the right notes, necessarily in the right order

  • Mortal, can these bones live?

    Mortal, can these bones live?

    Imagine my delight recently to be invited by Lichfield Diocese Green Team to join them on a study day in Walsall. I’ll be helping out with sung worship, playing with Rev Rich Clarkson who I know through the 12 Song Challenge, and then working during the day to pen a new hymn for our act…

  • Brass Band Carols

    Brass Band Carols

    Didn’t we have a wonderful time this evening at The Avion, where Great Barr Brass led carolling for a packed pub. Thank you to everybody who came out to join in, and to the staff and management of the pub for hosting us. On another note, thanks too to Steve Pritchard-Jones who sat in with…

  • New Year Resolutions?

    New Year Resolutions?

    I’m 10% into the “new” year, and not yet set on anything I want to change so badly I’ll make it a special focus. I guess I need to make more good music, lead more sung worship in the churches that ask me to, work harder with some of my friends on our collaborative efforts,…

  • Merry Christmas!

    Merry Christmas!

    We made it. Only a week to the end of the calendar year, and no more Sundays before 2023. Happy New Year to you all too. And if you enjoy that kind of thing, here’s my Christmas song for this year:

  • Deck the Mall

    Deck the Mall

    The Saddlers Centre is our local shopping destination. They have a public piano. Last month I was honoured to be asked to play the public piano at its post-lockdown re-launch, and when Becki the lovely person who manages the centre asked me if I did any Christmas music. Evidently, the answer is “yes”… and so…

  • Hold very tight please

    Hold very tight please

    Brass bands clearly have something in common with brass monkeys – an aversion to low temperatures. So it was last Sunday we found ourselves stomping our feet to keep warm and wearing more than the usual number of layers at Aldridge Transport Museum in Aldridge. Great Barr Brass performed two sets of traditional carols, Christmas…

  • Civic Carolling

    Civic Carolling

    Just a quick note to say how much I enjoyed the Civic Carols last Sunday at St Matthew’s Church. The Christmas Choir were stunning, and it was a privilege to lead them from the organ, wearing what can only be described as my new favourite jacket. Thanks to everybody in the choir. You are all…

  • While Shepherds WHAT?

    While Shepherds WHAT?

    Annually, we have been going into pubs and singing carols. Between 2012 and 2022 there was a whole separate project and we printed up special carol sheets once we realised that everybody could then join in! With a regular (annual) event comes the traditions. Singing the wrong words (washing socks, Frank was incensed, Let us…

  • Inheritance

    Inheritance

    Whose shoulders do you stand on? When I was five, my Grandad’s piano was a thing of continuing fascination. I’d been smacking the keys randomly since I could reach it, and they lived only a three minute walk from my own home. But I was beginning to experiment with pressing notes in sequence and trying…

  • Community Choir

    Community Choir

    As part of my work for St Matthew’s Church, I run a community choir on Wednesday evenings at 19:30. We meet in the church centre (St Matthew’s Close, on the right as you enter the close) in the Main Hall and we share a hot drink and chocolate biscuits before spending a happy hour singing…

let’s talk. I’ll buy the coffees.