Blog Posts

  • Open Mics, Performance and the Tyranny of Kindness…

    My latest musings are around Open Mics, performance and progression. I don’t mean to patronise but just to be sure to be sure we are on the same page, allow me my definition… An Open Mic is a gathering of people who come together to listen to and/or share songs/poems/stories. The pieces are sometimes the…

  • This framed print is, by all accounts, awful……I love it.

    What follows are some mixed up musings on choice and confidence. Memory and “home”, too. I have been thinking about being settled and content, and about having some pride in the artistic/aesthetic choices we make. It is about confidence. In writing this, although it is for context, I may well undermine the thought/feeling behind it……

  • A Welsh star, sudden drop, it’s very small…(1 word, 11 letters)….

    I’m that well pleased with the wordplay there it’s vulgar. We had our family summer holiday late. Ballydavid, just outside An Daingean (Dingle), Corca Dhuibhne, in the mighty kingdom of Kerry. We have stayed there before. I practice speaking Irish there. I swam in the mornings. Had a pier to myself until 2 locals came…

  • DON’T FIDDLE WITH IT….(Actually do).

    I took up the fiddle in my mid twenties. I am in my mid forties now. One might think I’d be great at it. I am not great at it. However, I sometimes do make a very lovely sound. I am not great because I am not consistent. Great fiddlers can play solidly and well,…

  • Lessons of DAW

    So the title – Pure anorak, I know. Not even great as a pun, but I couldn’t seem to resist. DAW, for the uninitiated, stands for Digital Audio Workstation – a computer programme used to record, mix and produce music/audio. I spent much of my twenties working with them as a producer on radio. I…