FinishMySong Blog

It was with mixed feelings last night that I watched the very final episode of Top of the Pops, a veritable monument of British popular music culture. I remember tuning in religiously with my siblings as a child to find out who was this week's Number 1 and in a sense there are lots of memories of some fine televisual experiences. However, of recent years the programme has gone downhill rapidly, replacing the original quirkiness of the studio sets and performances with a more in-your-face attitude to musical journalism.

Of course, the show has been renowned over the years as much for the total lack of ability on the part of its guests as for anything else. Really since it began in 1964 most of the 'live' performances have been mimed and often in the most comically crap manner. There was a period where TOTP, as it has become known, insisted that all their guests at least sing live (with the backing track pre-recorded) but there was very quickly a U-turn on this when they realised that most of the performers on the show simply couldn't accurately reproduce the recorded versions of their songs when asked to do it on live television. Others still took the opportunity to mock the whole thing, such as Kurt Cobain from Nirvana - his classic rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit (from their 1991 Nevermind album) was mostly comprised of him making grating noises with his throat. He really made no attempt whatsoever to sing the song 'properly', perhaps because of whatever he was on at the time or maybe just because he thought that an appearance on a cheesy pop show for teenagers was somehow beneath what the band was trying to achieve. Who knows : either way, I think he did right!




Then, of course, there are the presenters. Lastnight's final episode of TOTP was presented collectively by many of the past faces, including Jimmy Savile, Tony Blackburn and Pat Sharp. Frankly, though, I found watching Savile mumbling his way through obviously scripted conversations with the other presenters quite disturbing, especially after seeing the documentary / interview that Louis Theroux conducted with him a couple of years ago. In that show he came across as a deluded, paranoid wash-up with an over-inflated sense of his own popularity and an unprovoked defensive attitude to the non-suggestion that he has paedophilic tendencies. A weirdo in my opinion best avoided, especially when relaxing in front of the telly, of an evening!!

I'm often asked why it is that I consider music so important that I choose to make my living from being involved with it, teaching and playing piano on a freelance basis rather than doing something more 'practical' such as office work. My answer comes in the form of another question : why is that we think of music as a purely superficial form of entertainment and yet pretty much every significant event of our lives is marked with the presence of music in some form or other? Indeed, the performance and reception of music is a massively important part of our society and it's power to evoke the strongest of emotions is crystal clear when you consider the way it helps to carry messages from the patriotism of a national anthem, religious faith of hymns to the narrative of a script in movies and television programmes. Music is everywhere and that in itself makes the study and participation of musical activities crucial.

Another interesting facet of music, I believe, is its capacity to remain in the memory as a direct reference or prompt to our feelings both past and present. Hearing a given piece can have the effect of evoking an emotional response that is equivalent to actually experiencing the event(s) that it is associated with.

My personal experience of this is demonstrated every time I happen to switch on the television during the title sequence of Star Trek Voyager - just hearing the main melody of this programme's theme tune takes me right back to a very specific time in my life in late 1998 / early 1999. Not only am I reminded of this period of my life but I internally EXPERIENCE the same feelings that I had at that time. You see, I used to walk home from college to my bedsit in the South Bay area of Scarborough and would often drop in at the cottage where two of my uni friends lived at the time. After a heavy day's study and a calming walk down that long, straight road in the cold, foggy darkness I'd step into the bustling, friendly atmosphere of Rich & Chris' pad just around teatime when their cooking of dinner and endless, amusing chats would be accompanied by the sound of a small telly, hanging from the wall on a metal rack, blasting out the sounds of Captain Janeway and her crew journeying their way across the Delta quadrant! I suppose at the time I found their abode very comforting and this feeling of warmth is poured right through me even now when I hear that string and brass melody that opens Voyager. Of course, it also reminds me of just how much I now miss those days at uni!

Most of the main events that took place during John Lennon and Yoko Ono's famous weeklong bed-in for peace back in late March 1969 were thankfully recorded on film and it was an absolute pleasure for me recently to get the opportunity to watch the resulting documentary, particularly because I was not yet born when the ex-Beatle and his wife pulled off this anti-war stunt in Canada.

The circumstances surrounding their success in getting the peace message out lies in a very cleverly planned chain of events : firstly, at the end of the previous year, John and Yoko released their first album called Two Virgins, which featured a cover comprised of two naked pictures of the couple, then they got married in Gibraltar and informed the media that they would be spending a week's honeymoon in bed, inviting many international journalists to join them over the course of that week. Of course, many people jumped to the conclusion that this would descend into the photo-opportunity of a lifetime : two of the world's most famous celebrities naked in bed together. But, that's where they were wrong - it soon became clear that the Lennons had manipulated the world's press, turning the system on it's head and using their stardom to launch an advertising campaign for peace and, specifically, the end of the Vietnam war.




The basic concept for the Bed-In was to point out that the men of war have all the tools at their disposal to keep their message alive, including control of media based news that continues even today to pump out stories designed to scare the masses into believing that aggression, violence and killing is justified. The Lennon's plan from the beginning was to take away some of this airtime and use it to talk about pacifism - a mindset that they believe is the only way to lasting peace on earth. Interview after interview took place and gave John and Yoko the opportunity to get quoted all over the world's press as saying that acts of war have been used repeatedly as a supposed method of restoring peace and the evidence was such that these tactics were clearly not working. The only alternative was to put down weapons, look for common ground and use non-violent means to settle disputes. Personally, I feel that that message is as relevant today as it was at the at the end of 1969, when John and Yoko launched their "War Is Over - if you want it" poster campaign.

Interestingly, during their week in bed (in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Montreal) John and Yoko also recorded what was to become an anthem of pacifism, the song Give Peace a Chance. Musically, it ain't much cop but I think the message behind it is crystal clear.

I know that a lot of classical music buffs poo-poo the commercial radio station ClassicFM on account of it pandering to popularism and, so, being a bit on the vulgar side. And, to some extent, they're right - ClassicFM do only tend to broadcast short excerpts of very famous classical pieces and these sections tend to be the ones containing the big tunes that everyone knows, like Nessun Dorma and the like. But, it's also got to be said that this is a radio station that has become a national commercial success, reaching out to many groups who would prefer to listen to a bit of the overture to The Marriage of Figaro (without necessarily sitting through the numerous arias and recitatives that follow for several hours) than to much of the output of most other mainstream stations. Even the commercial breaks are geared towards a more delicate listening taste, often using classical pieces as background music and usually advertising charities or expensive luxury cars.

All this said, ClassicFM does tend to cut pieces short and only play short sections of classical compositions that the average bod on the street is likely to recognise. But, at least it plays classical music, unlike this company's other venture : ClassicFM TV, as seen on Sky channel 359. I can honestly say that this was the sole biggest disappointment I had when we first got digital television because it simply doesn't do what it says on the tin!

Not only does ClassicFM TV fail to play full classical works, but even the short snippets it broadcasts are mostly arranged in what can only be described as the most horrifically shiny, over-produced fashion. If you've never had the displeasure to watch this channel, I'll try to help you imagine what it's like : think of the most relaxing, slow and calm pieces of classical music your memory can muster up (I've got Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in mind), put it through an effects unit to strip out any very high or very low frequency sounds, add an electronically generated drum beat and sprinkle in a few blips and string noises from a Casio keyboard (manufactured circa 1981) and you're getting close to the aural experience. If you can bear to open your eyes, you'll be treated to a visual representation of a very similar ilk : usually a collection of stills taken off the Greek coast or of ruined European abbeys, again filtered to allow that 'dreamy' look and often intentionally over-exposed. There's no other word for this kind of trash than utterly "dire"! How the makers of these programmes can get away with calling it's content 'classical music' I'll never know - it certainly bears no resemblence to the huge variation and complex beauty I know to be the qualities of what most people refer to as classical music. Seriously, if it's not over-produced piano sounds it's Hayley Westenra... I'm not being snobby here : this TV Station just pumps out cheaply made rubbish and targets its marketing in the direction of people who like to tell their friends that they're into classical music (but who wouldn't actually know one end of a bassoon from the other). Beam me up, Scotty!!

No, if you want to watch anything vaguely to do with classical music on your digital television I'd steer well away from ClassicFM TV and go for either the newly free-to-view Artsworld (Sky channel 267) or the Perfomance Channel (Sky channel 271). Better yet, switch the telly off and tune into BBC Radio 3!!

The name Engelbert Humperdinck is most often these days associated with the crooning singer of the 1960's and 70's who had such hits as Please Release Me, The Last Waltz & There Goes My Everything. But few people who aren't into classical music realise that not only is this not the singer's real name but that it was borrowed as a stage name from another musician who lived almost a century earlier : Engelbert Humperdinck the German composer of light opera.




In his day, though, Humperdinck the senior was every bit as famous as his British singing namesake (the latter's real name actually being Arnold Dorsey) and had friends and colleagues who have become household names in the classical music world, albeit for entirely different reasons, such as Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Infact, in the early 1880's Humperdinck assisted Wagner with his first production of Parsifal.. although the history books don't tell us a great deal about in what manner his assistance was required - presumably in orchestration and part writing.

Today one work by Humperdinck does continue to be regularly performed. This is his opera Hansel and Gretal that started life as a series of songs and then, due to its obvious potential, became a full scale stage work with orchestral accompaniment. This is a work that often gets performed at Christmas time and, because of it's subject matter, is popular with children. One section of this work that is quite well known and is used occasionally on mainstream television is the Evening Prayer - even if you don't think you know it you probably would recognise the melody!

But, alas, Hansel and Gretal was to be Humperdinck's only really widely celebrated work as in later life his health suffered, firstly in 1912 when he had a severe stroke that left him partially paralysed, and then nine years later with two heart attacks, the second of which caused his death on September 27th 1921. He did leave quite a body of compositions behind, including a series of songs and operas based on other fairy tales, but he perhaps will be most recognised for being the first composer to adopt the vocal technique known as Sprechgesang - a half singing and half speaking manner that still enjoys great use on the musical stage today.

Out of interest, the other Humperdinck, Arnold Dorsey's, website contains some interesting and massively self-congratulatory quotes that might be worth a little snigger at :

I read this article today on the BBC News website : Lebanon Question Challenges Germany.

In it, Steven Kramer, the Secretary General of the Central Council of Jews, is quoted as saying that Holocaust survivors in Israel may feel upset about a German peacekeeping force being present in Lebanon on account of it stirring up difficult memories.

Now, is it just me or is there something utterly ridiculous about this argument?! Israel is conducting air-strikes on motorways, cities and other non-military targets in Lebanon. This is happening now and innocent civilians are dying in large numbers as I type this blog, as a direct result of Israeli aggression. Something needs to be done to stop the massacre and Germany are in a position to offer troops to a situation that desperately needs international intervention. What, I ask, has the holocaust of the 1930's & 40's got to do with the current crisis in the middle east, other than a historical connection to the founding of the state of Israel? So, why shouldn't people of German nationality be allowed to assist in re-establishing peace in the region?

The concern now should be for the thousands of Lebanese citizens who are suffering as a result of the military strikes on their country. It is unfortunate if some people are haunted by the memories of the 2nd World War - God knows, so many horrific things happened during that period of history, particularly when one considers the plight of the European Jews at the time - but the lives of those who are being persecuted now must surely take priority over the feelings of a people who were historically wronged by a nation that has long since condemned the actions of its earlier generations.

I visited my favourite GuitarTabs website today, Guitar Tab Universe, because I was listening to a Bob Dylan song in my car and, although I could easily work out the chords for the song, I wondered if anyone had contributed a tab for the solo guitar parts that appear in the instrumental sections.

This is how Guitar Tab Universe works, you see : it is kind of like a forum where musicians can discuss guitar performance techniques and tell each other how to play many well known songs. This latter part works by people's free and willing submission of guitar parts as they have transcribed them. There's no copying out of published score books (this is actively discouraged by the site owners) but clearly the participants' intentions are to recreate the original songs in as accurate a fashion as possible - songs that ARE protected by copyright law. So, the line between a common sense way of sharing guitar playing techniques and actually infringing the copyright of the original artists and (more importantly) their super-rich corporate publishers is somewhat blurred. Clearly, the way these kinds of sites encourage their users to share information about music that we can all hear freely on the radio has ruffled some feathers in the music world, though : when I hit the Guitar Tab Universe site today the following message was displayed on its front page :


To all "Guitar Tab Universe" visitors:

The company which owns this website has been indirectly threatened (via our ISP) with legal action by the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) as well as the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) on the basis that sharing tablature constitutes copyright infringement. At what point does describing how one plays a song on guitar become an issue of copyright infringment? This website, among other things, helps users teach eachother how they play guitar parts for many different songs. This is the way music teachers have behaved since the first music was ever created. The difference here is that the information is shared by way of a new technology: the Internet.

When you are jamming with a friend and you show him/her the chords for a song you heard on the radio, is that copyright infringement? What about if you helped him/her remember the chord progression or riff by writing it down on, say, a napkin... infringement? If he/she calls you later that night on the phone or e-mails you and you respond via one of those methods, are you infringing? I don't know... but I would really like to know. If anyone has information on this, please email support@guitartabs.cc.

Apparently, the NMPA/MPA believes that the Internet may be on the foul side of the legality line they would like to draw here. For me, I see no difference. It's teachers educating students and covered as a 'fair use' of the tablature. The teachers here don't even get paid nor do the students have to pay this website to access the lessons.

An attack on this website is really an attack on every one of you who have told someone (in person, or via the written word, telephone, or e-mail) how you play a song on guitar. And who, especially among small websites, has the deep pockets to fight the NMPA/MPA? They use scare tactics while there is, in fact, no legal precedent on this matter (to the best of our knowledge). If you are interested in expressing your opinion to the NMPA/MPA, contact them via their respective websites. Please do not resort to vulgar language or insults.

Millions of people use the Internet to learn guitar, in one form or another. It appears the NMPA/MPA and their members do not want to support us and help us further our education. To you visitors from outside the USA or UK, can you find your favorite artists' "official sheet music" at your local music store? Even in the United States and United Kingdom, we often can not. The NMPA/MPA have a choice to make: either they support us as aspiring guitarists, or they choose to alienate their customer base. To date, not one sheet music publisher has contacted this website to either inquire as to our activities or to express interest in any type of dialogue or collaboration whatsoever. All we deserve is a cold, indirect, impersonal threat without any explanation? They should embrace new technologies or else become relics of the old economy.

Since I'm now 'worried' about working around tabs at all, I'm in a tough situation! Luckily, I'm fairly confident that if I alone listen to a song and then figure out how to play it by ear, I will then be able to enjoy using that knowledge to practice and improve my guitar playing skills. Is that what is necessary for everyone to do? Work these things out alone? What a sad situation.

Sincerely,
Rob Balch


This is a tricky one - no musician would want to rip off their fellow writer or performer by stealing their work, in whatever form that alleged theft takes place. But, it does seem fair enough that people will always want to share what they know about a given song, show each other how it is played and demonstrate this by using the simplest methods, such as some form of notation / tablature. I can't honestly say exactly where I stand on this argument except to note that those who are against tab-sharing (and, for that matter, more clear-cut infringements of copyright law, such as file-sharing) tend to be the fat-cats who stand to make the most money out of the work of artists who don't themselves necessarily see much return for their labours. For this reason, for the time being at least, I'll be supporting sites such as Guitar Tabs Universe - I think their principles of sharing knowledge and experience are more valuable than the money grabbing motives of the corporate music industry.

... and this time not for the Big Brother programme!! :)


No, apparently, the channel is running a 'Wank Week' season looking more closely at the practise of masturbation. One of the shows planned for this is focusing on a compulsive wanker who averages 20 knuckle-shuffles per day, and they're hoping to find someone else to accompany him with similar masturbatory prowess. Hey, I might apply!!


Take a look at the Guardian's covering article about this hunt :

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1827791,00.html

Yes, it's hard to believe that I've already reached the milestone of the 100th Blog entry on FinishMySong (not including the 90+ photographs, poems and song lyrics I've posted on the Pics & Poetry section of the site)... I hope so far some of the stuff I've written on here you've enjoyed reading.

Of course, because the internet is so vast these days, one cannot hope to aspire to being a sole authority on anything and so I'm very aware that for every item I publish on my site there are literally thousands or millions of others on similar subjects kicking around the World Wide Web. This, I think, is why it's so important to make a blog (and the website as a whole) as personal as possible - what I can provide to the internet that noone else can is my unique perspective and experience.. this is something that, by it's nature, you may or may not be interested in but it's out there anyway, just in case you are!

I've tried to keep the content on this blog mostly related to music but it does sometimes go off on tangents! Or, rather, I write blog entries about the things that matter to me at a given time and since I'm mostly constantly involved in music in one form or another this rightly tends to be what comes out in my blogs. Of course, people use 'blogging' for all kinds of uses these days : some are simply online diaries, others are advertising spaces, still others are places where people publish articles, artworks and conduct discussions. I hope mine finds its place somewhere among all these types of blog : a little bit of me, a little of other's work and a pinch of promotion, for example in the form of the banner that's placed at the top of each blog. I'd also like to encourage participation so if you would like to comment on anything that I post then please feel free to do so using the link at the bottom of each entry.

Also, this blog is to be duplicated on The First Few's MySpace site as of tomorrow along with other pieces that band members contribute to that website.

I've been getting a lot of ribbing recently about the hair growth I've allowed to take place on my chin.. some have said that I am starting to look like a singer from a death metal band or that the beard puts age on me, others refer to my hairy patch as a "M.O.C." (that's 'Minge on Chin' to those who don't know..) and yet others have been more unkind with their remarks!! Of course, the more teasing I get about it more likely I am to try to grow it even longer! I like to think of the beard as giving my face character - a bit of a bohemian flair, but then the mind's capacity for self-kidology really is quite astounding!!

Anyway, all this reminded me of the silly online game that came out a few years ago, Rob Manuel's 'Name That Beard', so I thought I'd do a mini version myself on this blog : Name That Composer's Beard! So here goes - do you recognise any of the beards below?

I often think about the day in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus to a white passenger, resulting in a mass boycott by black Americans of the Montgomery bus and ultimately in kick starting the Civil Rights Movement in the States (the bravery of that act has come under the spotlight of discussion more recently since Parks' death in October of last year). And one of the things I find most interesting about this period of American history is the hypocritical nature of the way black citizens were treated by the US public at large as both unworthy of sharing schools, transport systems, bathrooms etc with their white peers and also as a form of entertainment. And this being the status quo for decades in a country that now parades itself as the leader of the free democratic world...

Black music did find its way to white audiences, though, and even as early as the days of Gershwin works that were clearly influenced by jazz traditions were repackaged as "symphonised syncopation" and so the branding suggested a safe, white origin to a music that was gaining popularity and would eventually become engrained in the consciousness of the West.

Of course, as years passed many black musicians came to the forefront of the American musical sphere, even when the country was in the grips of what was to all intents and purposes an apartheid - a period that had not yet shaken off the legacy of the forced slavery of West African immigrants. But, as Joseph Taylor points out in his article On the Note: Soul, this development of an interest in music by black Americans actually played a part in changing the perception of black people generally:

A lot of writing about rock as a social force in the '60s has been naïve or self-serving, but I think soul music really did help people change their attitudes about race. At a time when middle-class white kids anointed pop stars as their spokesmen and consciences, quite a few of those stars were African-American. In the late '40s and into the '50s, bebop had shown white intellectuals that blacks could create complex art - - that they could initiate an intellectual movement themselves. Soul music showed relatively affluent white kids that an entire race of Americans had been denied things in life they took for granted.

We continue to celebrate the wonderfully diverse history of 'black music' with awards ceremonies such as the MOBO's, but it does strike me that now might be the time to stop forcing a race-categorisation on the music that comes out of our multicultural world and accept that we in the 21st Century will always have a massive body of musical history weighing down on our creativity and to strive for originality and contextual significance is more important than a composer's / artist's skin colour. This is not to say that there doesn't continue to be a lack of equality in the music and arts fields (as discussed in articles such as Botswana: Women and Classical Music) but I firmly believe that these need to be addressed by concentrating on the art in question rather than the ethnicity or gender of its creator.

If you're into your classical music but don't want to pay the ever increasing prices charged by high street record stores or even 'specialist' music shops that seem to add another 10% to the cost, then it's probably worth looking to alternative places to get the music you're after.

Of course, a lot of recorded classical music finds its way to car-boot sales and market stalls but, not altogether surprisingly, these tend to be 3rd-hand, warped copies of Nigel Kennedy playing the Vivaldi Four Seasons. But there are other more reliable sources, including a thriving trade on Ebay. One other place you might want to look at is Steve Vasta's Classical CD Exchange that he runs via email based sales : his list currently holds some really good recordings for a relatively small charge, including recordings by the LPO, Linda Brava, BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra etc. Of course, many of the pieces he offers on CD can be bought on the excellent NAXOS label but you might be interested in listening to versions other than those performed and recorded by Eastern European musicians - the NAXOS recordings are a really valuable resource but they do tend to have a certain musical 'flavour' unique to this label. You can contact Steve to get a list of recordings he has for sale on Stevevasta@aol.com*

Of course, you could cut out the middleman altogether and just listen to live performances and many great recordings 24/7 on BBC's Radio 3 - still truly a wonderful station for any serious music listener!


* FinishMySong, of course, has no business relationship with Steve or Classical CD Exchange, so any transaction you have with him is conducted at your own risk!

I find these days that it takes something very special in a movie for it to really take hold of me, shift my thought processes and leave me reeling with new ideas. I guess part of the problem is that most pictures that come out of Hollywood tend to be formulaic and so after a while become very predictable. Garden State, though, is one film to have been produced in the US that truly breaks the mould, and to think I’ve been meaning to see it for almost two years!

Peter Sarsgaard, Natalie Portman & Zach Braff in Garden State

The story centres around Andrew Largeman, a young actor who left his hometown in New Jersey and on arriving in Los Angeles secured a few fairly minor but well known parts in national television series. But, despite his new found fame playing various mentally handicapped people on TV, Largeman has trouble finding any pleasure in life or, for that matter, experiencing any emotional response at all and this has actually manifested itself in his desire to play out other people's dramas, hence the career choice. Later on it turns out that the reasons for Largeman's lack of feelings (or, at least, personal perception of them) stem back to a tragic event in his past that started with his upbringing by painfully repressed parents and led to a lifetime of taking emotion-suppressing drugs such as Lithium. So, the main crooks of the story we see unfold on the screen is of a person learning to grab life and appreciate the here-and-now for the first time since his early childhood, partly by his realisation that his feelings, both positive and negative, are normal and healthy and so choosing to experience them rather than to continue with his prescription. There is a good-ole love story element thrown into the mixer here aswell, but only in as much as that Largeman learns to appreciate the significance of the small things around him with the help of a girl he meets in a doctor’s waiting room.

Directed by and starring Zach Braff as Andrew Largeman, the film also features wonderful performances by the likes of Peter Sarsgaard and Natalie Portman, the latter of whom more than makes up for the awful scenes she appeared in with the wooden Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels, demonstrating here that she really is a first rate actress when she’s given an interesting character in the context of a wonderful, quirky but sparse script.

Other notable things to mention about Garden State include the absolutely magnificent soundtrack of indie songs, handpicked by Braff himself. Among the artists we hear during the course of this movie are Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Coldplay and a couple of numbers by The Shins, and infact the CD compilation of the songs featured in this film became a huge selling product on its own. There are some that feel that the resulting popularity of certain bands has had a negative impact on the experience of the 'real' concert-goer and in particular Good Hodgkins' article on this subject is worth a read.

I have also read many of the reviews of this movie that other bloggers have contributed and I can safely say that the vast majority only had positive things to say. Among them is Paul Burke's piece on his Journey Home blog, in which he says :

"Zach Braff's script is engaging if modest and I think I like that it is so uncluttered. He's trying to get at several things including over medication by both prescription and street drugs... How we fill the abyss with meaning, purpose or idleness and distraction gives way to feeling fulfilled or horribly stymied and bored. Garden State is a beautiful movie..."

If you haven't seen this film, I'd highly recommend it - its visually and aurally stimulating backdrop do nothing to restrict the flow of an intensely thought-provoking script.

It pains me to switch on the news these days - if it isn't one story after another about atrocities and wars going on all over our precious, fragile planet, it is scaremongering stories about potential threats to our safety and comfort. These stories become all the more shocking when they are focused on the aggressive, murderous actions of a nation that is founded on its people's very own struggle against persecution towards a lasting sense of peace.

But those running the state of Israel don't seem to have learned any lessons offered by human history's bloody past - even those provided by the first hand experience of millions of Jewish people being butchered or at least (if they were lucky) displaced across the world having been forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives. This only happened half a century ago... are memories REALLY that short?

So, this week Israel have started an all out war with their neighbouring country, Lebanon - a war that they did not invite but could hardly avoid since Israel seems to have made a scapegoat of Lebanon for the actions of Hezbollah, specifically their capture of two Israeli soldiers. Days ago the Prime Minister of Lebanon pleaded for a ceasefire but still the bombs and missiles continue to come over the border destroying roads, houses, public buildings and so far approximately 230 human lives - the very fabric of this country is being shredded by the actions of their closest neighbour. Of course, President George Bush of the USA has been terribly helpful in his efforts to end this conflict suggesting that Syria should "get Hezbollah to stop this shit" and thus far neither he nor any leader of any Western European nation seem to have done anything to condemn Israeli strikes or have any impact on stopping them.

But this is nothing new : Israel has, of course, occupied a large area of Palestine for many years, persecuting its people and occasionally launching military strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip. Infact, as they wage war on their Northern neighbours, Israel continues to attack 'significant' targets to it's Southwest, conveniently forgetting another, more practical lesson from history that in conflict it isn't a good idea to conduct assaults on both sides of your territory. And, as Bush and Blair did when they attacked Iraq, the Israeli government continue to justify all this in the name of peace. When will these people learn that peace cannot be achieved through violence; that fire cannot be fought with fire?

As TFF's next major gig approaches (on Sat July 22nd at The Gasworks) I got to thinking that it is rare these days to go to Bradford city centre to watch a good gig by a live band, mostly because many of the great venues that once were have pretty much shut up shop, presumably due to a lack of passing trade since a lot of 'high-street shopping' has moved out to major centres in the suburbs. There are one or two places left in Bradford that strive to bring the people of West Yorkshire a really new and interesting musical experience, The Gasworks being one, but they are getting to be something of a rare breed.

Of course, we played for the closing night of The Melborn not so long ago - I believe that that venue is now to become some kind of retail outlet - and it was a real shame for the place to shut down after so long, especially with such characters at the helm as 'Brother Eamon' and their dedication to open-mic type events. But another music bar that I think has been sorely missed since it closed some years ago now is Maguire's, that used to be on City Road (just near the junction with Thornton Road). This was a place I spent many years during my mid-late teens visiting to see some of the best in music of celtic folk origin. Maguire's actually became so well known that it attracted many major, internationally recognised artists including the likes of Ralph McTell, The Bothy Band and Blyth Power, as well as being happy to put on stage many more local talents of the genre such as The Seven Little Sisters.

I suppose the place has a kind of personal value to me aswell : some of the happiest times of my life thus far have taken place in that venue, from the odd early romantic interlude to simply sitting chatting the evening away with my brother (who was also a regular visitor to Maguire's) over a couple of pints of cold Guinness with The Pogues or Christy Moore blasting out of the jukebox - it was certainly the ideal venue for such an occasion. I only hope that with the current economic boom in Northern England, a new generation of music-loving entrepreneurs will consider opening more venues of this ilk. Hey, I would even consider it myself!!

From the 23rd July this year, Channel 4's sister station, Film4, will be free to all digital television viewers. I have felt for a long time how much of a shame it has been that the one UK-based television channel that plays quality movies from all over the world was a subscription only station, meaning that even those with Sky's movies package haven't benefited from the plethora of wonderful movies that Film4 broadcasts.

Well, as many other channels (such as the Artsworld channel) open their doors to digital viewers free of charge, Film4 will now be available to anyone with cable, satellite or a freeview box without the need to subscribe separately (new channel numbers etc are to be confirmed). If anything, I think Sky will lose out once this change has been made : I fail to see why anyone would continue to purchase the Sky Movies channels - that seem to endlessly repeat the same Hollywood trash - when they have the option of viewing many, many highly acclaimed, international films absolutely F.O.C. thanks to Channel 4.

In my opinion, Channel 4's terrestrial television station has long been one of the best channels for quality programming on the old analogue system (along with the likes of BBC2) and I think it's great that Film4 will now be accepting a much wider audience - this is a huge bonus for film buffs and can only have a positive impact on the film industry as a whole. Good work C4!

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog about the future of Kylie Minogue's career, how I feel that now is the time for her to use the massive popularity she has enjoyed over the past two decades to do something positive to support the rest of those people suffering from horrific, terrifying diseases such as breast cancer, whilst also taking the opportunity to transform her iconic angle from singing pin-up to mature, confident but, more importantly, aware female vocal artist.

Today I believe the first steps towards this goal have been taken in an world-exclusive interview she has given to Cat Deeley for Sky Television. In it she speaks openly and frankly about the experiences she has had to endure over the past year or so since she was informed by doctors that she had contracted cancer. So far only snippets of the interview are available on the internet but the whole thing will be televised on Sunday evening (July 16th) on Sky1 at 9pm and promises to give a real insight into the psychological, practical and emotional impact such illness has on any person, and especially one that constantly commands the attention of the worldwide public.




One of the most startling acts of stupidity I saw in the media coverage of Kylie's initial diagnosis was on the front page of one of the supermarket-shelved women's magazines (I forget exactly which title but you know the kind of thing) : plastered across the cover was a huge picture of Minogue in the back of a car attempting to cover her face with a coat. This was accompanied by a headline saying how poor Kylie was fighting to keep her dignity despite all the photographers taking shots at her while she is so terribly ill. Something of an irony about that....

In any case, I feel that Kylie has dealt with her situation thus far admirably and releasing an interview about her ordeal is probably a good way to start to approach the public sphere again. Certainly, she does still intend to resume her world tour at the end of the year so I personally wish her all the best with that.

You can see my original blog on this subject by clicking here.

One of the founding members of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, died on July 7th 2006, at the age of 60.

Comments in the world's press include :

I've spent this afternoon going through the Les Miserables score for this evening's dress rehearsal - the company are doing the School Edition, which is basically the same as the Broadway / West End musical except there are a few cuts here and there to shorten the piece and one or two sections have their key altered by a semitone or two so that it's easier for younger voices to sing... not that the cast at Stampede have anything to worry about on that score.

What gets to me about the music, though, is the number of different changes of time signature that happen in a very short period on numerous occasions throughout the show. There are moments when in three bars the time signature has changed three times, allowing the latter pulse to continue perhaps for one more bar before there are another two or three changes in consecutive bars. This is all very well if your part plays through that section but when you're score is marked with full bar rests it's a bit of a nightmare to count through each bar, particularly if the tempo is very quick or there is no sense of pulse in the music (and the conductor is your only reference to where it lies).

All good fun, though. The way things are coming together there should be some great performances this week.

My grandfather turns 80 today - born on July 10th 1926, he has lived through some of human history's most turbulent and most creative times. He has seen a boom in technological development from the existence of a few fairly basic electrical devices such as the radio (or 'wireless') to an age in which our very lives often depend on the many thousands of computerised machines that we have come to depend on. Jack Lawton fought in the Middle East, a member of the parachute regiment, and watched with the rest of us as the cold war developed into an all out nuclear standoff between the two most significant super-powers on earth.

And now, having suffered a number of strokes over the past decade or so, my Granddad's existence is one of closed doors - he is unable to properly comprehend what is going on around him, struggles to vocalise more than a couple of words at a time, does not have any concept of the happenings beyond the walls of the home he lives in and is barely able to perform the most basic animal functions without assistance from the staff at his dwelling. A very sad twilight of a life that was once so active - this is the man who people would go to if they needed to know something or required assistance with something technical like a car engine or electrical circuit. And it just seems so cruel that many of us end our days in a condition similar to the one he is in.

Having said all that, he does seem happy, of course. The nurses and other staff at the home he resides in in Undercliffe, West Yorkshire, look after their patients well, waiting on them all day with food and drinks and doing their best to provide a variety of entertainments such as games and other leisure activities. But it doesn't change the fact that these very people who have now found themselves in the stage of life that Shakespeare referred to as "second childishness" are the very people we as a community should strive to respect and care for - the knowledge and experience that's locked away in those creaking bodies is invaluable and has contributed to the world we, the younger generations, now inhabit.

For me, though, the way to show respect to our elders is to do something about the medieval laws in our country that determine how they should be regarded. Euthanasia, for example, is still considered a dirty and dangerous word that invites unscrupulous types to take advantage of their relatives' weakened state for their own benefit. However, I'm a strong advocate of giving people the choice as to how long they wish to go on living their lives - a lot of water has gone under the bridge since the 19th century and before when those who committed suicide were treated as sinners, even denied a daylight funeral and decent internment. So, please, take this as my record that if I ever get anywhere close to the level of physical and mental ill-health that has its grasp on the majority of the poor souls in these kinds of retirement homes, please do me the honour and favour of putting me out of my misery.

The management team at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, have really been working hard this year to bring their productions to a wider audience. In association with BP, live operatic shows have been broadcast around the country to big screens in various popular locations, including the one I went to last night, in Leeds' Millennium Square.

Other places where these programmes have been shown live, with subtitles, and absolutely free-of-charge to any visitor are Aberdeen, London's Canary Wharf, Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, Birmingham, Bradford, Plymouth, Rotherham, Tower Hamlets, Ipswich and Bowness-on-Windermere!

So, really, double-congratulations are in order to the ROH: firstly for continuing to put on first-rate productions of some of the most famous and best loved operatic repertoire as well as newer, less-celebrated works, and secondly for working so hard to bring these shows to the public via today's breathtaking technology.




And, last night's show really was something special. Unfortunately, I was unable to stay for the whole 2h 30m of it but the part I saw and heard of Puccini's Turandot was done wonderfully well. The brilliant colours and textures of the orchestral soundscape could even be appreciated by the remote listener some 200 miles away from where the action was taking place, thanks to the efforts of a crew that had done an outstanding job of capturing and broadcasting these things in crystal clear quality. Truly a professional job.

Well done ROH for providing the show, and to BP and all the borough councils who arranged for their screens to display it.

You won't be able to browse the internet or turn on the television or radio today without being acutely aware that this day marks the one year anniversary of the 7/7 bombings of London's public transport network - the first suicide bombing attacks ever witnessed by the UK.

For the victims and their families, particularly those whose loved ones lost their lives in the atrocities of this time last year, this day will be difficult enough without the horrific scenes of the wreckage of tubes and buses and the carnage it inevitably left behind being plastered all over every newspaper and television programme for the next 24 hours or more, so I'll spare anyone visiting this site the harrowing scenes in graphics.

But I think some things do need to be addressed about the events of last year that do not seem to be being properly covered in the mass media : a reflection on the causes of these incidents and what we can do in the future to make sure that more disgruntled individuals don't choose to take their own and many other lives for the sake of 'martyrdom' and a war that isn't real.

Firstly, it would seem all too painfully clear for the families of those lost - families of all national, cultural and religious backgrounds - that the men who carried out the bombings on London did not do so without some reason; they felt justified in their actions. Tony Blair and his cronies continue to deny that our involvement in the Iraq war has had any direct negative impact on the security and ongoing peace in the United Kingdom even when the evidence is clearly contrary to his arguments - do we have to show Blair pictures of those whose lives were ruined this time last year before he will see the light of day? He is as stubborn on this issue as he is about the justification for going to war in the first place despite, again, it being clear that the lies we were told prior to the war were just that : untruths designed to get a nation behind the illegal occupation - an occupation that DID benefit those men whose business it is to sell oil and arms. Is it really any wonder that, in this context of a government that dresses unlawfulness, lying and moral degradation up as self-sacrifice, those with extremely anti-Western views and murderous desires find it easy to convince receptive audiences to take the law into their own hands?

This is not to say, of course, that there is anything ethical about what the likes of Shehzad Tanweer did on July 7th 2005. On the contrary, their actions displayed a total lack of empathy or respect for their fellow human beings and also demonstrated utter ignorance as to the feeling on the streets of Great Britain today. That these people attacked the everyday man and woman going shopping or to work on a hot summer day says to me that they see all of the British public as enemies to their cause - they want to believe that we, the people of Britain, are at fault for the ongoing occupation in Iraq and should be punished as such. This is, of course, not the case : 1,000,000 people took to the streets in protest against our government's decision to go to war and many groups are still very active with their anti-war agenda. No, the people of Britain did not want this war and had no power to stop it, but in a country that heavily guards its statesmen the public ARE an easy target for those who choose violence as the means of expressing their political grievances. My question to the London bombers who blame the British people for not doing anything to stop Blair carrying out murder on Iraqi soil would be this : you too were born and brought up in the UK - what did you do to help the anti-war cause?

The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music has today released the brand new syllabus for their graded piano examinations for years 2007-2008. They provide these in plenty of time so that students who are eager to sit the new exam have a couple of months to prepare the pieces, scales and arpeggios that are relevant to their level of playing.

I have posted the new listings for these exams on my website (as a mirror to their original posting on the ABRSM site) so you can find them with ease. Click here to browse the page containing the new documents.

There are some really interesting pieces on the new lists, especially in the higher-level grades. I look forward to working through some of them with students in the near future.

Last night I went to my first rehearsal for a new performance of Les Miserables put on by Guiseley-based theatre group, 'Stampede', and I've got to admit that I'd forgotten how much I miss doing these things. The performers on stage are all youngsters up to the age of 19 and some of them have great voices and there are one or two in there who I think will make fine actors in the future too. Absolutely excellent to watch them at work.

So, I'm going to be in the pit playing one of the keyboard parts for the show and, again, I'm really looking forward to getting involved in ensemble performance for the first time in a little while... or, at least, it's been a while since I did any group performance that requires this amount of musical discipline. Should be great fun.




Les Miserables is running at Yeadon Town Hall from the 12th to the 15th July and you can get tickets by calling 0700 044 6267.

July 4th is a massive day for many people in the USA - this is the day they celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain (as it was) on this day back in 1776. The public holiday now tends to be a celebration of all things American; a day when people of this persuasion can make a big deal of their nationistic tendencies, not so much to express anti-British sentiment as to simply commemorate the launching of the independent nation of the United States of America and all the freedoms that they associate with this institution.

Personally, I'm not big into nationalism despite its popularity among those who believe that being proud of one's country has positive repercussions such as the tendency for advocates to treat their property and peers with respect. For me the whole concept is divisive in its suggestion that the land and people of America, England (or wherever) are necessarily more worthy of respect than those things on foreign soil. Ultimately, I think a spirit of nationalism leads people to see themselves as somehow especially different from peoples in other parts of the world, when in all reality they are not.

But, having said all that, if pride in one's nation is as important a part of that country's culture as many people believe it is, then I think at least this should be manifested in the best possible fashion. A manner, say, akin to that adopted by the people of Coney Island, Brooklyn : here is held 'Nathan's Hot-Dog Eating Contest', allegedly started on July 4th 1916 to settle an argument between immigrants as to who was the most loyal to the USA. Now that's a way to demonstrate how much you love your country!!!

Well, over the last couple of days I've been 'in the studio' again working on recordings of my playing for the website - to be used as examples of what I might play at your wedding breakfast or other occasion. And when I say I've been in the studio, I mean on this occasion that I've been recording the digital piano in my bedroom with a Tascam Pocketstudio digital 4-track recorder and then mixing down the raw sound files using Cubase on my computer... also situated in my bedroom!!!!

But, I finally think I have a few recordings that I'm happy with and that demonstrate a variety of styles and musical genres f