The Calm Before the Panic

In a couple hours, the 5th annual RPM Challenge will begin.  Last year, I participated for the first time without much of a plan.  At the end, I sort of vowed to do better this year.  Well, it's upon us and I'm only marginally better prepared.

Previously, I thought that the challenge involved writing and recording the whole album in the month of February.  This year, it's different.  Apparently, we are allowed to write in advance but not allowed to record in advance.  As somebody that uses the computer and heavy processing as an integral part of the composition process, this rule change (clarification?) doesn't change much for me...  but it did mean that I actually wrote down (yeah, on paper!) a few things that would normally have been the seeds for tracks in January.  Long story short, I actually have 4 track ideas already.  This is light years better than last year when I found myself in the Denver airport working on my first track...

But I'm kind of lucky.  Musical ideas come easily.  The areas that I wanted to improve on this year were not musical per se.  They were in other areas.  Cohesion.  Artwork.  Packaging.  The latter two might seem quaint and old-fashioned in a time when "real" musicians are having trouble...  but that's not the point.  The point is to explore other kinds of creativity.  Hopefully, having a bit of a head start on the tunes will afford me some extra time to fret over the quaint.