Only Child

I recently finished doing the music for another short animated film by Jason Ruddy. Only Child is a poem about a lonely little girl, Petunia, who longs for a little brother, and Jason has animated the story. Jason has Paul Kaye reading the poem. (Mr Kaye also appeared in the Miss Marple episode I worked on recently - small world and all that.)

As this was a poetry reading, I decided to use solo piano. The story is set in a family home, so again I thought piano was appropriate. I used a great piano patch from Post Musical Instruments which they call 'The Old Lady' - it's a 1923 Steinway, and has a great deal of character. Using Kontakt 2's scripting facilities, it implements sympathetic resonance, so that non-struck keys sound if their string is currently undamped and they are harmonically related to a struck key. Or something.. anyhoo, it sounds good.

I understand that Jason is still polishing the film - watch this space for further developments..

Scenes of a Sexual Nature in Cannes

This film, which I orchestrated for and played trumpet on, was shown in Cannes the other day. I don't know at present when it will be on general release - watch this space! (Or better yet, watch this space!)

Piano found on Ben Nevis

How odd. Judging by this picture, I'm not sure how they could tell that this object had indeed once been a piano. The full story is well worth a read.

My sister recently bought a piano and is having terrible difficulty finding someone to take it up the stairs. Pity the people who delivered this one didn't leave their card. (Mind you, her stairs are a bit narrower than Ben Nevis.)

update 18/05/2006: Success! Kate's piano is now safely installed in it's new home upstairs.