ABOUT: The Long Answer
My earliest musical memory is of my brother playing his vinyl copy of The Beatles' “Abbey Road” LP every night at dinner time. For one year straight. After we’d finish eating I would go and lay on the carpet beside the big wooden stereo console cabinet, staring into the little orange light near the floor, just listening. I could feel the sounds coming from the speakers while the words conjured images in my little head. Magical.
This was followed on with several years of parentally enforced piano lessons, eventually to be abandoned for an electric guitar and buying as many records as possible instead. Later the inevitable, to me anyway, forming-a-band stage, writing songs and figuring out how to get them recorded. Then taking the whole thing on stage before an audience. Good times!
Fast forward through the years and I’m still really into music. And sound. Noises of all kinds really. So much so that I recently enrolled in a 2 year Music Technology Diploma program to upgrade my skills and learn some new ones. This has been really rewarding and I've met some great and talented friends.
One of the several musical worlds I inhabit is that of making music, sound design and almost anything you can think of for contemporary dance and theatre. Dance is particularly intriguing as almost anything goes. I’ve had the privilege of being commissioned by many wonderful choreographers who entrust me to interpret and support their art with my work. I love to create music/sound both for for my clients and collaborators and myself. So I always am open to hearing about any type of project, no matter how far out, or not, it may be. If I can help, great!
I’m also very interested in creating music / sound for film and TV. And recently I've been learning about applying my skills to video games, a new arena for me but also very cool.
The other world I'm always re-visiting is that of the singer-songwriter, mentioned above. Although I'm into many genres, I particularly enjoy writing pop-rock songs, often Beatlesque in style, yet with as much originality as possible. The focus is nearly always on melody, harmony vocals and classic song structure that at times is turned around or turned inside out. AM radio hits of the 70’s and 80’s also loom large in my orbit. I’ve also been in bands, The Roswells and The Tomorrows, made solo work, CD releases, videos and played lots of gigs.
I feel what I have to contribute has no boundaries really. If I’ve done it right and as best I can, and that is always where I’m aiming, good things happen. Music and sound is a form of magic. It is ephemeral and yet has such powerful effects and it goes on forever. I am very fortunate to be able to do what I do. We hear with our ears but it’s our heart that feels it. So if I had to sum up what I’m going for in 5 words? Music for the human heart.