The experience I have gained from over thirty years’ experience and shared, via the widely-read articles on this site, have been collected together, expanded and updated in the form of my book Teaching Young Instrumentalists: Engagement and Motivation in Group Instrumental Teaching Group teaching is not a second-rate option – it’s a holistic method that…
Let me start by telling you a story… When I was a lad of about 11, I played in a local brass band. I was something of a novice which meant that, with relatively rudimentary sight-reading skills, ‘keeping up’ was a real challenge – the notes just seemed to fly past! The conductor’s and older…
There has been much debate recently regarding an article that appeared in The Guardian on March 27th bemoaning the ever-diminishing provision and status of music education in the UK: a valid subject, well worth any number of column inches, given the decline in school music provision not “since 2010, when the baccalaureate was introduced” as…
Pythagoras and the Music of the Future is a series of articles in which I discuss, in accessible terms, I hope, the central influence that the harmonic series has had on the development of western music since the Middle Ages. I look closely at the connection between the harmonic series and the conventions of the musical…
Klee Connections for Piano was composed in February 2013. It works by connections being formed between superimposed variants of very simple rhythmic and harmonic series. Some of these connections are made by the composer – using them as a means of developing basic material – and by the listener who may well perceive patterns that…
In essence, ‘No!’ The works we know as the classics, the work of composers such as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and others beloved of so many, and the ‘difficult’ music of Schoenberg, Webern, Stockhausen, Boulez, the source of bewilderment for just as many, in fact, share a clear common heritage.
It’s a relief finally to be able to post the next article in my series about the relationship between musical structures and the harmonic series. It’s a relief because my crowded schedule, which included writing a new (now finished) piece for solo piano, meant that I could only work on it sporadically. However, it’s done…
It shouldn’t be too long before I can post my next article in the series ‘Pythagoras and the Music of the Future’. It has taken me some time partly because I have made a start on ‘digitising’ some of my earlier compositions to enable sharing. The first fruits of this will appear in my next post introducing…
I am just about ready to introduce the first in a projected series of articles discussing, in accessible terms I hope, the influence that the harmonic series has had on musical development since the Middle Ages. I will be discussing not only the connection between the harmonic series and timbre (the obvious one), but also…
This is my way of sharing ideas about contemporary music (which for this purpose, means ‘classical’ music of the 20th & 21st centuries) and about preparing the next generation of musicians. When talking about the next generation I mean ‘musicians’ very much with a ‘small m’, because one of the things I feel very strongly…
