I go to quite a lot of concerts given by amateur musicians - partly because there's a big amateur music scene in the city where I live, and partly because I often have friends and neighbours playing in the concerts. Of course my particular interest is piano. It dawned...
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The other day when I was a little early for a meeting I climbed the steps to the Old Calton Burial Ground (see photo) to go and look at the monument to the philosopher David Hume. It's a kind of empty stone cylinder into which the sunlight shines, and is always...
I'm enjoying the lull between major sports events - the Euros Football Tournament and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships just passed, and the Olympics which start in Paris at the end of the coming week. I got quite engrossed in both the tennis and the football,...
I'm down in Dorset for the annual music festival of the Gaudier Ensemble in Cerne Abbas. Last night I finished my rehearsals in time to join a crowd of people walking from the centre of the village and up the hill where the famous Cerne Abbas Giant is depicted. On top...
In this part of London it rained heavily during most of Sunday, the big day of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Weekend. I can't imagine what happened to all the street parties. What strange weather we're having! A week ago it was glorious; we sat in the garden late into...
For weeks I've been watching the development of buds on our roses. The buds started to open last week, but the sudden burst of hot weather seems to have accelerated everything. The buds open in the morning, are full-blown by the middle of the day, and by the evening...
A very interesting discussion the other day at an event organised by the Worshipful Company of Musicians to find out whether young musicians feel they're getting enough career advice. Many young musicians said sadly that in music the bar is set very high for...
Last night my TV recorder failed to record the Final of BBC Young Musician. I had been so looking forward to it and was crushed to find that I couldn't watch it when I got home from a coaching session. BBC iPlayer tantalised me with 'Coming Soon', but didn't say when....
Suddenly lots of baby birds have appeared in the nests we've been watching for weeks on our local pond. A few days ago, everything was still quiet as the mother birds sat on their nests. Now there are six gorgeous cygnets on the lake, and three baby coots in their...
Through a fog of jet-lag I nevertheless enjoyed watching the finals of the Piano and String categories in BBC Young Musician 2012. The level of technical mastery in these young players is quite astonishing. I'm constantly amazed at how they manage to combine...
This blog is taking an Easter break while I go to Cuba with my daughter, leaving Bob peacefully at home to write his book on orchestral music. Oh yes, I agree: it's hard to imagine me in Cuba, even for me. I'm a bit scared of the tropical mosquitoes, but I'm...
More depressing reports about Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart being used to deter gangs of young people from hanging around at bus stations and the like. Once again it's not clear what is really being said about classical music. On the one hand, transport bosses say...
Last night we saw 'Once upon a time in Anatolia', Nuri Bilge Ceylan's haunting film which won the Grand Prix at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Reviews and viewers' comments had suggested it was either a masterpiece or a shocking waste of two and a half hours. Both...
The press has been reporting recently on the successful use of music during surgery in a couple of different hospitals. Apparently it can 'lessen fear' and reduce the heart rate of patients who are played 'easy listening' and 'chart classics' while having...
It's three years today since I started this blog, three years in which I've thoroughly enjoyed corresponding with readers around the world. I've also learned to use a camera (well, a bit). I looked at the website statistics to get an overview. The number of...