I spent a long span of my life just playing other people’s songs on my old el-cheapo guitar. Often, poorly. Occassionally I’d write something and I’ve probably forgotten 99% of what I’ve written. With the advent of inexpensive digital recording, my world opened up. I started recording on my Mac in 2001 using a free version of ProTools. It was amazing–I was finally able to do multi-track recording! Since then I’ve purchased a new acoustic and a new electric guitar and found that my playing abilities improved. I moved to Logic Express and have learned more about the recording and songwriting process. How? Aside from listening to a lot of music recorded over the past 100+ years, I’ve also watched every episode of Classic Albums. Some of them twice. Others three times. This series takes you through the recording process of numerous classic albums, often with the original artists and producers giving their commentary. I highly recommend watching this series either on VH1-Classic or by renting them.