A Clarinet Almanac

More than 60 years’ experience in playing the clarinet has led to a very personal and idiosyncratic review of the repertoire. From the point of view of being both a player and a programmer the author has endeavoured to find works for unusual combinations involving the clarinet. This book includes a few orchestral solos and several vocal works (both chamber and operatic), but it is focussed on chamber music and includes gems from the repertoire for the standard wind quintet. The clarinet features as a solo instrument, in duos with a surprisingly large variety of instruments and in mixed trios, quartets and so on to larger ensembles. During the course of one year the reader will be exposed to 366 works, probably some unfamiliar, by 245 different composers. The author hopes it will whet the appetites of students, teachers and concert organizers alike.

Before Abbey Road

   Before Abbey Road there was Teme Street is about a day in the life of The Beatles.

-        A band on the precipice of unprecedented global success

-        who had released their first LP the previous month

-        who had released their third hit single, From Me To You on the previous Thursday

-        who had met the Rolling Stones for the first time the previous evening and partied at their Chelsea flat

-        who would be playing the Royal Albert Hall in London the following Thursday

This band, at this time, travelled to the small market town of Tenbury Wells, deep in the Worcestershire countryside.

How did this extraordinary event come about?

How did it impact the town and how did it shape the future life of the author?

This lively account, part factual, part fiction will take you back to the birth of pop culture and forward to all that followed.

Past Sounds

This is a book about classical music – for people who say they love music “but don’t understand how it works”, as well as for performers and music students of all ages.
Proposing that deeper enjoyment begins with an understanding of music’s basic structures, the book describes how the simple template of earlier dance-songs was adapted by composers writing music for instruments. The instrumental sonata became one of the great formal frameworks of western music: in symphonies, concertos, chamber music and solo sonatas, it dominated concert music for some 250 years – yet it is little understood by many music lovers. To simplify this vast field, Past Sounds singles out for study “sonatas” for piano trio – piano, violin and ’cello. These instruments have well-contrasted and easily identifiable sounds, and as the story unfolds the reader is introduced to many rarely heard but beautiful works for piano trio.
This is a lively, clearly-written narrative as well as a handbook for subsequent listening. The book has two distinctive features. Firstly, technical terms are carefully explained, and for those not familiar with music notation, audio clips in an accompanying website reproduce the actual sound of the music described. Secondly, in a broad historical sweep from mid-18th to 20th centuries, the development of the sonata is followed in its context of contemporary arts and literature – demonstrating how the sonata idea of classical music well deserves to be understood and valued as a western cultural archetype alongside other great artistic and literary forms.

The Most Advanced Clarinet Book

There are 50 short studies with explanations covering many new approaches to technical problems. Followed by 27 full page studies making use of these techniques, as well as covering almost every possible technical problem regarding the clarinet

Doof Doof: My Life in Music

‘I have always loved the lines from Rudyard Kipling: If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same... Career-wise, I guess I've experienced a 50/50 mix of the two, and I have always tried to turn a 'No' into a 'Yes'!' Simon May is one of the most successful and celebrated composers for television the UK has ever produced. Best known for writing the ‘EastEnders' theme - whose evocative drum beat gives this book its title - Simon's long and impressive list of TV themes includes the 1980s smash-hit drama series ‘Howards' Way', as well as such perennial favourites as ‘Holiday' and ‘Animal Park'. In Doof Doof: My Life in Music, Simon describes the creation of these works, his lifelong vocation as a teacher and even his short-lived pop career, with self-deprecating humour and the sharp eye of the true professional. With a wealth of music and TV anecdotes from Simon's more than 40 years in the business, Doof Doof is a vivid and engaging self-portrait of a successful composer, entrepreneurial businessman, earnest educator and committed family man.  

The Steinway That Wouldn't Budge (Confessions of a Piano Tuner)

Peter Tryon's Confessions of a Piano Tuner is a charming, autobiographical tale of life spent travelling around rural East Anglia tuning pianos. But this is also a personal account from boyhood of how music and more specifically the mechanics of that wonderful instrument, fired early imagination and gave rise to a lifelong fascination and involvement with the piano.As much a social commentary on people, the anecdotes about different characters are filled with humour and the text is light and easy to read. The unspoiled beauty and charm of East Anglia provides a perfect backdrop to Peter Tryon's account, all combining together to make this a book that you won't want to put down.

Reading Elgar’s The Music Makers

Elgar’s The Music Makers, for contralto solo, choir and large orchestra, has experienced a chequered reputation since its 1912 premiere at the Birmingham Festival. The work faced significant adverse criticism which re-emerged over time. Criticism targeted the poem Elgar chose for his setting – Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s ode, whose reputation was later tarnished by T.S. Eliot’s infamous critique ‘What is Minor Poetry?’. Misunderstanding of Elgar’s innovatory compositional procedure was another main reason behind the negative responses. Elgar integrated the poetic language with musical self-borrowings, transforming the words and offering perceptive listeners enhanced emotion at the highest artistic level. All aspects of Elgar’s musical language combine to produce one of his greatest, yet least understood, masterworks.

Reading Elgar’s The Music Makers brings to the fore a prime example of how first musical performances can be misunderstood and reception can shift over time. The work remains as relevant today as ever. The book’s multi-faceted approach will be invaluable not only for conductors, singers and music students, but for concert goers and music lovers generally.

It's Only Words

Most of us can hum, whistle, or tap out a favourite tune but not too many of us can recall the lyrics, the words. Yet it is the skill of the wordsmith, the lyricist who at the stroke of a pen can transport us, if only for a moment, into our own world recalling cathartic events, romantic moments and nostalgic longings for times gone by. In just a few short strokes of his pen the skilled lyricist can move us to tears or anger or is able to stimulate pride or joy.

Popular music is at an all-time high and I would defy anyone reading this book not to be able to find a song that they could not identify with or indeed have been emotionally associated with at some point in their formative years or indeed in their twilight years!

During the writing of this book, I admit to many moments, good and bad, when the words of skilled lyricists left their songs stimulating incidents and memories long since relegated to the back of my mind!