• Day Two

    Day two is over – and perhaps a little early but my hands are “drunk on notes”, to quote a fellow participant. The class only lasted the morning today and it was good to hear more from those tackling some really big works and also get the first movement – albeit an excerpt – of…

  • Getting down to practice

    Well day one on the Kenneth van Barthold Piano Course – held in Edinburgh – is over. A fascinating day of first performances by all of us undertaking the three weeks of sessions with Kenneth and his assistant Nicholas Pope. There is plenty of variety of repertoire and having multiple copies of the music was…

  • It need not be fleeting

    The Henley report emphasised the value and importance of music making as a practical skill and how much this can enrich and aid the development of young people’s lives. What was lacking from the comprehensive survey was a detailed acknowledgement of the class music lessons themselves. How important is Western Art Music in the teaching…

  • ConTENT with CONtent?

    Result day looms. I’m sure I’m not alone as a teacher in preparing to receive the news of my pupils’ performance. Contemplating results day in turn leads to thoughts of the new term ahead and the various performances and the schemes of work I’ll be teaching. I genuinely enjoy looking back on the previous year…

  • Composers in shackles?

    “A composer’s creation might seem like the embodiment of freedom: the author can call forth anything he wants from out of nowhere, give it the form he desires, think up a continuation for it which suits him, and finally, when he thinks the time is right, complete the piece’s development. Unlike, say, an architect, a…

  • Listening to expectations

    Yet another Twitter discussion has inspired me to contemplate on a particular musical issue. Listening. I revel in the fact that music exists in the fourth dimension – how the first lecture of my degree started – and music is the manipulation of this dimension. Music orders sounds over a period of time and we…

  • London Road to Juniper Street

    It’s been a long few days writing songs for my musical theatre work. I’m starting to get a sense of it’s bigger shape but there is still some way to go. Initially I was fearful of what musical language I might use and I craved some kind of model for the work I would write.…

  • Three plays in two days

    I enjoy being part of the National Theatre’s Young Patron scheme as there are regular emails to alert me to events that I might miss otherwise out of ignorance. I was really pleased to attend the second Double Feature in the Paintframe this week and see two very different yet intriguing plays. ‘Nightwatchman’ was a…

  • The Fall

    Mulholland Drive was one of the first movies I saw that intrigued me. Of course that’s because my experience of cinema is limited, and I am increasingly aware there is a wealth of interesting film that I am yet to discover. I hadn’t contemplated before the Lynch movie that what I was seeing – for…

  • The art of suffering

    It is a real testament to Amy Winehouse’s impact that reportedly 20 million tweets were sent about her untimely death. Her personal struggles undoubtedly colour one’s appreciation of her music and it seems fitting that she will be subsequently canonised as a great artist. It scares me a little that artistic endeavour might depend on…