Just in time for Christmas: Gift Sponsorship Subscriptions

Some time ago, someone I know from Twitter got in touch to ask if she could purchase a gift subscription -- and if so, would there be something to unwrap? The answer was yes; in due course, I made a sponsorship subscription card and it's currently with her, waiting to be unwrapped. It says: Hurrah! Someone lovely has given us both a gift by sponsoring me at the Crotchet level on your behalf! I...

Patreon Shenanigans

Patreon is changing their fee structure to one in which patrons pay more than the amount of their pledge, and creators get a lower percentage of what patrons actually pay. Lots of people are upset about this, and rightly so. I've had misgivings about Patreon for a while: the way they keep trying to encourage people to have walled gardens (yuck); the way they prioritize shiny tools for very...

November Patron Drive

I've commissioned this lovely piece of artwork from Arkady Rose: All new supporters at my Patreon page during the month of November will get a copy of this in postcard format (unless you don't give me your address, obviously). Further, patrons at the $5 level will be sent a new postcard quarterly, and at $10 and $15 will be sent multiple copies -- one with a message for you, and one or more to...

Patreon — a sort of milestone

I've had a couple of new patrons over on Patreon this week. Hurrah! Hurray! Why is having 19 patrons a milestone? Well, after Patreon's fee, and banking fees, and exchange rates, I've just gone over the £100 per new piece mark. I'm making some modifications to the page there: adding pictures to some of the rewards, changing the video from the demo of "Christ has no body now on earth but ours" to...

Patreon, one year on

It's a little over a year since I first set up a page on Patreon, with a view to getting paid for some of my composing. I've been promising to write a post about my experiences, and I'm finding the "what" and the "why" aren't easy to consider separately. But I'll have a go at discussing the "what" in this post, and the "why" in the next. Patreon is a platform for distributed, or crowd-funded,...

Passing Notes 2014-08

The August 2014 edition of Passing Notes is online. The idea of this newsletter is that people who don't want to subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter, but do want to be informed of musical developments, can subscribe. Roughly once a month you'll get a sort of link soup with current projects, things I've released in the past month, plans for the next month, and some stuff I like. I might...

Passing Notes 2014-07

I am delighted to announce the publication of the second edition of my monthly newsletter, Passing Notes. You can read it online or subscribe to future editions. The content is eclectic: news about what I have been up to, what I'm going to be up to next, things I like and so on. This edition contains details of first non-music "day job" I've had in about a decade, various musical goings-on, and...

Passing Notes

A while ago I mentioned the possibility of starting a monthly-ish newsletter or mailing list. Only five of you have signed up, but I'm pleased to announce the first edition of Passing Notes is live! If you haven't signed up you can also read it here, and subscribe if you like. The idea is that for those of you not in the habit of checking this blog or following me on twitter, it's a way to keep...

How I write songs

This is a description of how I go about composing choral works. I sometimes skip steps, sometimes take a lot longer over one step than other times. And of course, this is only what I do -- others may have very different approaches. 1) Choose a text. Nowadays this is a bit easier than it was when I was a teenager; there is an entire internet out there including many websites with poetry and quotes...