Cohesion

Earlier in the year I shared some thoughts on structure. Structures still worry me. They’re possibly one of the areas I spend the most time worrying about, although ironically they’re often one of the areas of my compositions that just seem to fall into place. We worry about how we’ll Read more…

Like? Dislike?

Last week, in his Telegraph blog, Michael White discussed the music that bores us. This month’s BBC Music Magazine asks critics which classical works bore them into submission, and Michael White suggests there are some “surprising” answers. Why are there surprising answers? If someone doesn’t like Vivaldi’s Gloria (one of Read more…

The short score- help or hindrance?

Apologies for the brief interlude in blogging – I’ve been moving house, acquiring kittens, alongside a hectic teaching schedule! There have been quite a few articles flying around that I want to comment on here, which I will do in the coming days. However, long before we started moving, I Read more…

Our attachment to old (sacred?) faithfuls

As artists, the world is our oyster. We can do anything, experiment with microtones, polytonality, multiphonics and manipulate sound to any extreme with electronics. The same can be said of structure – recent works of mine have experimented with semi-structured concepts and cycles, and there are countless forms of structure Read more…

The problem of artistic style

Any artists emerging in the world today have a bit of an issue to confront. In the past, there were so many taboo areas of art (be it visual, theatre or music), that they had boundaries to break, which is what they did. However, today’s artists aren’t presented with such Read more…

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