| Friday, January 5, 2001 | Copyright 2000 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. |
Cover Story from CentralMaine.com
By LUCKY CLARK
WATERVILLE - Floyd B. White is a man who is absorbed in music. For more than 20 years he has been a professional musician playing drums and guitars. He's also been in a local cover band and is the owner-engineer of Cavern Recording Studio.
Recently, White did something he has wanted to do for a long time - release a CD of his own music titled, appropriately enough, "The Wonder." It is an album of nine impressive instrumental tunes that transcend genres.
In a telephone interview from his High Street home, White described the music he created for this debut CD as "Adult Contemporary Instrumental."
"Calling it New Age doesn't quite work, and calling it rock 'n' roll obviously doesn't quite work, and calling it jazz doesn't quite work. It's kind of got a flavor of all of those," he explained.
Those influences come from years of playing and listening to a lot of different music and putting as many ideas as he could in his music.
"It's hard to think about it," he said, "just because I come up with the stuff. I've listened to enough material to know what I think is trite or what is commonplace and it's always very important for me not to go there. I want to make it as different as I can from other stuff that's out there."
And that's different in a good way, the musician-producer added, not just a weird way.
"To me," he said with a laugh, "there's a difference between 'weird' and 'different' that's still hopefully got quality to it - a quality of creativity."
And one of the most fascinating qualities of "The Wonder" is the use of musical textures - a wide range of styles and rhythms that make a very listenable instrumental collection of melodies.
"Some of the ideas have been around in my head for a long time (and) I just had to put down. Some of the tunes were thought of for lyrics but I never really came up with lyrics so I just worked the melodies into instrumentals and went that direction."
He's been a songwriter for a long time, and before this CD he would always put lyrics to almost everything he wrote, so an instrumental project was definitely a change of pace.
"It was a lot of hard work but it was very enjoyable. I felt like it was going in kind of a neat direction, and as I started working the project one idea lead to another idea." he said.
In his experience the process is the more you record, the more ideas you have and thus the performance level rises. You feel better about what you're playing.
"You learn," he declared, "it's the best learning tool there is, musically.
"And having a recording studio is an artifact of wanting to be creative," he said. "One hand has fed the other for many years. I started recording a long time ago for my own stuff and I just kept at it."
For "The Wonder", White used a recording format that has served him well.
He began the recording process by setting up a rhythm guitar "skeleton." Next is the percussion tracks, then the original skeleton is "scratched" and he puts a "real" one down. White builds up the parts until there is enough of a foundation upon which a solo or a melody is placed.
"Then we go from there," White said, "and as the album revealed, I had a lot of good people playing on the album and they did a wonderful job. And everything that is not noted is the stuff that I did."
That "stuff" includes all lead and rhythm guitar work, all bass tracks, nearly all the drum tracks and some of the keyboard work.
His "special guests" include such area musicians as Peter Re Jr. and Colby College instrumental instructors Mary Jo Carlsen and Eric Thomas.
There are appearances by Harry Vayo (hammered dulcimer), Dick Hamil (Roland Juno 106), Bruce McDougal (flute), Janice Erickson (djembe), Terry White (acoustic finger-style guitar), and Lance Burpee (drums on one track).
White's concern is to get "The Wonder" enough places so that the first printing sells out.
"Once that's sold, then I can make some decisions about reprinting and in the meantime my wife is doing a lot of work trying to market the album nationally, even internationally. We've just started that, so it all falls into the mix."
Get It!
Floyd B. White's album, "The Wonder," $10, is available at:
| Head to the Cavern Recording Homepage. | Check out The Wonder |