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This article first appeared in New Age Voice in Jan., 2000

Multi-instrumentalist
Millennium Man
Medwyn Goodall

by Carol Wright

Multi-instrumentalist Medwyn Goodall is one of the most prolific and successful of all New Age musicians. Since 1987, he has released twenty-five (and counting) albums on the New World label alone, with others distributed through Oreade.

Goodall studied guitar and played in rock bands in his teen years. After attending art college for a year, he ran a small recording studio, and finally turned to composing melodic tonepoems with goddess, nature, and earth-based spiritual themes.

From his rural home in Cornwall, with its state-of-the-art recording studio built into the nearby barn, the reclusive Goodall answered questions via email.
 

Carol:  You had a recording studio after the teen bands and art school.  There seems to be a gap between the rock scene and the earth-loving type of music you’ve been composing.
    Goodall: There is a three-year gap between my school band days, running a small commercial studio, and then the launch of my career. In this time, I got married and moved from the Yorkshire dales (where the local vet was author James Heriot) to the depths of rural Cornwall. It is like an ancient island, in many places unchanged for centuries; on the whole, it is twenty years behind the rest of the world.
    I've written music since the age of ten, but prior to living in Cornwall, it had all been song-based. My life and music became more spiritual and changed to instrumental work inspired by the sea, moors, and estuaries. The heritage and folklore of castles, standing stones, ley lines, giants, Druids, magicians, witches, and King Arthur simply add cream to the magical land that I feel part of. During that time gap in Cornwall, I continued to develop my own demos until finding a home with New World. [Photo of castle Copyright Cornishligh't.]

Carol:  How did you get to New World?
    Goodall: I turned left at London and got lost in Suffolk.

Carol:  Let me get out my map, then...
    Goodall: Very simply, I sent them a letter expressing that we seemed to share goals and asked if they'd like to hear my music. They responded, and I sent them four albums I had recorded in Cornwall. Before long we released Emergence.

Carol:  I'm told you can't read a note of music, but you must understand octaves, chords, progressions, keys, major/minor keys, and so many other elements to be able to make your music. What would you say that you DO know of music?
    Goodall: Although I can’t read or write music in notation form, I am quite familiar with most other musical structures, disciplines, forms, chords, scales, and so forth. I’m not a performer, as such, or a musician’s musician. I am far more a composer who performs his own music in his own way.

Carol:  You record much of your albums using live instruments.
    Goodall: Computers, MIDI, and all the technical wonders of a modern studio are a great, but I never want computers to dominate my music. I have kept 50% of my sound acoustic, performed in very few takes with little processing. I think you can hear a difference in my work; there’s an intimacy and warmth when you perform on a real instrument. Even if I have to use samplers, I strive to make it an emotional performance with a technique as close to the real instrument as possible.

Carol:  What instruments do you play? You aren't really trained on these instruments, right?
    Goodall: I have a rare gift to be able to pick up almost any instrument and within a very short start playing it. I can play piano, electric guitars, fretless bass, lute, folk guitars, autoharp, panpipes, classical flute, South American wood flute, mandolin, dulcimer, Celtic harp, bouzouki, marimba, glockenspiel, drum kit, and ethnic drums and percussion instruments from all over the world.

Carol:  I heard you don't listen to others' albums. How do you research the world music elements?
    Goodall: Yes, it's true. I don’t listen to other music at all. So, how do I find out about world music? Although it sounds mad, musically I don’t. If I want a cultural influence on a project, I’ll research all the teachings, philosophy, and mythology of the culture, and then make my own musical interpretation. I have 100% confidence and trust in my own intuition. I think musical knowledge goes beyond this lifetime; I feel I am simply drawing upon past-life experience and that is why I can instinctively pick up an instrument and know how to play it in the same way as a native from that culture. A part of me already knows, therefore I don’t need to educate myself in that way.

Carol:  What's your studio like?
    Goodall:  My studio is a converted outbuilding next to my home. It is a single large room that, if not for the equipment, would look like a 300-year-old barn with large oak beams. The studio has no windows, but has hidden lighting; I can give the room many different moods by putting different colors across the back wall, green highlighted plants, and so forth. Or I can work in evening light or fully lit. Once the studio door is closed, I am lost in an environment that can produce or enhance an atmosphere that opens one’s imagination.
    The studio equipment includes a mastering section, mixing desk, digital recorders, a stack of synth modules, signal processors, computer area, sampling area, and performance microphone – all organized within reasonable reach since I am alone. Whilst the studio equipment consists of most of the technical wonders of the age and looks like a personal space craft, there is an entire wall covered with all my acoustic instruments, the likes of which have not changed in design for centuries.

Carol:  If you could play just one acoustic instrument, it would be...?
    Goodall: Without any doubt, a nylon stringed guitar, the instrument I learnt first. It is like a dear friend.

Carol:  What group or musician in history would you have most wanted to play with?
    Goodall: A very difficult choice to select only one, but I think I’ll surprise everyone by saying Mozart. The man was an absolute genius, and just to share a thirty-minute conversation with him about composition could be mind boggling.

Carol:  Who were your "living" guitar idols and band influences?
    Goodall: Three guitar heroes influenced my music. Mark Knophler of Dire Straits impressed me with his sensitive yet dramatic performances on such tracks as “Private Investigations" and "Brothers in Arms.” Mike Oldfield influenced me by demonstrating that you can play an overdriven rock guitar in a very melodic sustained way. Lastly, I admire Paul Simon’s folk style, which has such simple and intimate grace. I was influenced by a host of bands whilst in my teens in the late 1970s.
    The artist who inspired me most was Mike Oldfield. His Tubular Bells entirely blew me away. Here was an instrumental album by a true soloist performing everything himself. I was also influenced by Genesis, Supertramp, Vangelis, Yes, and Pink Floyd. They all had this fantastic, mystical element and charisma. They could tell a tale or create a vision and atmosphere that was quite unique. The Beatles and ELO were influences in that they were masters of great melody, which I is a main aspect of my own music.
    Therefore, from these artists, I chose to be a solo instrumentalist and I arrived at a melodic style that was improvised, written, crafted, and mystical. Millennium is my own acknowledgement of the artists that originally influenced me. I allowed my influences to breathe on the album in a way that I have wanted to for some time.

Carol:  Apart from the timing, what makes this album "millennial"?
    Goodall: I am a very positive person, and so my music usually has this "feel good" factor, a message of hope and a sense of celebration and a yearning for a better tomorrow. 

Carol:  Do you collaborate with anyone on music? Play live concerts?
    Goodall: Musically I don’t collaborate with anyone, nor am I interested in performing live. I prefer to be self-contained, and if I can’t do something, generally I don’t do it rather than call in someone who can. I do, however, enjoy bouncing ideas off friends and with key members of New World. I recently invited Llewellyn and Juliana to sing on my albums Comet and the forthcoming Clan 2: The Scroll, the first time other artists have appeared on my albums.

Carol:  If you could clone yourself to play all the instruments at the same time, but by yourself, would you?
    Goodall: No, I wouldn’t clone myself into my own band; we’d just fight over the chocolate!

Carol:  What people are in your life right now?
    Goodall: My parents are nearby, and my wife and cats are with me every day around the home, which is but three feet from my studio. My close friends are New World artists like Llewellyn and his wife Juliana (who were both guests on my recent Comet album) and Phil Nind.

Carol:  From your photo, your clothing looks like a religious outfit. One might assume you were a Druid or a monk.
    Goodall: In Cornwall, Celtic jewelry and Celtic-designed garments are not unusual in the least, and the photograph you refer to was taken in winter where I wrapped a Celtic shawl around myself. It certainly wasn’t a religious outfit; I am not a Druid nor part of any group or sect.

Carol:  What was your first spiritual experience?
    Goodall: I was becoming very interested in the notion of life-after-death, reincarnation, and past lives when I researched the Druid album.
    My own spiritual beliefs boil down to the belief that the Earth is alive and that we should take responsibility for caring for the Earth as a living system. I also believe in karma and life after death, that death is but the transition from one dimensional existence to another. Worlds, space, time, spirit, and all life are but particles of matter and thought vibrating at certain frequencies. I think there’s a potential lecture here, so I’ll quit whilst I’m ahead.

Carol:  Is the feminine more important to you than the masculine?
    Goodall: More important no, but very important yes. It’s very obvious to anyone who has their head screwed on properly that women have been devalued by civilizations for too long.
The feminine provides intuition, empathy, sympathy, healing, and forgiveness – many values we desperately need to restore. But in so doing I would hate to see a pendulum swing to where masculine energy is undermined. We need balance and equality – emotionally, spiritually – as a species. A lot of my albums express these themes.

Carol:  Does New World suggest the concept for an album?
    Goodall: New World is very supportive and allows me all the space I need to create. Although it’s interesting to watch the market place, I usually work intuitively and have always found myself blessed with being in sync or ahead of what the market wants.

Carol:  What inspires your music?
    Goodall: Inspiration, melody, and album concepts have come to me in many different ways, from waking up at 4 am with the sound of an entire album in my head and scrambling to the studio before I forget it, to happily improvising on an instrument and suddenly something unexpected happens. New instruments and sounds often trigger me into creative mode.

Carol:  What piece of equipment do you wish the music industry would invent?
    Goodall: I'd like a direct link from thought/brain to computer recorder. Often my creative mind works faster than my ability to get all the ideas down. Just place some little headband on my forehead and away I'd go.

Carol:  What else would you want the world to know?
    Goodall: I have always been an adventurous artist exploring new styles and themes and future plans are no exception. Millennium and Comet are both very new directions for me, Millennium being a new rock-edged inspired sound, whilst Comet has to be the most atmospheric album I have ever produced; a fusion of orchestral and the very latest in space-synth technology. There  will still be the occasional sequel that matures themes I have enjoyed in the past, but I'm mainly interested in pushing my music to new standards.
    I would like to thank all my loyal fans and retailers around the world who very often send me such touching letters. It has been very rewarding watching Medicine Woman 2 follow the original in becoming an enormous success. Thank you.

Medwyn Goodall's website.
 

copyright 1999, Carol Wright