I have been proofreading my book about Nocturnes, which has reached the stage of being typeset. This is the point at which it starts to look like a proper book. As the author, you dare to believe that it will one day really be published and start to live in heads...
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I was lying awake in the night, with music playing in my head as it usually does when I'm awake in the wee small hours. Sometimes I set the music going consciously, as for example when I'm 'practising' something I'm currently trying to learn or memorise. At other...
An old friend of mine, a fellow musician, wrote to tell me about a lovely dream he had had. He, I and another musician friend were sitting in the branches of a cherry tree playing music together. 'The cherries were the notes!' he said. He didn't say what instrument I...
Last week, when I was in Italy, I went to a concert of a well-known ensemble (I'll be discreet about who and where). Firstly I should say that the large audience appeared perfectly happy with the performance and applauded enthusiastically, but for me as a professional...
Yesterday I had a message from someone who organises the masterclasses I teach at a university. This year she told me that there won't be any masterclasses. Students don't like them and don't see why they should have to attend them if the music being taught is 'not...
Articles and letters in The Guardian recently have explored why some of today's singers suffer from vocal problems, develop nodules on their vocal cords from singing so loudly, etc. Curiously, the use of powerful amplification has not taken away the need to sing...
Last night I watched a very interesting episode of a BBC Arena series about 'American Epic' music, beginning with music from the Appalachian region, featuring the Carter Family from West Virginia who in the late 1920s brought the folk music of the remote hills to the...
Bob and I went to a big book sale today and came home with lots of 'four hand' duets to be played by two people sitting at one piano. We spent a chunk of the afternoon going through volumes of Dvorak Slavonic Dances, Brahms Hungarian Dances, and eventually a mad set...
In the course of my teaching and coaching activities I meet lots of young musicians who have come from other European countries to study in the UK. Britain's excellent music colleges and universities are extremely popular with Europeans, who often fund their studies...
This morning I was making soup and listening to Stephen Jardine's phone-in programme on BBC Radio Scotland, as I often do on a Friday morning. They were discussing whether parents should restrain their children from behaving badly in public places such as cinemas,...
Yesterday we had a meeting of my piano club, a group of adult amateur pianists interested in developing their playing. The subject of 'virtuosos' and 'virtuoso technique' came up in relation to a piano piece with some fast, technically difficult 'show-off' passages....
A lovely surprise awaited me when I played at the Brunton Theatre on Tuesday. Sitting in the front row was my first piano teacher, Gordon Lindsay ('Mr Lindsay', as I knew him). He taught me from when I began piano lessons at the age of seven until I was nine or ten....
Finally I have managed to track down a copy of this month's 'Classical Music' magazine, which for some reason has become harder and harder to find in the shops. Knowing there was to be an article about me in the February issue, I tried to find the magazine in a number...
I haven't yet seen the movie 'LaLa Land' (it doesn't open in the UK until tomorrow). But I enjoyed hearing BBC Radio 4's 'Today' item this morning on how Ryan Gosling, who plays a struggling jazz musician in the film, learned to play the piano for it. He does all the...
Today I'm making my Christmas cake, a few days ahead of 'Stir-up Sunday' which is, I believe, this coming Sunday. It's a traditional day for families to get together to make steamed Christmas puddings, and in these days when most households have their own ovens, baked...