Staffpad again!!!

I was about eight years old when I wrote down my first piece of music...Biro on manuscript paper. By the time I was fourteen and had decided I wanted to be a professional composer, I had become used to pencil on paper and continued writing in that way until now.

My recordings have benefitted from technology since I started writing music for media...MIDI and digital recording have made it possible for me to write and record a huge amount of work over the years.

Now, technology has made it possible for me to write with an active pen onto a tablet to produce beautifully notated scores which, most importantly, can be made to produce parts in a couple of clicks.

So, at this point in this book of continuing experiments, Multiple Field Sketches, Book 2, I'm moving my notational efforts to Staffpad on Microsoft Pro 3.

I just have sixteen bars to fill out before I can upload images of the remaining pencil on paper manuscripts for MFS, but will be continuing on Staffpad until then.

I'll miss sharpening the pencils.

The music above is the first page of "Power Harrow" the first fully non-paper Multiple Field Sketch.

Busy...

Vale Of White Horse - May 2015

It's been a busy few weeks and great fun...Here's what I've been up to...

• Orchestral session went well and I am now mixing the files.

• Went to see Bill Lawrence at the Union Chapel with my composer friend Peter Aagaard...Great stuff with two Snarky Pups in the line up.

• MIDEM in Cannes...Met up with lots of publisher friends and made some new...Fantastic weather and an amazing room at the Carlton.

• A very enjoyable visit to Copenhagen to see my friends at Apollo Music followed by a fantastic meal at the Tivoli Gardens and a go on the Dæmonen rollercoaster!!!

StaffPad continues to amaze...The new version has made flats much more easily recognised and the selection of signs and symbols has been made much more intuitive. I had an instrumental session (trumpet and oboe/Cor Anglais) last week, so I tried writing the parts/scores and printing them out directly from StaffPad with great success. I even imported a couple of the pieces into StaffPad from Cubase via a MIDI file, tidied it up and used it as the starting point for writing the parts out for the session. One of my instrumentalists was amazed at the power of it and could see how useful it would be to have, particularly for her teaching work.

The veg patch is producing nicely...We've had asparagus, potatoes, garlic, courgette, strawberries, shallots onions, spinach and chard. The weather has been alternately hot and wet, so growing conditions are very good