The Art Of Arboretum

While I was recording 'Arboretum' ideas for a cover image kept running around inside my head. I wanted something that represented the music and acted as a suitable illustration for the title. We did quite a few mock-ups along the way and, seeing as these are unlikely to surface elsewhere, I thought I'd share some of the design concepts that didn't make it through to the final cut.

My first idea was a sort of 'secret garden' where a gate in a wall was open, revealing a woodland beyond. A bit like this...

The album title would have been on the wall to the gateway's right hand side. The back cover would have been a similar picture but taken at night with the gate closed. I abandoned this idea after a visit to a bookshop where I found similar pictures on quite a few book covers. The cliché alarms went off and I went back to the drawing board!

Next, a visit to an actual arboretum yielded a picture of a really lovely tree with the sun glowing behind it. We decided to digitally enhance the picture and tried out this format...

I liked it, but it didn't quite 'make it' if you see what I mean. The final blow was struck when we found out that the arboretum didn't permit the use of images of their trees for commercial purposes without charge. What can I tell you? The budget was tight...

Next, I went through loads of pics of trees that we'd been taking for months and decided that I'd mess around with a few. This heralded in the 'reflection series' where I took an image of trees reflected in water and messed around it. At this point I knew I wanted a sunrise and moonrise theme...

Sunrise...

Moonrise...

And variations...

I decided that, although we were going along the right lines, the resulting images were too sinister. I was going for 'mystical' or even 'magical' and so I had to look again. I came across an image, taken ages ago on Solsbury Hill (as in the Peter Gabriel song) and began to mess with it.

After a lot of trial and error with Photoshop, I came up with twin images for sun and moonrise...

These images seemed to fit with the music and so it was just a question of finding a suitable canvas and font. I tried to make the lettering on the front of the album look like twisted wire – a sort of 'wood and wire' concept – and ended up with this for the front...

And this for the back cover...

So there you have it – a DIY album cover! All the original pics were taken by Carol Farnworth.

Simply Beautiful

I once had the pleasure of attending a recital given by the classical guitar maestro John Williams. Around half way through, JW began to play a student piece – something I had myself studied during a brief flirtation with the classical guitar back in the 1980s. At first I couldn't work out why a world-renowned virtuoso would be playing something from the Grade 4 repertoire. It seemed a bit odd somehow...

Afterwards, having had time to think a bit, it all made perfect sense: there's nothing wrong with anyone playing simple music beautifully, irrespective of their perceived 'ranking' in the world's hierarchy. For one thing, there would have been students present in the audience who were studying the piece and who would have benefited greatly by watching an acknowledged master interpret it.

But to many, 'simple' means 'demeaning'.

It's probably something that many of us forget. In many ways, we want to take on some complex, difficult music to mark out our territory – 'Look at me, I can play this...'. And it's quite probable that the real reason behind it all is that our own insecurity demands it. An opportunity to psychologically rise above the rank and file and take up residence in the exclusive and hallowed domain of technical brilliance.

John Williams' performance that night made me realise that the real trick is to be at peace with your own level of musical accomplishment at which point you are truly, spiritually free to play music without any consideration given to its technical demands.

And in so many ways, that state of mind is more difficult to reach than any advanced technique...

Digital Downloads – The Future Or A Musical Limbo?

Debate is rife in the record industry at present as to how people are going to buy the music they want to listen to in future. Opinions differ, but the only certainty is that no-one actually knows...

The Pink Floyd's Nick Mason went on record the other day saying that when his band was formed it was a much more cut and dried affair; if you wanted to hear The Floyd play 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', for instance, you either bought a concert ticket and went along hoping they'd play it or you purchased the vinyl. You might be lucky enough to hear it on radio if you were happy with the somewhat Russian Roulette nature of that medium, but that was about it.

Now, of course, the options are seemingly endless; digital music is everywhere and a perfect fit for the fast food generation. But whether people will ever be at peace with owning something that has no actual physical presence in their lives is another question.

I attended an interesting talk with bookshop mogul Tim Waterstone the other evening and he said that people have been predicting the death of books and magazines for almost as long as he has been in the business and yet, despite dedicated digital readers like Amazon's Kindle, books are still selling well and giving no sign of becoming an endangered species any time soon.

I'll hazard a guess that it's going to be the same for music; despite the convenience and instant gratification of digital downloads, there is a generation out there who still prefer their music in physical form. After all, something that you can't hold in your hands might just be perceived as being of little real value; we always had the option to copy LPs to cassette and yet the question of piracy has only really become a serious concern in this digital age.

So is it possible for the recording music industry to move forward without its silver spinning discs? Evolution without revolutions? I somehow doubt whether change – when it comes and whatever guise it takes – will be as radical as some pundits believe.

It's Alive!

Today sees the official release of my new album 'Arboretum'. It's been a long slog and much has happened since I last mentioned its recording in this blog.

So basically, in order to give you a brief summary; the last session was held on May 14th and this was to lay down the strings on a track called 'Almost Lost At Sea' (see the video in the last blog). We recorded a passable string section, but also captured the MIDI so that when the album was sent for mastering at Adam Crute's studio he had optimum control. In fact Adam was a real star and ended up replacing the string sample I'd recorded with a far more realistic one and the result is amazing. Thank you Mr C!

After mastering, the album was sent up to The Guitar Label HQ in Perthshire and the download site was organised.

At present, it's possible to download high quality WAV files from my website order page at www.davidmead.net/order – some MP3 files are included in the download too so you can pop them straight into the iPod of your choice and begin listening.

I also wrote out three of the tracks in TAB and these are available as a download, too. The tracks are 'Almost Lost At Sea', 'Come Find Me' and 'Waterfalling'. There will also be three short tutorial videos available soon which will show me taking you through the more difficult sections in glorious hi-def video.

So there it is, then: after nearly two years in the making 'Arboretum' is now available. I'm hopeful that I will soon be putting together some live dates so that I can get out on the road and play the material in concert. You can hear four of the tracks now in the player below and download a free track by visiting my website...

Almost Lost At Sea...

I can't remember when it was that I first began to document the development of my new album 'Arboretum'. I think it might even be around two years ago – time flies, dunnit?

In any case, the album is now finished and available as a digital download via my website at www.davidmead.net/orders. You can download a free track and listen to four sample songs, too.

I thought I'd celebrate the launch by posting a video of a piece on the new album called 'Almost Lost At Sea'. Rather than showing me sitting there playing the track, the music acts as a soundtrack for the story that inspired me to write the song – in the manner of many Hollywood teaser-trailers.

In any case, I hope you like it...

Having An 'Off Day'...

Let's face it; we can't expect to be on form 100% of the time when we're involved in something as complex as making music. Especially when it comes down to recording an album – after all, posterity has a long and rather unforgiving memory...

I had a studio session for my new album recently where I was down to record one of the most demanding pieces I've written so far. Why demanding? Well, it involves playing over virtually the whole fretboard so there are a lot of position changes, it's quite fast (138 BPM, if you're interested), it changes key in the middle and loads of other yippy-eye-oh-fol-de-diddle-all-the-day type of fingerstyle skulduggery. I'd deliberately booked a whole day in the studio because I knew I wanted to get it right and if that meant doing 25 takes to get a good one, then fair enough.

As it turned out, I discovered quite early on in the session that I wasn't having a good day. Having practised the track beforehand until my fretboard screamed for mercy, I was sure I was ready to record it... Trouble is, I just wasn't 'in the zone' mentally. My mistake was to plough on with grim determination; by the end of the afternoon I was literally playing takes with gritted teeth and, as I've said in most of my books, if there is any tension in your body, you're like a machine beginning to seize up and you're definitely not going to be capable of putting in a good performance.

If you want the full list of excuses (and if you don't, please skip this paragraph) then I could say that my car had exhibited a worrying tendency not to start earlier in the week; my computer – which I obviously rely on for a great deal of my work – was beginning to behave rather strangely and I was sufficiently distracted to the point where I couldn't get that sublime head-to-heart-to-hands connection necessary for putting in a good reading of the piece concerned.

I could have saved myself a great deal of soul-searching angst if I had remembered some very good advice given to me once by a very well-known musician: 'Everyone has bad days,' he told me. 'The trick is to save yourself a lot of grief by recognising that you're not on form early on in the day, forgetting about it and going down the pub instead.' He was right. There's always another day – it never does you any good to beat yourself up over circumstances that you haven't much control over.

Battle will recommence at the end of this week... and this time, I know I'll nail it!

Nailed It...

Now I'd be the first to admit that I take girlie care of my fingernails, particularly on my right hand (the left hand nails are cut back very short). The reason for this obviously has a lot to do with playing fingerstyle acoustic guitar, but it also has a lot to do with hand position...

Let me explain: my right hand tends to adopt the 'classical position' when I play. This means that my fingers are virtually perpendicular to the strings, whereas a lot of fingerstylists tend to angle their right hands towards the bridge. This means that my fingernails have to be quite long on that hand – I'm not absolutely sure why this is, but you can be sure that I've experimented with all lengths and settled on one. Trouble is, it happens to be the one that leaves the nails most vulnerable to accidental breakage!

Around a week ago, I had another session for my album and spent the day making sure my right hand didn't do anything heavy duty enough to break a nail. About an hour before the session, I noticed that – inexplicably – I'd managed to tear the nail on my middle finger. I still don't know how I managed it because my nails are actually very strong, but whatever... I was in trouble.

Sure, I can play with my fingertips, but if you're in the middle of making an album and want an even consistency of sound over all the tracks, altering your right hand technique temporarily causes more problems than it solves. So I was stuck. In fact, I had to resort to the oldest remedy in the book: glue. A healthy dollop of glue on the nail, hastily dried underneath a lightbulb, got me through the session without further damage (or sonic irregularity) but I have since had to cut the offender down to size.

I'm investigating acrylics as a solution to nail damage as players I know who use them tell me that the nails retain and almost Wolverine level of strength with only a bi- or tri-weekly application. It looks like things are about to get even girlier!