Blog Posts

I feel like I’ve spent too many posts recently talking about bad writing. It’s taken Pat Mills’ Iconoblast newsletter dropping into my mailbox to prompt…

Reharmonization is a musical term for changing the chords in a song while keeping the melody the same. Jazz musicians do this a lot. There’s…

I got to the door quickly and he’d already walked away, he said he didn’t think I was in, a little more patience would be…

Astrud Gilberto died this week. I started writing the below post last year. Now seems an appropriate time to finish it. Getz/Gilberto I was going…

Ask anyone who knows anything about music and they’ll tell you: if you want to learn to play your instrument properly you need to learn…

On Monday night I watched Vermeer: the Greatest Exhibition. This is described as “a narrated private view of the largest Vermeer Exhibition in history, currently…

I’d always recommend joining a writers’ group. I think it’s a valuable experience no matter what your level of experience. If nothing else you get…

I was listening to the album Thriller by Michael Jackson when it occurred to me there was a time when the music didn’t exist. I…

Apologies for the gap in posts. I was on holiday in Athens. More on that in a later post. For the moment, though, you might…

I wrote my post last week knowing that Eric Brown had died. As the news had yet to be released I didn’t like to say…

I’m currently reading Queen Camilla by Sue Townsend (paid link). The book is a follow up to The Queen and I, in which the Royal…