More on... Ricky Donaldson

Musical start
Life started with my father teaching me how to play classical piano. Soon, and much to his disappointment, I developed the inevitable love for rock music, favouring the more intelligent stuff like Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd etc. This in turn took me into rock bands, playing around the country in the 1970s.

Recording Studio and Commissions
When music technology started to become affordable, I gave up all the live stuff and started to build my in-house studio as I had always loved composing. As this grew, I picked up commissions for a few BBC Radio 5, and World Service signature tunes and backgrounds etc. I even wrote and recorded music for most of the in-flight travelogues used by AIR2000 when they were around.

Intentions during the 1980s
Back in the 1980s, I had a great love for writing warm and mellow musical pieces that could maybe just draw the listener away from the stresses of life and warm their hearts a little. However in those days complementary therapies were in their infancy in Scotland and there was less demand for this kind of music.

Linking with a close friend and writing for the therapy market
In the mid-2000s, a close friend of mine had trained and qualified in the key disciplines of Holistic Therapy and had established an enviable client base working from her purpose-built facility in Ayrshire.

A chance meeting one evening prompted discussion about Lyn's success and my previously unwanted musical ideas and sparked a notion that led me back to my recording studio to try some ideas to suit the now growing demand for music in the therapy world.

The Aqueous project
In the Spring of 2008, 7 months of work in the studio drew to a close and a dozen or so tracks had been honed down to the best 7 and a preview 62-minute CD was circulated to a handful of local therapists for assessment.

The feedback from my chosen therapists was quite flattering!

So, over a year down the line, the AQUEOUS project has now been concluded, manufactured and packaged, awaiting it's fate in the commercial world. The 7 tracks run for just over 62 minutes so as to cover a typical one hour treatment uninterrupted.

Future plans
I still find myself quite bemused by the consistently positive feedback I have received up and down the country, and I'm now back in the studio developing the next set of musical atmospheres for a Spring 2010 release and after that there will be something more of a gentle, new age style collection with more in the way of ethnic/celtic melody, stepping away from the apparent restrictions of therapeutic treatment music.

Footnote on Live Performances
On the performance front, I occasionally do a few ad-hoc sessions in quiet pubs, and parties, etc with another acoustic guitarist and a few friends... just nice, quiet and effective music for listening to.