A Christmas Fail

Bah humbug!  I had grand plans for a Christmas blog post and email campaign…but it was a complete and utter failure.  Here is my Christmas Fail story:

I had been a bit bogged down with client work and subsequently missed a couple of my self-imposed blog writing deadlines.  To make up for it, I came up with the idea to do a holiday post that included music and animation.  I thought that I could use the days leading up to Christmas to produce, compose, edit and animate a Christmas song.  I have a tendency to try to capitalize on U.S. Holidays as internal or lazy work days.  Because my clients are usually on vacation at this time, I find I can get more done because I don’t have the distractions of phone calls and urgent emails.  I thought it would be the perfect time to craft my video and to create an animated graphic to send out to my email list.

I was wrong.

My original plan was to use Garage Band either on my iPad or computer to compose the background music to a Christmas song.  The song I had originally chosen was  “Someday at Christmas.”  My plan B, was to purchase a backing track in case I was unable to figure out a way to hook my keyboard up to my computer or iPad.  The keyboard I have is an older one that I found at a thrift store a couple of years ago.  When I was younger, I played the piano for about 8 years and although my finger dexterity is not what it used to be, I thought that I could eek out some simple chords for the background music.  What I wasn’t sure of, was whether or not I would be able to connect the older keyboard to these newer devices to record the sound.

For the vocals, I planned to use Garage Band for this as well.  Growing up in a religious environment, I sang in church…A LOT.  I had a few acapella groups that I sang tenor in and I was also in the church choir.  I can remember my father finding a mixing board at a garage sale and him recording himself singing a song in 4-part harmony. I thought that I could do the same thing, in 3-part harmony, using Garage Band.  Now, I am by no means a solo artist, but I do think I make a good “Pip.”  As in, Gladys Knight and the Pips.

I planned to make the whole thing no longer than 30 seconds to 1 minute.  I figured by keeping it short, I could also post a snippet on my Instagram account.  I usually send out a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays email and I thought that I could do an animated graphic that when clicked, would lead to the post with the video song.  However like a last minute holiday shopper, that ends up buying crappy gifts, my ninth hour attempt to do all of this ended in disaster.

I was met with a slew of technical difficulties.

First, I could not connect my keyboard to my computer or iPad.  I may not have had the right cables, inputs, etc., but it was too late to go find what I needed when I sat down to do all of this Christmas Eve day.  On to plan B–the backing track.  I could not find a backing track for “Someday at Christmas” that was in a key that would work for my voice.  I am a tenor, well according to some of my musically inclined friends, a lazy alto.  Never the less, my voice is low and in order to successfully sing 3-part harmony with myself, I needed a lower key than what I was finding online.

“No worries, I will just change the song and sing it acapella,” I said.  No.  Worry indeed.  My mic would not connect to my iPad so when I recorded the melody, it sounded far away and like I was singing under water.  Then I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the stupid metronome which kept getting recorded into my track.  Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock.  “We wish you a merry Christmas.  We wish you a merry Christmas.”  Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock.  Yeah, it just wasn’t good.  Not good at all.

I got so frustrated that I just quit.  No recorded track.  No video to go with it.  No animation and email.  I was done.  I even yelled, “Bah Humbug!”

So…

This is my holiday post…post Christmas.  I tried, I really did, but it was a #christmasfail.  The lesson I learned is this:  you must do your due diligence and preparation.  Especially for “grand ideas.”  It was doomed to fail because I didn’t make sure that I knew what I was doing with Garage Band.  I didn’t make sure that I had what I might need in advance to hook my keyboard up to my computer, if it is at all possible.  I didn’t look into backing tracks ahead of time and I didn’t make sure that the microphone I planned to use was going to work.

I didn’t put in the work needed to prepare.  I wasn’t ready to take on this project and I failed when it came time to execute.  Lesson learned, next year I will be ready!