Not Yet

I had planned to release “Astronomy” on April 20th. 

I’m going to wait.

    It’s all ready to go. When releasing a project in the internet age you announce a release date and then upload the tracks to the distribution service. Usually this is around a month before the release date which allows for the tracks to be sent to all the streaming services. So I would have needed to get the files out around the end of March.

    However in February,  after weeks of threats, Russia invaded Ukraine. The bottom line is that for me it’s impossible to pretend that this is not something that can just be ignored and I can’t in good conscience put out this work when there is this much turmoil in the World. When it began there was some hope that there would be a quick resolution, but now it looks like this is going to go on for a while.

“Astronomy” can wait. It's ironic to me that this project, a musical celebration of the natural world, is symbolized by an image of the vast and awe inspiring reality all around us. Yet, at this moment we find ourselves held back by a singular evil and the worst impulses of mankind. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His records: "Limited Edition", "Home for Good", and “Loveland” are available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. His new recordings, "Astronomy" will be released Spring 2022.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

The View From Earth

 I think everyone should spend a few minutes at the end of every day looking up at the night sky.

    Our days are so full, doing all the things we need to do, the obligations we have to meet and sometimes we lose sight of the bigger space we live in. This is the perspective that inspired "Astronomy". 

    The more we learn about the Universe the more mysterious and compelling it is. Wise philosophers have for millennia tried to wrap their minds around the scale and meaning of this enormous and powerful reality that surrounds us and stretches beyond our ability to see, forcing us to use our imaginations to try and understand its purpose and our place in it. Art is a part of that effort. Art is how we attempt to express and connect with the unknowable and overwhelming reality we inhabit, even as we recognize that at this point in time there are no answers, only questions.

    One thing we have observed is that all things are in motion, from the smallest atomic particle to stars and galaxies. It has been suggested that the fundamental frequency of the Universe is 432Hz, and that our bodies resonate in harmony with it. Take a listen:

    Maybe so, and maybe all music, from Bach to Beatles, comes from some connection to this basic tone. We do know that we respond to sound and rhythm; we can't help it.

    For instance, the song "Earthbound" from "Astronomy" pulses with steady rhythm that hopefully evokes the sensation of moving across a peaceful landscape. The melodies repeat in a hypnotic cycle that accentuates this graceful movement. The improvisations include a section that with soaring fluid lines using a distorted guitar tone. This sound is created by overdriving the volume of an amplifier so that the frequencies and harmonics all blend together and is unique to modern music, only possible after the invention of electronics. It's remarkable that this invention has contributed much to expanding our knowledge of the Universe.

    There's a moment in a child's life when they ask; "Where do the stars go in the daytime?" If you are fortunate to answer them by saying, "They don't go away, we just can't see them because the sun is so bright. They are there all the time", you will see that realization dawn on their face, and perhaps the beginning of an appreciation for the wonder that is all around us.

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His records: "Limited Edition", "Home for Good", and “Loveland” are available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. His new recordings, "Astronomy" will be release Spring 2022.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

"Astronomy" Release Date

     "Astronomy" will be released on April 20th.

 I'm in the final stages of finishing up the six tracks on "Astronomy" and each of them have a few details I'm working on. It's a moving target. 

    At this point the process becomes one of working on a track, making a minor change then taking a break for a day or so and then coming back with "fresh ears" to see if indeed the recording is "final". It could be a one of three things I call "TTT" (Tuning, Timing, Tone). It's always a matter of hearing something that doesn't sound quite right that bothers me, first just a little, but then after a while it becomes so glaring that I have to see if I can do something else. 

I've learned two things about this:

1. Nobody else hears it, and in fact if I ask a friend, especially a musician friend, to listen they invariably either don't notice it or point out something else entirely, which of course sets me off in that direction. 

2. I usually find something that I like better and replace the part with something that stretches my skill a bit further. I'm going to get in the weeds a bit to explain how this works.

A "Punch"

    An example of this is in the song "Andromeda Run". Towards the end, right after the saxophone solo there is a repetitive guitar theme that had one note that was just a little off time (right, nobody noticed but me) so I set out to fix it. The way this is done is called "punching in", a term that refers back to when recording was done on tape. An engineer could manually hit the record button on the machine while it was running. It was a skill that allowed a very short section to be recorded without changing what was before and after it. In this way even a single note could be corrected without having to redo the entire part. It was a matter of professional pride if an engineer could perform a punch cleanly, and it required perfect synchronization between him and the musician to make the fix. Now with digital recording all I need to do is highlight the section I want to replace, and the whole process is automated.

    For this particular fix I started by trying to simply play the same part with better timing, and played it about 10 times trying to do that, but it still wasn't sounding right. Then on the next take I not only got it perfect, but actually added an embellishment, completely unthought, that caught me by surprise. Now when listen, not only is it fixed, but it has something added that takes the part up a notch and that's what makes the whole process fun and fulfilling. 

Now on to the next one!

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His latest record “Loveland” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

Reaching for the Stars

     The more I think about the title of my new recordings, "Astronomy", the more I feel it's a very fitting theme for these tracks. 

    When I was younger, (BG-Before Guitar), science was my favorite subject in school. In the 5th grade we learned about the planets and stars and I got a telescope. It was magical to be outside on a Summer night looking up at the sky and seeing the craters on the Moon and feeling the wonder of how a pinpoint of light would become a globe with rings around it, the planet Saturn so many millions of miles away. Later I moved on to cars, guitars and girls, but I never outgrew my love of science, and I feel like I passed some of that to my daughter, who chose a career in biology.

    Art and Science are often seen as being similar. You might say that the both have as a core principle the idea of exploration, of learning more about oneself and this Universe we inhabit. Philosophers have suggested the meaning of life is to seek this knowledge, and I like that idea, as well as the idea that music is one way we connect with the fundamental frequencies that are constantly vibrating around us.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

    The six tracks each are meant to evoke a particular sense related to the natural world. The titles are: 

     "Waking to Rain"

     "Earthbound"

     "Andromeda Run"

     "Stratosphere"

     "Mediterraine"

     "Terra Aeterna"

    

    "Waking to Rain" starts off the playlist and was the first song I recorded, though it's not the newest song. I had a couple of songs that were from earlier records that had minor seventh chords, not jazz in the strict sense, but leaning that way, and by updating them and adding some elements they fit into this concept. "Waking to Rain" is about that feeling when you start a morning looking out to a gray sky and everything dripping wet. For me, that usually means a laid back day, where you stay inside and maybe put off some chores. The song features Jen Ambrose on flute. Also, Paul Sandberg contributed sax solos on "Andromeda Run" and "Terra Aeterna".

        I really enjoyed making these recordings. I had no preconceptions other than wanting to make clean, crisp tracks with close attention to capturing the instruments as naturally as I could. "Waking" set the standards. I experimented with amplifier and guitar settings with the idea of using a consistent sound throughout the project and for the most part I achieved that. One exception was "Stratosphere", where I played a Fender Stratocaster and took advantage of this instrument's distinctive sound to give the idea of flying at 40 thousand feet.

    All the tracks are basically done. At this point I'm reviewing some of my improvisations and having fun seeing if I can top myself. That's right at the core of "Astronomy"; I'm exploring to see how far I can go.

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His latest record “Loveland” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

Astronomy

This is the artwork for "Astronomy", my upcoming EP of instrumental tracks. 

    These songs are a departure from my singer/songwriter persona and lean towards jazz. One of the things I did during COVID was to spend more time practicing guitar and piano and these six tracks resulted from the new things I'm learning. 

    Astronomy is the branch of science which deals with celestial objects, space, and the physical universe as a whole. It's a big subject and well suited for a musical journey. With each song I've tried to express the wonder of the physical world, here on our beautiful, tiny planet and out there across the unimaginable reaches of interstellar space. Astronomy is about exploration and discovery and can also be applied to our personal lives as well. For me, this foray into unfamiliar musical territory has been exciting and rewarding. As these songs evolved they have led me to places I never thought I'd visit. As it turns out, a lifetime of listening to jazz, including favorites like Pat Metheny, Zappa and Steely Dan, had tuned my ears to this genre, so it's just been a matter of focused study to open the door and venture into this territory.

    The recordings are coming along and I should be putting the tracks out soon, along with some posts about how the songs were developed. Here's the info on the image from NASA's website:

The galaxy captured in this image, called UGC 12158, certainly isn’t camera-shy: this spiral stunner is posing face-on to the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, revealing its structure in fine detail.

UGC 12158 is an excellent example of a barred spiral galaxy in the Hubble sequence — a scheme used to categorise galaxies based on their shapes. Barred spirals, as the name suggest, feature spectacular swirling arms of stars that emanate from a bar-shaped centre. Such bar structures are common, being found in about two thirds of spiral galaxies, and are thought to act as funnels, guiding gas to their galactic centres where it accumulates to form newborn stars. These aren’t permanent structures: astronomers think that they slowly disperse over time, so that the galaxies eventually evolve into regular spirals.

The appearance of a galaxy changes little over millions of years, but this image also contains a short-lived and brilliant interloper — the bright blue star just to the lower left of the centre of the galaxy is very different from the several foreground stars seen in the image. It is in fact a supernova inside UGC 12158 and much further away than the Milky Way stars in the field — at a distance of about 400 million light-years! This stellar explosion, called SN 2004ef, was first spotted by two British amateur astronomers in September 2004 and the Hubble data shown here form part of the follow-up observations.

This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images through blue (F475W, coloured blue), yellow (F606W, coloured green) and red (F814W, coloured red) as well as a filter that isolates the light from glowing hydrogen (F658W, also coloured red) have been included. The exposure times were 1160 s, 700 s, 700 s and 1200 s respectively. The field of view is about 2.3 arcminutes across.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His latest record “Loveland” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

Like, Jazz, Man!

 It started innocently...

Django

    I added "Careless Whisper" by George Michael to my song list and it has a B flat major seventh chord in the progression. This chord has a variation that required learning a new hand position. After a couple of weeks of diligent practice I was able to play it without the frustration that one feels when their hands aren't cooperating. The first time you get it right is always a cool moment. "Careless Whisper" is a very simple pop song otherwise, but it does have a jazz feel and I think it will endure and become a standard in the future, also due to that signature melody, played by a saxophone on the recording, but just as compelling on guitar. 

     From there I started adding some other standards that led me away from the folk/rock/pop songs that make up the majority of my repertoire. It required me getting out of my comfort zone and I realized that I had stigmatized myself with regard to my ability to advance as a musician. 

    Jazz is intimidating at first; for me it's like standing on the edge of a limitless expanse that extends far beyond my sight. The musicians who play it seem superhuman in their virtuosity and mastery of their instruments. I see now that believing I could never achieve that level of playing I simply avoided trying.

F Minor 9th Double Flat 5th

F Minor 9th Double Flat 5th

    Simply put, jazz is adding one note to the traditional three note triads that compose the familiar chords of popular music. This changes the tone of the sound, making it slightly dissonant or complimentary to the others, and this complexity requires learning new hand positions and the muscle memory that goes with it, some of it pretty gymnastic. Gifted players have longer fingers that make this easier, but for normal  guys like me the stretches are awkward at first. With practice one's hands become accustomed, but it does take time. 

    One of ways to master these chords is through learning some of the many standards that use them, but another is to compose one's own. By applying what I'm learning to a composition I'm getting much more comfortable with some of the established conventions of jazz as well as making myself a platform to improvise melodies, which is the other part of jazz that's challenging and compelling. I'll be writing about these songs in a future post. One, "Mediterraine", is a song on one of my first recordings way back when, which was fun to update and rework with a more jazzy vibe. 

    My point of entry is a sub genre called "Smooth Jazz" which evolved as a more commercial alternative to the styles that frankly require a more educated ear to appreciate. Examples of this are songs by artists like George Benson ("Broadway") and Nora Jones ("Don't Know Why") that crossover to pop radio, and there are many others whose instrumentals define the genre. The other common element is typically a 4/4 rhythm percussion and bass line that propels the songs, rather than the more syncopated beats and time signatures of advanced jazz composition.

    I'm just beginning this journey; at this point I'm a tourist visiting the land of Miles and Bird, but I'm on a well worn path and excited to see what's just beyond my musical horizon. The six songs I'm working on will eventually be released as an EP, and in the meantime I'd just encourage anyone who feels that something is beyond their reach to make that stretch. You may discover, as I have, it's not as far as you might think.

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His latest record “Loveland” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms. Rick's latest, "Astronomy", will be released in early 2022.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY

    

Onstage II

Mick

It great to live in an area where there are many venues that have live music regularly. At a time when I might have been at loose ends I embarked on a path to master a song list and practice playing onstage, and it's become very engrossing and fulfilling. 

    In a way this is a logical progression. In Nashville I played occasionally at writer's nights, but mostly worked in the studio on projects for other artists. There are a lot of tourist bars downtown and the bands that played in them had A-list musicians and performers who were vying for the attention of the record labels. This was not something I aspired to, being more focused on songwriting and recording. Besides, the competition for those gigs was fierce and I was frankly intimidated by the amazing players who were in that scene. I did watch and learn, though, and that has served me well as I've found my own way to the stage. 

    One thing that became clear was that the best of the best could not only dazzle with their virtuosity, but that they also could entertain. Time after time what came through to me was that if a performer could connect with the listeners and project a sense of joy and fun, that was the key to success. I think this is what compels one to perform; to be able to communicate the pleasure they get from music to others. It sounds like a simple thing, and on a basic level it is, but on another it's quite a bit more complex and elusive.

    This month the Rolling Stones are on the road. Touring, even at the comfort level I'm sure they must enjoy, is grueling and yet there they are, in their 70s after a half century of performing and arguably the most successful rock band in history, still hitting the stage night after night. It's very lucrative, but it's difficult to believe they need the money at this point. Something else must be driving them and I think it's because they love doing it, even as they kick off "Honky Tonk Woman" for umpteenth time, and their ability to share that joy is what brings audiences.

    One more thing. As I make the effort to perfect my own performance, I'm heartened by seeing Mick and boys out there. My guess is that we share something fundamental about being onstage.

    It's extremely rare to have a flawless performance. Even when a piece is mastered there inevitably are glitches that occur, usually, hopefully, unnoticed by the casual listener, and in fact part of being accomplished is the ability to make a mistake and not let it disrupt the flow. Every musician walks offstage vowing to do better the next time, because one always can, and I'm betting that it's no different for the Stones than it is for me. 

Singer/Songwriter Rick Millward lived and worked on the West Coast until moving to Nashville in 2000. He was part of the Music City songwriter community, collaborating with other artists and producing over 30 projects in his boutique studio, including two EMMY nominated soundtracks. Now in Southern Oregon, Rick has discovered a vibrant local music scene centered around the many tasting rooms. 

His latest record “Loveland” is available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

LOVELAND ON SPOTIFY