Ooh I'm all excited!

Just saw a trailer for ITV's new sci-fi drama, Primeval, right after tonight's first instalment of Coronation Street (OK, I admit it, I'm a fan). I worked on the music for Primeval last year, doing most of the orchestration and programming, and also playing trumpet on it.

They're not saying yet when it's on, just that it's coming soon..

OK, better get back to the TV for the next instalment of Corrie (hope Chesney and Schmeichel turn up...)

Mark Levine's The Jazz Piano Book

My piano playing is certainly not all it should be, so I put The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine on my Christmas Amazon wish list. (This is how we do present buying in my family these days - perhaps some of the excitement is lost, but people do actually receive presents which they want, and no-one has to traipse around the shops on Christmas Eve.) And sure enough, one of my lovely sisters generously clicked on it.

Flicking through, I came across this bit, which I really liked:

Sitting at the piano for eight hours every day may not make you a better musician if you're not practicing the right things. As an example, I once discovered a method book of strange intervalic exercises. It was rumored that 'Coltrane practiced out of this book,' much as it was rumored that 'Bird practiced out of Nicolas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales' in the 1940s and 50s. It took me about six hours to go through the book the first day, but after a week I was going through the book about six times a day, driving my neighbors bananas I'm sure. Finally, someone walking past my door shouted 'For Pete's sake, play a bossa nova!'

Bored (and sleepy)

This week I've been busy doing the notation for the recording of the score for a popular ITV drama.. Now I'm sitting here at 4:14 am waiting for the score and parts to print off...

78 more pages to go

..ho hum...

77 more pages to go

...What to do... what to do...?

76 more pages to go

..it's about time I invested in a laser printer..

75 more pages to go

..I suppose I could browse Amazon for laser printers..

74 more pages to go

..but that sounds terribly boring too.

73 more pages to go

...hrummphhhh

Page to Performance on Radio 4

Quite a nice show talking about George and Ira Gershwin's iconic song I Got Rhythm, from it's birth as a song from the musical Girl Crazy, through to Gershwin's orchestral variations, and it's continued significance as a vehicle for improvisation in jazz. Love John Etheridge's impromptu self-accompanying breakneck performance, and Lorna Luft's bit about singing whilst being heavily pregnant (apparently you can get higher notes!).

You can listen again, but not sure how long the show will be available...

Dracula on BBC1 tonight

Look out for Dracula tonight on BBC1 at 9pm. The music was written by Dominik Scherrer and I did some of the orchestration and music editing.

How to Make a Trumpet

Here's a groovy video all about making trumpets in a trumpet factory. Although it's from the American kids' show Mr Rogers' Neighborhood, it takes me back to looking through the Square/Round/Arched window in Play School.



[edit: I'm afraid this video has been taken down from YouTube now - but check out my post of Nov 9th 2007.]

Funny how lots of people like watching stuff being made - the guy who uploaded this video has lots of similar films.

P.S. Merry Christmas!

Morley Big Band

This morning, I went along to the Morley Big Band run by Gordon Rose. It's a rehearsal band, playing very interesting and challenging music including pieces by Bill Russo and Bill Holman. There are some excellent players, but sadly a distinct lack of trombones. Amazingly, Gordon has been leading this band now for 46 years!!

I went along because I heard there was a possibility they would play a chart of mine, but they were a trumpet down so I got to play too. My chart was a jazz ballad which I wrote a few years ago in college. It was really nice to have something played by a big band again - and it's really inspired me to write something new.

A couple of other composers also arrived with charts for us to play, including Pete Moore, the gentleman who wrote the famous Pearl and Dean theme (you know: 'Ba-baa, ba-baa, ba-baa, ba-baa, ba-ba-baa, Ba-baa, ba-baa, ba-baa, ba-baaaa-BAP!')