Was music a big part of your childhood?
"I come from a musical family. My Dad was a baritone and sang in the church choir and my Mum played the organ so there was always some noise in the house! I got involved in singing at primary school and progressed more seriously at secondary school when I took up the cornet and joined a brass band. I went through my grades quickly and got an A in my A-level Music before deciding to join the Army as a musician. My family was very supportive and I had three excellent music teachers at school, all of whom encouraged different things in me - the singer, the musician, the performer and the composer."
What formal training did you do at the early stages of your career?
"I didn't actually start learning an instrument until I was 13 (which is quite late to start), but I reached grade 8 standard in two years with a lot of hard work and did my GCSE and A-level Music before joining the Army. Having not gone to university straight from school, I did a part-time MA in Film & TV Composition at Kingston University as a mature student in 2001."
Give details about your musical career in the Forces.
"There are many opportunities open to Forces musicians. You go through three trade tests which include playing test pieces on your main instrument, an oral exam, a theory exam, scales and sight reading - the exams get harder as you go through and they are tied in with your pay so your salary goes up when you pass.
I spent a year at the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall in Twickenham, the centre of excellence for Army musicians. The standard of musicianship is extremely high and it's a great opportunity to learn. My main instrument was trumpet and I had one of the leading brass band cornet players and a top West End trumpet player instructing me. I was also given the opportunity to learn piano and bass guitar, and developed my orchestrating and theory skills.
I played in the Edinburgh Tattoo twice and the Horse Guards Parade for the Queen, both of which were hard work but rewarding experiences. Each military band contains several groups within it, so it's not just a concert band or marching band. For example, I ran a pop group and dance band, and it is common to have trad jazz groups, string ensembles and woodwind and brass groups."
Is a career in the Forces as a musician worth considering?
"A most definite yes. I left the Army in 1993 and military bands, in line with Defence cuts, have slimmed down considerably but the musical training is of the very highest standard.
The downside of being a military musician is that during wartime many musicians will be called upon for active service as medics, as I was in 1991 for the first Gulf War. With the current state of the modern Gulf it is not easy, even as a musician, to avoid doing a tour of duty. However, if you can live with this, the training is excellent. I wrote a concept album based on my experiences and it actually helped my compositional skills experiencing something like that."
Please tell us about how your interest in music has progressed.
"I have a much more 'open ear' than I used to. In my teens I listened to pop and brass band music. The more I have studied and worked with different people, the more this has changed. For example, my Master's degree was in film music and that opened me up to a genre and composers that I would never have heard otherwise - it really fires the imagination.
I moved genres in the last five years to write 'Joined At The Heart', a musical based on 'Frankenstein' which we performed in Cambridge and the Fringe and knowing how music works to moving images really helped with the writing. Nowadays, I listen to anything from Keane and Coldplay to John Williams and Leonard Bernstein."
What have been the highs and lows in your career?
"The highs, I would say, move all the time as I experience working with different people and different groups. I am heavily involved in theatre groups in the Cambridge area, MDing, playing in the pit and acting/singing as well, so every show offers a new opportunity. Seeing 'Joined at the Heart' performed after spending over 10 years writing it was probably the biggest project I have done so far, though getting my Master's was a fair achievement.
I wouldn't say I have had a low. If I think I have had a bad experience I take time to work out what I can learn from it and use it to help others in the future. That might sound terribly clichéd, but it actually works."
|
