My Semi-Finals Result in the UK Songwriting Competition

I am pleased, nay, proud to announce that my song, The Siren, reached the semi finals of the UK Songwriting Competition.  The final results have been published and I have been awarded the above certificate.

Once I had submitted my song to this competition, I realized a number of things.  I suppose you could call that some kind of epiphany. 

I knew that no matter what, whether it was ignored, praised or somewhere inbetween, I was completely happy with it.   It feels to me like my material has landed.  This is what I write ... this is what I've got to work with. 

Oddly, no matter what anyone else thinks, I like what I have written, it delights me.  It makes my brain say 'wheeee' and 'way hay'.

I also realized what the heck it is that I write.  What genre, what style, what music. 

I have always loved stories, particularly stories with an element of fantasy.

If there is such a genre, mine would be the meeting point of story telling and music.  Is there such a genre?
In this case stories are stories told using songwriting notions to give them zing,  zap and voom;
Stories can be poems or can be without words but using sounds;
I also love stories with fantasy or magical realism elements, so that's in there too.

I love jazz, blues and improvisation and have listened to a lot of rock too.
So far, music is what you get when blues meets jazz meets improvisation meets sounds meets recorded sounds.

All are mixed together with a sprinkling of beauty. 

So having had this realization, it feels like my task is to put songs out into the world in obvious an unobvious places.  Then the joy of getting a thumbs up or praise is now a way of finding a place to be able to share and perform what I seem to have written.  All I do is to just keep sitting down and working and this is what turns up.  It's about locating an audience who will enjoy these kinds of stories, this kind of music.  Part of the adventure is not knowing exactly what that is going to look like. 

A big thanks to the UK Songwriting Competition.  It felt like a bit of an unobvious place to seek a thumbs up... this certificate is gravy over mashed potatoes (ok I borrowed that line from Pat Pattison, songwriting teacher extraordinaire!) (more about songwriting and Pat another time).

Bring on the next thing!

A Murmuration of Starlings

Happy New Year!

This is my sixteenth year of living in Oxford.  I am constantly discovering something new about the city and the surrounding areas.  The most recent addition to the list is the winter starling murmurations at Otmoor.  I made a short film (above) on my newly acquired video camera (thanks dad).  It probably looks its best in full screen mode. 

Starling flocks roost in the reed beds from November until February (approximately).   We have been twice to see them, so far.  They gather at dusk and perform their beautiful acrobatics, before settling down in the reed beds.  It gives me great joy to see an extraordinary wildlife spectacle, so close to home.

We are lucky indeed, particularly as starling numbers are a fraction of what they used to be.  According to the RSPB http://www.rspb.org.uk website, the starling population has crashed by over  70%.   They are on the critical list of birds most at risk in the UK.

So, I propose a toast to the starlings.
Long may you murmurate ... cheers, astounding birds!

Andrew made a comic about this  http://invisibules.org/comic/2014-12-25-yes-starling