The 80's Training Montage

The Mark:

DRAAAAAGOOOOOOO!

My last post (here) was about music from the 1980's, but for some reason I just can't seem to extricate myself from that era. Oh well, I'm running with it.



My Connection:

Pretty much *every* time that I've gone to the gym the past three months, I do at least some small portion of my workout while listening to any number of classic 80's montage workout songs. Admittedly, 9 out of 10 times this song ends up being "Hearts on Fire," but I do throw in a little "Push it to the Limit" or "You're the Best" in there when I'm looking for a little variety.

More *importantly*, what makes me want to write about this for the blog is that I've never felt more inspired to go and take care of myself at the gym than I have these past few months. While I've certainly had phases of great success at getting into shape/staying in-shape/eating 'well' in the past, I've found that getting into a routine of self-improvement and mindfulness has been *much* easier for me this time around thanks to my relationship with Abby.

As you can tell, there's a whoooole lot of time to stop and think about
life when trying to hold a plank position for 5 minutes.*

In short, Abby inspires me to be a better person in a whole lot of ways - I want to look good, be well, and feel like I'm doing my best take care of myself so that I can take care of her in return. While I'm not exactly in peak physical shape, I've managed to drop 20-25 lbs since April, and I've managed to successfully track what I've been eating and drinking via MyFitnessPal going on 86 days now. Ideally, by the time school starts again, I'll have dropped another 10 lbs or so and I'll be able to hold a plank for up to 5 minutes.:-)









Style Notes/Structure:

Lyrics

Just about 80's training montage deals with the same basic idea - you're starting off somewhere near the bottom, you need to improve yourself to reach your peak, *but* we don't have time to show months of training so we're going to talk about how awesome your heart and passion is while showing how you are improving over time. In fact, this theme is so prevalent that there are list after list after list of 'Top X 80's montage lists" for those of you craving more of this kind of thing... the movie Team America: World Police even went so far as to feature a song called "Montage" as a loving reference/major plot point  of the movie.

Music

aka - "Time to dig out the keyboard"**

Like Loverboy's Working for the Weekend, I've noticed that many 80's montage songs come at you hard and fast with a driving 8th or 16th note rhythm. The drums (electronic or otherwise) provide the solid backbone, while the bass/low notes contribute mirror this and do some of their own moving around as well ('walking' notes into the next chord). For a quick demo of walking notes, watch my mini video below!

My Take:

To do this song right, it needs to be a) loud, b) professionally-recorded and c) not recorded up next to a an apartment wall shared by a neighbor... who *may* have been knocking on the wall as I played the repeated keyboard part on a loop for over an hour. To be fair, I was writing the lyrics and noodling around on my guitar (hence the whisper singing vs. "I'm belting about pumping iron" volume of the lyrics).

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I figured out how to use the multi-track recording function on my keyboard. You can't see it in the video, but you'll totally be able to tell it's there... trust me.

Here we are:  One More

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*You know, besides the obvious and inevitable "GAAAAAH kill me now" thoughts that arise when doing a plank.

**Today is one of the few days where I'm thankful to have a keyboard that I'm pretty sure is older than I am.