About Me

A picture of me A Brief Biography

(My CV / Resume is down below, if you want to jump straight to that)

I was born at a very early age in 1970, & started learning the trumpet & the recorder at the age of 7 (thanks to a far sighted local education authority) & played in various youth orchestras, wind bands, & brass bands. At 10 I moved to a house in a different authority, & had to have a private trumpet teacher. Shortly after I started doing occasional Jazz workshops with Digby Fairweather & Stan Barker, which I found incredibly useful.

In 1981 I got interested in computers, regularly going into Tandy to play with the TRS - 80s & then after saving up my £1 a week spending money for months getting my very own ZX81 (Timex Sinclair 1000). From this point music & computers took up most of my time, but I had no particular plans to go into either directly as a career, so consequently didn't do quite as much practise as perhaps I should, & shyed away from commiting myself to learning Z80 assembly language ! By 15 - 16 I'd kind of decided I wanted to be a sound engineer, so I chose my A Level subjects of Maths, Physics, & Music as the prerequisites for doing the 'Tonmeister Studies' Music degree at the University of Surrey. Unfortunately, having glandular fever during the first year of A Levels turned me into a bit of a drop out, & finding out that the grades BCC in the Surrey prospectus realistically meant AAA kind of made me think about a different track; getting training by the BBC (they still did quite a bit of it back then) seemed the best option to try. Anyway, in the meanwhile, the 6th Form College (16 - 18 A Level school) I was at had just bought a 4 track & a synth, & a documentary (The South Bank Show) about Philip Glass had recently been shown on TV, as well as the film 'Koyaanisqatsi', & that captured my imagination enough to start some early experiments in composition at the age of 17. I got the BBC application form, but never posted it, kind of deciding that I might as well try for music college first, auditioning as first study trumpet & second study composition (the recorder in the meanwhile being dropped - an action which I have spent the last several years severely regretting - unfortunately the system here implies that it is an instrument only played by beginners, & at the time I didn't know any better). Birmingham Conservatoire accepted me as joint first study, so I went there, & started doing second study percussion as well on the Graduate Performing (GBSM, now BMus) course.

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I spent most of the first year locked in the recording studio, learning just about every thing the teacher could teach me about music technology. I also developed an interest in what gets called 'World Music' (personally I despise the term, but have yet to think of any thing better), & this led me to have John Mayer, an Indian composer who did a lot of work in the 60s with the sax player Joe Harriot in 'Indo Jazz Fusions', as a composition teacher.

So far I've had one commission - a piece for school orchestra, choir, recorder group, guitar group, handbell group, & narrator, 'The Legend Of Saint Kenelm' which is based on a legend local to the Birmingham area. I have also set up a company to publish my own & friends' music, 'Mahayana Music', but unfortunately busyness prevents me from pushing that to the extent it needs at the minute - I may have some extra time soon to revitalise that area, though my thoughts at the present time in that respect lead me to believe that the best way to distribute my music is to do so under the 'shareware' concept, via here - I'm in a bit of a strop with the music industry, & have decided to subvert it !

In 1997, in the week of the start of the new academic year I was given a 'career opportunity' by the Conservatoire (for whom I had worked considerably more hours than I had been paid for the previous 5 years...) - I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to find a new career ! Needless to say, I was vaguely annoyed about this, but it significantly opened my eyes as to the true nature of the music industry - at every level of every sector (be it education, performance, recording, whatever), there is only a certain level one can reach via your abilities alone - sooner or later the only way one can progress any further is to trample all over other people around you (including friends), & lick the bottoms of the other people 'above' you; both of these I have always been totally unwilling to do, & do manage to hold a certain amount of pride in the fact that I managed to get as far as I did without so doing.

So now that I have a new career as a multimedia developer, I consider myself free to get back to thinking about & doing music properly again, without having to worry about whether people will like it, how much they will pay for it, whether I'm impressing the 'right people', & all that kind of stuff - I can just produce what I am led to produce. & that's the way I think it should be.

There's probably a lot more I could say, but I think that's enough for now...

My Curriculum Vitae

Date of Birth:
26 January 1970

Marital Status:
Single

Secondary School:
Birkdale High School, Windy Harbour Road, Southport, Merseyside.

GCE 'O' Levels: Computer Studies (A), Music (B), French (B), History (B), English (B), Physics (B), Mathematics (C), Chemistry (C), Latin (C).

Sixth Form:
King George V 6th form College, Scarisbrick New Road, Southport, Merseyside.

GCE 'AO' Level: Pure & Applied Mathematics (A).
GCE 'A' Levels: General Studies (C), Music (D), Physics (E).

Musical Qualifications:

Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music - Theory of Music {Grade VII}
Guildhall School of Music & Drama - Eb Soprano Cornet {Grade VIII (distinction)}

Associate of the Birmingham Schools of Music (ABSM):- Composition {Distinction}, Music Technology {Merit}.

Higher Education & Beyond:
Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham, B3 3HG.

Graduate of the Birmingham Schools of Music (GBSM) Composition / Performance.

During my time as an undergraduate I did a large amount of work in areas such as Music Technology, Production Techniques, Community music, Folk music from around the world, Indian music, Medieval & Renaissance Music, Composition for Film & Video, & Jazz & Pop Music. As well as this, I was the leader of such groups as 'Indo - Jazz Fusions', 'Hinayana Ensemble' (World Folk & Early music), 'Mahayana Ensemble' (New Music), & various other Jazz & Pop Groups.

Master of Arts in Ethnomusicology.

City & Guilds 7790 Journalism.

Employment:

Multimedia Production Co-ordinator (1998 -).

Prior to this, I worked as a freelance web developer, with previous clients including Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham, & NetPlay Cafe, Birmingham.

Lecturer in Composition, Folk Music & Music Technology, Birmingham Conservatoire, University of Central England (1993 - 97). Also Information Technology Supervisor for Birmingham Conservatoire.

Lecturer in Music Technology, Coventry University (Performing Arts) (1994 - 96).

Music Ensemble Tutor, Birmingham City Council Adult Education (1992 / 93).

Non Sabbatical Student's Union Vice President (1992 / 93).

Composer In Residence, Windsor High School, Richmond Street, Halesowen (1991 / 92).

Assorted private tuition.

Additional Information:
I was a member of committee@usenet.org.uk for the triennium 1995 - 1998, the voluntary group facilitating the growth of the uk.* NetNews hierarchy.

As a freelance journalist I have frequently written articles on social & political comment, published both on the Internet & in national newspapers. I posess a City & Guilds certificate in Journalism, including desktop publishing, page design & layout, writing copy, & researching & recording information.

I am active within Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), especially within Young Friends General Meeting in which I am a member of the Administrator's Management Group, & am also an editor of Young Quaker magazine.

In addition to being a professional composer, with membership of the Performing Rights Society, & works published, I also play the trumpet & some percussion. To add to this, I play a collection of folk & early music instruments, including Breton Bombarde, Darabukha, Santur, Balalaika, & Ocarina. Using music technology I have composed music - to - order for various student video projects, as well as other electronic & electro - acoustic works. During my time as a student I represented my course on various Faculty management commitees.

Other Interests:
Photography, information technology, media, publishing (especially electronic), politics & current affairs, motor scooters, television science fiction (especially Babylon 5 !).