“Deer in the Dawn“ by Marcel Dominic (Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar)

The inspiration for the title of this song is multifaceted. The elegantly illustrated book called “A first book of nature” by Nicola Davies, which I have read to my boys countless times, has two pages dedicated to this magical meeting. A child happens upon a deer on a misty morning, and the beauty and ephemerality of this encounter make this dream-like moment, a special one. One, which captures the metaphor I am trying to convey with this song. I would describe a “Deer in the Dawn moment” as a moment that could potentially be any given moment, however, it couldn’t possibly be every moment. We can partially influence our coming across such a moment by creating opportunities, and by being attentive and perceptive. This is a reminder to myself to try my best to be there, present in the moment, and to be open minded towards the daily routine, as well as change and new things - for I learned how quickly good times can slip through my fingers. As per usual, when I do these videos, I woke up before 5 AM to go outside and shoot it. I was prepared, I thought. It was a bright day as you can see. A crisp spring morning in May with blue skies and a couple of clouds here and there. I had packed everything I needed. I learned my song to be able to play it effortlessly and I had enough time on my hands to get everything done. So, you would guess that everything went perfectly fine, right? It turns out that not only was it a crisp morning, but with 7°C, (which is about 44°F. ) it was uncomfortably cold. In order to be playing comfortably I require around double that (in Celsius mind you). I’m not someone that freezes easily, and I feel drawn to Scandinavia rather than the south, but for playing guitar this setting is not for me. It takes me about one to two hours to complete a video shoot like this one (including setup, disassembly and a couple of additional nature shots). By the time I was finished, my toes were freezing, and my hands were shaking. Ice cold. I can only hope the video looks much better than it felt making it, as it certainly took a lot of effort to play the parts that I could otherwise play oh so effortlessly in the warmth and comfort of home. There were points where I was at the brink of giving up for that day. Luckily I didn’t. Before I’ve even finished writing this song I had already had sort of a daydream about the shooting day for this music video. I would imagine a deer appearing in the background of the video while I was playing the song. Well, it didn’t actually come to pass this exact way…but it got pretty close. When I finished recording the last take and could tell that I got everything I needed, I felt this unspeakable itch or premonition to turn around. Like the aura you feel when you know that someone is standing behind you. What do you know? It was the deer you can see in the ending of the video as I even managed to capture a couple of seconds of film. First, I told myself that I simply had to enjoy this moment. After this rather bad video shooting, I was given that great final moment in the forest? That was certainly worth it. When a few seconds had passed though I thought, ’maybe I’ll try and reach for my phone?’. Possibly I could film her standing there on the path? ’No’, I thought. ’When I turn around again, she will be gone’. But that wasn’t the case. I got a couple of seconds of footage. But thought again: ‘What if I were to try and reach for the tripod and do an even smoother shot?’. ‘No’, I thought again ‘..when I turned around again, she will be gone, definitely this time’. But that wasn’t the case. Obviously the final cut is somewhat cinematic, but as you can see the deer was actually there that day of the shooting. I could not possibly manufacture this. And so, I am very lucky and excited to finally share with you my new song and video for “Deer in the Dawn” today. It is the first song I have written on my new Lowden O25c. Like “Mountain Trail“ and “Sapling“ I wrote it somewhere between February and April 2023. Stay perceptive and don’t let the “Deer in the Dawn moments” escape you, before you’ve held them close for a while… Hope you enjoy. The intro was inspired by Daniel Padim (SfaK) and Trevor Gordon Hall (TBC), Calum Graham’s tuning for Waiting, then a little Andy McKee, and probably some Scale the Summit essence in there. - - - - - - - ⏬🎵 Download song here: 🎼 Tabs? Write me an email - [at] ©️Music - written, recorded, mixed, mastered and performed by Marcel Dominic () Video - footage shot and edited by Marcel Dominic 🎧 Marcel Dominic’s Music on Bandcamp 📸 Marcel Dominic’s Photos on Pixabay 💸 Donate & support my work and future endeavors on this channel here: 1. 2.