2024 Goals

Aim high. 

Focus. 

Push. 

• 365 posts on Instagram (daily)
• 156 blog posts (3x a week)
• 52 Reels on Insta/ FB (weekly)
• 52 YouTube shorts (weekly)
• 12 demo songs (monthly)
• 4 professionally recorded songs in a weekend session