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Hi-fi or low expectations?

I listened to music as a teenager on a tiny record player which crunched the sound and where a drum roll sounded like damaged vinyl. Yet it gave me hours of listening pleasure. And in the evenings I went down to the local and put my 10p in the jukebox. That gave the music a completely different dynamic. My ambition was to treat myself to a proper hifi system – record deck, amplifier, speakers. I achieved it during a summer holiday where I worked days and nights. Forty-five years on and I’ve continued to upgrade, lucky enough to have the space to accommodate a reasonably sophisticated set up and thick enough walls not to disturb the neighbours.  But there are no set rules and I’m no snob when it comes to how people choose to listen to music. Yet all is not well.

Some songs are just meant to be heard on a jukebox…

‘Alexa, play music.’ The words that strike fear into me. Convenient, very clever and with an almost infinite supply of songs, the music invariably squawks out of a speaker that would have made my tiny record player sound like the organ at the Royal Albert Hall at full tilt. Tinny hardly covers it. And often twittering away in the background. Or the ear buds playing over the sound of a rattling tube train.  And everywhere you go, playing away almost inaudibly in the background in shops, hotels and restaurants. Yet the musicians will have spent maybe hundreds of hours perfecting the sound, mixing and completing it with the best loudspeakers money can buy. For what?

Sound has been downgraded in almost every walk of life. Televisions have been flattened at the expense of any kind or respectable audio system. Streamed and downloaded music is compressed to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed. And the trend towards miniaturisation deprives good quality sound of the one thing it needs most – space to breath.

What’s most worrying is that this is now the norm. Fewer people aspire to decent audio systems as I did, and when they do it’s invariably to rattle the walls with home cinema systems.

What’s the solution? There isn’t one. I just hope producers and artists continue to believe in quality and keep production standards up. Or my listening pleasure’s done for!

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Richard’s new novel ‘Homeward Bound’ – about dreams, choices and rock’n’roll – is available from local bookshops, Waterstones and Amazon online.

Three questions about music

“I’m now going to play some songs from my new album.”

It’s the expression that strikes fear into every concert-goer.  We want the hits, the songs we know. Why do they do it? Why do we go?

Why do people go to gigs and then spend half the time talking or at the bar?

Why do musicians spend months recording, using the best facilities, mixing on giant studio speakers, only for people to listen on a squawking Alexa speaker or on ear buds as background noise to the sound of a train?

These and other issues will be my blog for the days leading up to publication of my novel, Homeward Bound, about two people divided by time and music.

Why ‘Homeward Bound’?

With just a couple of weeks until it’s officially published, people are asking me what’s with the title, Homeward Bound? The answer is in the book, but for a few clues, the first chapter opens with seventy-nine-year-old George reluctantly being given a tour of prospective nursing homes by his daughter and son-in-law. And he’s not happy about it. At all!

And, of course, there’s a song, Homeward Bound, sung by Simon and Garfunkel. It’s one of the records George’s nineteen-year-old granddaughter, Tara, discovers in his music room, and its discovery leads to a mystery.

Music plays a big part in both George’s and Tara’s lives – as it does in the novel. If you’re not familiar with the song, you can hear a recent-ish live performance by Paul Simon on youtube. There will also be a Spotify playlist of all the songs mentioned in the book nearer to publication.

The cover is unveiled

This is how the cover will look. I just stared into my local bookshop’s window and looked at the fancy artwork and brightly coloured sleeves of other people’s hardbacks and special editions… and crossed my fingers that this simple design will stand a chance of getting noticed. Odd how months and months (then add a few!) of work suddenly boil down to worrying about graphics.

Anyway, please feel free to spread the image. And I hope you like the blurb. Every time I’m asked to summarise what the book’s about, I come up with a new approach – the one on the book cover is quite different from the publisher’s original ‘Advance Information’. I’ve refined it somewhat by necessity. If I’m asked to describe it face-to-face by anyone, I find I’m mentally sub editing as I speak while watching their expression change from interest to indifference! It’s a bit like answering ‘How are you?’ with a full description of your sinus infection, tendonitis, cough that won’t go and bunion (or whatever!). I’m still searching for a perfect, “I’m fine, how are you?” response.

By the way, I’m fine – how are you?

Counting down the days to publication

Scary as it is, the time for changes to my novel has passed. Each night I think of something new to add or how my characters might react differently in conversations and situations they are confronted by. Too late! The manuscript has been proofread and it’s off to the printers. Bookshops have been sent advance information for them to get excited about (or most likely, to ignore under the heavy weight of other stuff to read and deal with). So it’s all now down to marketing, good luck and hopefully, favourable responses.

There are still decisions to be made on whether international versions or e-books are a good idea. At the moment, it’s print only.

I’ll post up the cover in a few days. In the meantime, the marketing puff is on this site (‘Information for booksellers’). I hope it sounds promising to you!