Donald Merand

🎵 Output before Input #60 - 2022.03.12

Short, but I found the groove fun to play along with.

One struggle I’m having is the balance between wanting to make sure these ideas aren’t too rehearsed and the desire for them to come across in spite of not being practiced and occasionally stumbling while I’m improvising. I don’t practice enough to where my technique is flawless right now, and it makes me feel a bit self-conscious about sharing ideas with goofs in them. But I’m doing it anyway :)

🎵 Output before Input #59 - 2022.03.11

I’m always a sucker for synching delay decay with tempo. I’m also always a sucker for patterns that repeat in non-4-time.

🎵 Output before Input #58 - 2022.03.10

I think this is the shortest clip thus far.

🎵 Output before Input #57 - 2022.03.09

I only realized this morning that the riffier progressions have mostly been “two ideas, contrasted and expanded” and not just one idea. The threshold for hitting “record” on them is usually “Ok, I’ve got two things that work well enough together, let’s improvise on that now.”

🎵 Output before Input #56 - 2022.03.08

My first recording got corrupted and lost, so I guess this is my version of waking up and immediately being frustrated but trying to still access some calm.

🎵 Output before Input #55 - 2022.03.07

Trying to stretch into more interesting rhythm/chord progressions, but I don’t think I got there today.

🎵 Output before Input #54 - 2022.03.06

Minor seconds are some of the hardest intervals to play on the guitar, especially stacked (and sometimes even inverted), but the payoff is always interesting (to me, at least).

🎵 Output before Input #53 - 2022.03.06

Again challending myself to “hit record first” and just start playing.

🎵 Output before Input #52 - 2022.03.04

This was a relatively rare morning where I didn’t play a single note before hitting record.

🎵 Output before Input #51 - 2022.02.28

A chord progression that takes inspiration from Hendrix' “Hey Joe”.