We Do Adventure

The main reason our blog had been sitting unattended was work winning the battle for attention. Part of what we do here is work with the Evangelical Church of Bosnia and Herzegovina on youth work projects. This includes summer camps and conferences. Anyone who has ever been to a Christian camp will probably have experienced singing of some sort or another: maybe camp-fire songs, maybe things that sound like they come from the Bible, maybe tunes that sound like they came off the radio. The English speaking world has hundreds of artists producing all this and more. The Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian speaking world doesn't. All of that to say the work in question - producing new music recordings – is something that needs to happen more here. Music is such an important form of expression; we don't want young people to miss out on the chance to sing things they mean in their own language. People can, and do, translate English language songs and sing them. Sometimes they work, but of...

"Drop everything" was the thought that went through my mind when I saw the second round of unseasonable snow this morning. Round one came just as Manchester City wrapped up their first Premier League title on Sunday. I don't know what was more surprising: that Edin Dzeko scored or to suddenly look out of the window to see large white flakes falling from the sky! Round two happened overnight. The temptation to grab my snowboard and head for the hills was very real, but I resisted. For one thing, the kombi now has its summer tyres on, and there's no knowing what the state of the trail towards the top of the mountain would have been like. Perhaps the more pressing reason for restraint was the meetings to go to and courses to teach that were already in the diary. "Drop everything" is a romantic idea but not always a practical or responsible one. The bonus of sticking to the plan was having a cracking songwriting session this afternoon. So I'm not complaini...

Almost a fortnight ago I blogged about a particularly poignant songwriting commission I'd received. Two weeks later that song – No Time To Say Goodbye - is written, recorded and, with the obligatory music video, now ready to tell its story wherever the world wide web may take it. Life is, as you're doubtless aware, not quite so simple as those last two sentences imply. That I have produced a recording and video featuring both of the young people it was written for is a testimony to the the shifting sands of bureaucratic time frames, the importance of sometimes just acting on impulse and of what can be achieved if you are prepared to sacrifice a little sleep. Both Sting and Craig David have songs called 'Seven Days'; this song was turned around in four. It was early evening on a Monday when I picked up my freshly restrung Telecaster and started strumming out some chords. Suddenly I hit something that I knew would be the basis of this song. Very quickly the genesis of a m...

Regular readers know I'm a musician, some will have picked up I'm a song writer too. As such it pays not to be too blinkered in your musical outlook. I enjoy music from rap to rock, electronica to eclectica – if such a genre exists! However, in case you think I never draw the line, I'll confess I am not yet a fan of folk, I have an uneasy relationship with reggae and my association with jazz is limited to using the phrase 'close enough for jazz' to excuse mistakes. As a young musician I remember spending hours in extended blues jams with my brother. I use blues in the loosest sense: twelve bar patterns and lots of pentatonic noodling. It was enthusiastic but our comfortable life in suburban Southern England was a million miles from the inspiration for this music. Rock'n'roll historians will know that the blues is rooted in the call and response chants of displaced people. It is the music of facing pain with perseverance; the sound that gives the downtrodd...

Over the past few years I’ve spent hours – probably days or weeks, in reality – helping people write songs. I’ve worked with people well versed in classical music, people who can’t name the chord they’re strumming and pretty much everything in between. My musical adventures have included highlights like encouraging would-be vocalists whose abilities made lightening look consistent and those whose concept of a steady beat couldn’t be less steady if it where tumbling headlong down the stairs. I’ve written with people from different continents and heard my songs translated into different languages. But today I broke new ground. It was my first musical meeting with a local, up-and-coming, singer-songwriter. (Admittedly, a claim she might not yet make for herself!) So many things were familiar – the musical get-to-know-yous and feeling your way through the genesis of a song together. However, there was one obvious difference. Despite all my language lessons it’s very clear to me that I’m st...

As a songwriter I've always held to the rule that you should never chuck any lyric ideas away. I got very irritated with someone who once scribbled over some ideas in one of my notebooks to the point they were indecipherable. Even if lyrics are discarded from one composition they may find a home in another. And if they are completely rubbish they remain as an encouragement of how far my craft has developed! Moving means chucking away and so it was during Saturday's populating of bin bags with trinkets of old that I discovered a scrap of paper from the note block that sits by the home phone. I can't remember writing the lines on it but they're definitely my scrawl. I could have penned them now so here they are...lyrics from a song I never wrote! I wanna hold everything forever Don't wanna choose what to let go But I can't put my hands up and still hold Everything forever Surrender is my time for letting go