Riche Morgan.<-Please click on the highlighted Riche Morgan, so as you can hear all the tracks on the album:@))
The Track listings are as follows....
1/ Moonfleet.
2/ Wear this crown of thorns.
3/ Sailing on the silver breeze.
4/ Climb a white Spider.
5/ Portesham bells.
6/ Fields and Foxes.
7/ Cheisel Beach.
8/ Into the wilderness.
9/ Sky pilot.
10/ Au bord de la mer.
A seminal moment occurred almost a year ago, when the completion of my first guitar instrumental album. All the tracks on this album were recorded on a Boss micro br digital four track recorder, of which only the four tracks and the Boss drum track were used. These are not necessarily the best compositions that have been done by me but ten tracks that I feel work together to make a concise musical moment. Due to the album being instrumental I thought it would be appropriate to give an insight to the tracks on it,
1/ Moonfleet
The first track on the album is a personal favourite of mine, done in the key of E,major it is strongly influenced by an area of south Dorset that me and my family frequent. The title is actually a place on the Dorset coast which inspired a great book and film(thou the film bears little resemblance to the book) both are good yearns about late eighteenth century smuggling.This composed and recorded in late summer 2010.
2/ Wear this crown of thorns
Written at Easter 2011, the title came from a line in a song from the industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails(its the Johnny Cash version of the song which I listen to however) The song in question is called Hurt and being that time of year I liked the religious connection. Through out the album what would be prevelant to the listener is the extensive use of pedal tones(an advanced guitar technique that can give a neo-classical feel to a composition)I mention this now as the technique is most obvious on this track. Also on this track the circle of fourths (advanced musical theory this time) was deployed to " what I consider" very good effect.
3/ Sailing on the silver breeze
There has been more comments/emails/shares about this track than any other that I have written!!! This composition started life as an acoustic piece (and for the purpose of performing it live will remain so) the title comes from a line in lyrics I wrote for it!!! Technically its hard to describe , its main parts use a root note with an added ninth and an open G ( think along the lines of the Beatles blackbird) that sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, it falls under the fingers quite nicely. This tune is pleasant on the ear, but if it wasn't for the feedback from social networking sites I might have forgotten about it...
4/ Climb a white Spider
Christmas 2010 I was given a book as a present, the book in question was the White Spider by Heinrich Harrer ( same author of Seven years in Tibet) a great book describing the exploits of climbers on the north face of the Eiger. The white Spider is a climbing term for the eroded face of a mountain which from a distance gives the impression of a white spider on it, the north face of the Eiger being the most famous. This is what I am referring to in the title of the composition . I had been playing my classical cutaway guitar a lot at the time and particularly a piece called asturias by Albenez, I mutated the the main theme and turned it into a very heavy piece of music which tried to evoke a feeling of climbing on a white spider (a situation I have done for real).
5/Portesham bells
At the end of Winter 1998 me and an old friend of mine met up for a jam for the first time in a number of years, one of songs we used to use to jam with was roadrunner by Johnathan Richmond (one of my favourite tunes of all time) It was jamming over this tune that my guitarilisamo buddy came up with a lick that I elaborated on and incorporated it in to the tune of Portesham bells. Harmony wise the song is very simple with a fairly straight forward A,D,E cord progression. Its with tis tune that I started to think seriously about doing stand up solo guitar. The tune was actually put together while serving over seas, the blue strat on the cover has been taken apart( so that it can fit into my bergan which is a very large rucksack) and put back together several times due to my various travels. This composition is what I consider my signature tune in which I have performed live quite a few times now.
6/ Fields and Foxes
This track was recorded in the summer 2011 and was a culmination of various Neoclassical ideas that I had been working on and based on thoughts which try to evoke the English countryside,from sunshine to wet afternoons with wind blowing across fields hills and vales and the wildlife in a constant state of survival and contending with nature. Since the spring of 2011 I was allowed to bring a guitar into work in which my workshop is remote and isolated enough for me to run through ideas in break times with out hindrance,this is a luxury that I am fully aware off and try to make the most of it while it lasts. Fields and Foxes was a composition which was totally constructed during the break times at work.
7/Chesil Beach
This composition is the third of the album which title and inspiration belong to an area of South Dorset which I love to frequent. This strong rhythm and melody led track deals with a more lighter aspects of my general playing. When doing instrumentals different approaches to composition can become more prevalent than thous that have vocals , such as the use of dynamics,light and shade and the use of major or minor keys. This was recorded in spring 2011 and done very quickly as I don't recall recording it at all!!! Still I do like the rhythm and might in future use just this part when performing the tune live. I included this composition as I thought it gave the album a better overall balance and feel.
8/Into the Wilderness
Its funny to hear people say that they had given up playing guitar for a bit after playing for some years and returned to it, but after time I have found old friends had given up playing altogether and sold their gear, yet these were really good players!!! I say this because in early 1991 I had a resurgence in guitar playing, it wasn't due to a conscientious decision not to play,it just got put to the back behind other interests that make up a life, which is something that I can now relate to in other players. This resurgence was brought about by the emergence of a new guitar mag (originally) titled the guitar magazine (I only bought it because it had Johnny Marr on the cover) Inside there were articles on music theory which was an aspect of guitar playing that I had pretty much over looked or at least payed scant attention to, through reading these articles was like a moment of enlightenment in which I had learned there was much more to guitar playing than just picking it up. I say all this, as from that moment on I started acquiring the tools that proved a catalyst to create my own guitar compositions with one of the first to use this method being Into the Wilderness. Thou I had been doing my own tunes for some time with this tune I tried to create a theme to an influence from another sauce. This sauce being the chapter in the wind and the willows called the wild wood, in which Mole takes a trip to Badgers through a wintery wild wood and see's the evil faces of the woods less welcoming denizens. The techniques that were employed in this composition were from the Neoclassical genre and the composition as a whole was heavily influenced by Yngwie Malmsteen who is wildly regarded as the foremost pioneer of the Neoclassical style of playing. This composition has been recorded a couple of times over the years and been performed a few times live as well, but the one on this album will probably be the definitive version.
9/Sky Pilot
Recorded originally two years ago as an experiment with arpeggios with open stings, what happened with that recording as an after thought a keyboard track was added. This track came to dominate the tune and thought a simple melody was to me a far better musical addition than the arpeggios proved to be. Two years on and along with Portesham Bells and Into the Wilderness, it was rerecorded with the excess of notes taken out with just the keyboards left to dominate the main theme of the tune. I do really like this tune for its uplifting sound and is fun to play thou the lead playing on it is not for cold fingers due to wide interval stretches.
10/Au bord de la mer
Written last summer in France on holiday. Due to lack of space in the family car with all are holiday essentials its difficult to take one one of my guitars, my solution to this was to take my little boys three quarter sized electric which purpose was to keep the fingers nimble. With the excellent location and weather I was inspired to come up with this tune. The cord playing and as with most of my compositions , is the foundation for the tune and like a lot of my tunes, it has got pushed to the back and been taken over by other parts that I have put on top. On asking what's by the sea in french (which was where I was when I wrote the tune) , I was reliably informed by a couple of very good friends that it was Au bord de la mer.
With this album I have done things on a very do it your self level. Due to the use of only four tracks and a drum track , there are omissions that if I had more space they would have been included. I wouldn't say that this is a collection of my best tracks , but tracks that I feel fit together well. The purpose of the album is to form part of a learning curve to help pave the way for a more polished album which is hopefully ready for later on this year which will consist of entirely new compositions and recorded with all the necessary tracks required at my disposal.
I may at a later date return to this album and upgrade and reissue it out, at the moment it is only to be sold at gigs and to be given free to anyone who asks for a copy personally (no postage and packaging) its also available to be acquired by obtaining widgets from soundcloud and reverbnation.
Those who have listened to the album or may do in the future, all feedback is welcome especially constructive criticism and those who have listened I thank you . It has been a pleasant experience making this album. Thanks for taking the time out to read this blog which I will try to maintain and update in the future.
Thanks again,
Riche :@))
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