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About Neil

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So far Neil has created 19 blog entries.

November 2021

Climates of the Mind

2021-11-30T08:04:42+10:00November 30th, 2021|classical music|

Climates of the Mind, my collection of orchestral pieces representing various moods and states of mind, is now an album, available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Deezer and elsewhere (links at the end of this blog). Here are some notes on the individual tracks of Climates of the Mind: Nonchalance Nonchalance means behaving as if you are calm and carefree despite an underlying sense of unease or anxiety. In this music I had in mind the idea of a person (represented by the solo bassoon) moving nonchalantly through a variety of different environments, trying hard to stay “cool” and ignore the fact that all may not be quite as safe or predictable as it seems. Only at the very end does the mask of nonchalance [...]

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June 2021

Natural Music

2021-06-22T09:42:11+10:00June 22nd, 2021|classical music|

Nature is a frequent theme in my music and in the videos I have made with my music, and I regard my music as natural music. Here is what I mean by this: Natural Music Natural music is music in harmony with the laws of nature. Music is organized sound: sound organized into meaningful patterns by human beings (or by birds, which have their own music). Sound is, however, already organized in nature long before human (or avian) minds make their own patterns with it. Sound begins as waves of compression and rarefaction in the air, waves that embody mathematical principles. When these waves impact our eardrums, the vibrations in our eardrums are processed by the middle ear and passed on to the inner ear. [...]

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May 2021

Seeds

2021-05-04T10:13:54+10:00May 4th, 2021|classical music|

Nature is a constant theme in my music and in the videos I have made with my music. My music is natural music, in the sense that it’s all in harmony with the laws of nature. I will explain what I mean by this in a blog I’ll be posting soon. Meanwhile, here is something that is not music but also reflects that connection between humans and nature that many of us feel instinctively. A few times in my life – times of intense feeling – an urge has come upon me to write poetry. I started this poem many years ago and almost finished it, but there were two or three lines I could never seem to find the right words for. I've found [...]

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March 2020

Tuneful? The Importance of Melody

2020-03-04T16:49:44+10:00March 2nd, 2020|Classicial Music|

“Melody is the essence of music,” said Mozart. "The true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody," said composer, theorist and pupil of Bach, J.P. Kirnberger. For millennia, right across the world, pretty much everybody agreed with this. Folk songs, religious chant, the music of the indigenous people of every continent, the classical music of China, the Middle East and most other parts of the world – all these have always consisted essentially of melody. Still today, the great majority of music sung, played and heard throughout the world – pop music, musical theatre, jazz, classical, film music, "world" music – whether heard live or via recordings, emphasizes melody more than the other elements of music. Of course there are exceptions. Some world music is based [...]

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September 2019

Gratitude

2019-09-15T10:35:31+10:00September 15th, 2019|Classicial Music|

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”    – G. K. Chesterton “The root of joy is gratefulness.” – David Steindl-Rast Modern research tells us that gratitude increases happiness, optimism, energy and resilience, and improves mental and physical health, sleep, relationships and (apparently) even personality. There are thus many good rational reasons for cultivating gratitude. But when we feel truly grateful we are not thinking about the benefits for ourselves! Our focus is on the person or thing we are grateful to: other people, the world, God or Nature. Gratitude is a feeling directed outside of our limited selves – that is why it has been advocated by all the major religions, by [...]

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January 2019

how to hear my music

2019-01-19T08:11:13+10:00January 15th, 2019|Classicial Music|

There are now several different ways you can hear my music You can stream it on: YouTube : the following four titles with video and many more with music only (see links below) : I have felt a presence: https://youtu.be/TYeeTuboh08 Nostalgia : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEW3tokXHCY Lucid Dreaming: https://youtu.be/9WsnqndhXas Concerto for Harpsichord or Piano (excerpt): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh5-1ZPySzA&t=4s Apple Music : four albums and a single: O Breath, O Fire (a sampler album of music in different genres) Fame, Gold & Shadow (music for Beowulf and other music for solo or small groups of instruments) Fuzzy Logic, Lucid Dreaming (music for wind instruments with orchestra) Concerto for Harpsichord or Piano (the whole concerto on harpsichord plus long excerpts on piano) Nostalgia (single)                    [...]

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October 2018

YouTube channel

2018-10-13T11:28:08+10:00October 13th, 2018|Classicial Music|

My YouTube channel has now been launched, so far with two videos of my music: https://youtu.be/9WsnqndhXas (Lucid Dreaming) https://youtu.be/Wh5-1ZPySzA (part of my Concerto for Harpsichord or Piano) and one video with some altogether different sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpXBWZNUVdY Also on YouTube is a film by Peter Lamshed that uses part of my Clarinet Concerto as title and background music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjj9nAWQKM&list=PLjWzBy8LHFe1UF4_Oudc6d2fUytem0Xns Other compositions of mine on YouTube (so far without video) are: the lively finale of my Clarinet Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiOFdsi0HSc the grand but quirky choral and orchestral piece, Musick, the Mosaique of the Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BGaU0RBXTA my setting of the great lament from Beowulf, The Lay of the Last Survivor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O38YNQ_babE one minute of fun, My Lady Margo's Rompe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8feh-SdNig the wistful Siciliano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrbnPD78rqU the atmospheric orchestral piece Parables of [...]

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July 2018

7 Beats?

2018-07-22T17:38:06+10:00July 22nd, 2018|musical elements|

Almost all the music we normally hear has a regular rhythm or pulse, usually in a repeated pattern of two, three or four beats. Most pop and rock, the majority of classical music, every march, much world music: all four beats. "Triple time", three beats to the bar, is also common, familiar from waltzes, songs such as Bob Dylan's “The Times They Are A-Changin", or popular classics like the slow movement of Bach's concerto for two violins or the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves from Verdi's Nabucco. But some music doesn't fit those common patterns. Gregorian chant and religious chants from other cultures are generally in a free rhythm, with no regular pulse. And some music arranges itself into a regular five, seven or even eleven [...]

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June 2018

the launch

2018-06-26T16:19:27+10:00June 12th, 2018|classical music|

Finally, after many delays, this website is up and running! The aim of this site is simply to make my music known and available to more people. I've been writing music for many years and a few of my compositions have been performed in public, but until now they have not been available to a wider audience. This site and my CD Baby page (link below) now make my music available to listeners anywhere, and to any musicians or singers who want to perform it. There is another aim to this site though. Many people think modern classical music is obscure, difficult, elitist, or just plain unpleasant. I want to promote the idea that contemporary classical music can be accessible, tuneful and user-friendly, and that [...]

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