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...

Art is not a democracy.

A friend and I have been e-mailing back and forth about some issues at her church -- the usual sort of thing, some members of the congregation being unhappy with the style of music chosen by the organist, others being unhappy about it in the other direction, trying to keep everyone happy. Harsh words have been exchanged, and the organist has been accused of undermining the church by "driving...

Work in Progress: Song of Easter

This was my contribution to the Online Praise service for Easter Day earlier today. You can view the whole service here. I didn't have time this week to do a lot with it, so just recorded the melody line; I have plans to expand on this, though I'm not sure yet whether to SATB or to S(A)-organ. There is plenty of more urgent work in the queue now so it will have to wait, but here is a taste,...

Mailing list

Thanks to MailChimp, I now have a newsletter! Roughly once each month there is a new edition of Passing Notes, with details of my various musical adventures, new compositions, and things I like. If you're interested in receiving such e-mails, please do sign up below. You can, of course, opt-out any time you like. Subscribe to Passing Notes * indicates required Email Address * First Name Last...

Music and Livelihood

I am not going to be able to work as a performer for the rest of my life. There are a number of reasons for this, and none of them are up for discussion in this post, but my current strategy is not working and is unsustainable. However, I am a musician through and through: when I am not making music I am pretty miserable. So I've been thinking lately about how to make a living as a musician,...

Placeholder and Plans

I was going to post a choral anthem for a competition today, but I've realised judging hasn't happened yet. I don't want to accidentally disqualify myself by compromising anonymity, so you'll have to wait a little longer. I am hoping to have more compositions and arrangements to post this year. As an experiment, I am planning to spend ten hours per week composing, starting on 7th January. There...

Post AcWriMo analysis

At the beginning of November I set out to write and harmonise thirty hymn tunes in thirty days. The idea was that I would, at the end of November, have a body of work to point to, and also that I would brush up my rusty harmonisation skills. I was behind on this almost from the beginning. Other considerations, like getting the music ready for Carols by Candlelight at St Andrew's, and sorting out...

#AcWriMo for a church musician

I'm not doing a PhD (yet), but over at PhD2Published it's that time of year again. AcWriMo is a sort of motivational gimmick whereby a group of people decide that in November they're going to get a lot of writing done, and then offer one another lots of moral support. My own take on this will be hymn tunes. I love writing them, and really enjoyed the ones I did for the hymnathon videos, but my...

A call for words…

So, I wrote some words last night, rather too many in fact, about my interpretation of various Church of England stuff. That post has received over three hundred hits, more than all my posts on organ fundraising combined. I joked about this on Twitter, asking if I could make the organ fundraising more controversial... ...and someone remarked I could only do that if I were the wife of the Dean of...

One thing leads to another…

Today has been one of those bitty days when I can't quite settle to anything. A twitter chum of mine had a comedy exchange with a twitter chum of his, which resulted in this: While dead in sin and error’s way, My soul was troubled greatly. My grief o’ertook me night and day, Pain was all I did see. The light of the Gospel grace did shine, My darkened soul arose. Made anew, Baptized, too, By...