lessons

I had my first official guitar lesson yesterday and it was nice. For one, having time for myself is great. I also get along with the teacher so that's a big thing. He's a pro in all respects. Always has useful suggestions. I see the pattern that my lessons are taking now. There's no book. Every lesson is basically a consult. Like, how do I do this? How can I make it sound a certain way? And at the end, he is always encouraging. 

Tomorrow, I have my recording lesson and I guess we'll just pick up from where we left off the last time. We talked about how to set up the instrument tracks as left and right, and then a third center maybe. I feel kind of bad that I haven't opened Reaper at all since my last lesson. I meant to record something new or add tracks we can work with on the one song that I've been working on but for some reason, I haven't found time to do any of that. What I'd really like is to be able to use the Yamaha for certain things but it really requires a setup and someone offered to do that for me but it hasn't happened. I bought a guitar maintenance tool kit and would like to do it myself but I'm kind of scared to even change the strings. It's not like I haven't done it before. I totally have, with my old classical guitar that had nylon strings. 30 years ago. Surely, it's not too different. All I need is to find some tutorial online and I should be good to do it myself. 

The other thing I'd been mulling over is getting a Shure SM57 instrument mic because I'd like to try recording the guitar with it. Plugging in an acoustic electric solves the noise issue but I always hear that acoustic guitars are better off recorded with a microphone. I might discuss that with the teacher tomorrow and see if the SM57's are still on sale. 

I'm tired. I had planned to put up the Christmas tree but my husband didn't bring in the tree from the garage. I guess we can do that tomorrow but at least the space is ready. We moved the keyboard to my daughter's room and gave her a cable so she could hook up her headphones and play in privacy. I also removed the instruments that we were down there and now they're all up in my room. It's less than a month. I'll live. I also go to wrap some presents, ready to put under the tree. 

We started the day off with a drive around the park and then my husband and I actually got out and walked a little bit. Afterwards, we went to brunch at Fogo de Chao which has a holiday brunch at the moment. I don't know if this is something they only do because it's December but I was feeling it today and I did enjoy that. I took a picture at the table to see if the student could identify where we'd gone out to eat based on the food that was on the table and she got it right! 

Intentionally vague photo of food

The bread was the giveaway and she does like their bread. We rarely go though because a buffet with the kids in tow is hardly ever worth it and honestly, I don't think I could ever eat that much. They had waffles and omelets today because it's brunch. My daughter said she liked it but we noticed that she preferred the pork products over the beef. Good thing we paid half price for her. $53/adult is still pretty steep but hey, what's not expensive these days? 

Playlist Recommendation: Africa, Toto