'News' Category
Getting to grips with Carter, part 2
Retrouvailles turned out to be a good starting point for addressing Carter’s piano music. Rhythmically, there’s nothing in it to defeat mere mortals, just sextuplet semiquavers, and triplet quavers divided into semis for different emphasis. Granted, some of these have rests in the middle, but its eminently possible to understand and hear these on sight.
So, [...]Reformation!
“Will Beckett’s March (Reprise)” from the album Mother’s Thinking Bath is receiving an airing on the very marvellous Bob Osborne’s Salford City Radio programme “Reformation” tomorrow night, between 9pm and 10pm.
This week’s playlist, apparently, is comprised mostly of artists associated with Invisible Girl Records – which is where the Mother’s Thinking Bath track comes in, [...]Twitter
I’ve been using Twitter as a means of communicating with other musical folks – very handy. My username on there is @5357311.
Presto Classical
A quick word of appreciation for the marvellous Presto Classical in Leamington Spa: granted, it may sometimes be a bit more expensive to go to a specialist shop than to obtain your CDs from Amazon and the like, but my experience of Presto Classical is that they’re the kind of independent record shop that we [...]
Silence
Apologies for the recent silence; I am still recovering from an operation on my right hand which, as you can probably imagine, put a bit of a spanner in the works with regard to playing the piano. Everything still works, though, apart from some nerve damage here and there, and I hope to start posting [...]
A Place In Space – compilation
A Place in Space, featuring the track Will Beckett’s March (reprise) from Mother’s Thinking Bath is now available on InvisibleGirl records.
The album’s press release reads:
A compilation of original artists from around the planet.
This global release has been made available on the winter solstice
(21 December 2008)
Music, culture, sounds and experiences express this diverse collection of [...]Building a new repertoire
One of my greatest concerns when beginning to work seriously at the piano again was whether or not my hands would regain their former fitness. After all, the muscles used in playing the concertina and various other free reed instruments are very different from those used for diving through a Chopin Étude. With something as [...]
The Fallen website
Ah, the amusements come thick and fast with Dave Simpson’s new book. He’s created a website for it at http://www.thefallen.co.uk on which there’s a gallery with a mugshot of yours truly, with the caption “Fallen after one song – Stu Estell“.
Never once did I suggest to the esteemed Mr. Simpson that it would be acceptable [...]The Fallen
Don’t you just love the attention to detail paid by the journalistic profession?
A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by Dave Simpson for an article he was writing for The Guardian newspaper, which involved his tracking down all former members of The Fall. Now, I have never been in The Fall, but Simpson’s definition [...]Goodbye, old paint
To those of you who have listened to my music and only know me through this website and from gigs, either solo or with my previous group, this may come as something as a surprise. To those of you who’ve known me longer, it’ll come as no surprise at all. No-one ever said I had [...]