Oh my, how the time has flown by.  I wrote a line in The King's Shilling, "Time seems to move slower the older I become" but I fear it's a vain hope - time seems to just run faster.    The computer is certainly an invaluable tool but the virtual paperwork seems endless.  Answering e-mails, phone calls, packaging CDs to send out, the list goes on.  Sometimes I wonder how I ever find time to play.  Nevertheless, we have been making progress in this glamourous life of an independent musician.

Wires Rosewood & Roots has been doing extremely well.  It has been receiving high praise from reviewers (which you can read on the Reviews page of my website) and getting radio play in such far flung places as Barcelona, Bucharest, Reinwoude, Holland, and on numerous stations in the US and Canada.

Wires has been on the Zone Music Reporter Top 20 chart for four months now.   ZMR is like Billboard for New Age and Instrumental music.  We debuted at Number 3 in March, moved up to Number 2 in April and hit Number 1 in May.  When you're Number 1, the only place you can go is down and we lost the top spot in June but just getting there is quite an achievement.

Of course, a project of this nature is not a solo effort and many thanks are due to the musicians who played on the CD - Kev Corbett, David Findlay and Alyssa Wright.  David Findlay also produced the album, engineered, mixed and mastered it.  Paul Mills did the album cover graphic design, using fabulous photographs by Christian Stalley.   Radio and Media Promotion is by Ed and Stacey Bonk at Lazz Promotions.

The next step in the process is retail distribution and we've just started the campaign to put Wires into record shops.  We've been contacting retailers in the US and have established a distributor for the CDs.  The records should start appearing in stores in the next couple of weeks, so if you've been listening on the radio and want a copy of the CD, you should be able to find it.  In the tradition of independent business supporting each other, many of the record shops are independents and we encourage you to support your local retailer.  As always you can still buy all my music on-line at bobardern.ca

Another project I'm working on is producing print versions of the instrumentals on Wires.  It's easy to spot the guitar players in the audience when I'm out playing live.  They don't make eye contact because they're studiously watching my hands.  We're still in the exploratory phase but I've connected with a guitar transcription guru and we're going to work on a couple of pieces to see how it goes.  Part of the plan is to be able to give workshops and teach other guitarists how the music is put together and how I play it so that you can learn to play it yourself.  You'll be able to take the transcriptions home after the workshop and have the music laid out in print form along with the recorded version on the CD.

The good news is that despite all the calls on my time, I am finding space in the day for new compositions.  There are four new pieces in various stages of completion.  One is pretty much in the can although I want to explore some options for looping it.  One is almost ready to record the basic guitar part and then think about other instrumentation.  One is structurally sound but still needs a little more meat on the bones.  The last one has a working title and a general sense of where it's going but is still some way from completion.

So that's the thumbnail sketch of what's been happening in the Lunenburg headquarters.  Now I'd better get back to the grind, shooting test videos for the guitar transcription project.

Cheers, Bob.