Some months ago, I made myself a resolution to put aside the time to stop, and reflect on this past year. It's absolutely flown by, and a lot has certainly happened! So let's take a look back at the last 12 months and see what's happened...!
January
The beginning of the year certainly brought a large shift in my life, as I stepped down from a very busy Directorship at St. James Church, in West End. I do indeed miss the choir and the team there and I hear that they are indeed doing fantastically under the experienced hands of Chris Fay.
However, this allowed me to focus full-force on the teaching studio, which was already nearly at capacity by this point. For a long time, I really wanted to do events with my students, such as concerts, workshops, and training events. The thing is, piano players are often solitary creatures by habit and necessity, and without any intervention wouldn't get the opportunity to play with others until they are ready to be a concert pianist!
Luckily, I've worked with many different churches and venues across the years so I got in touch with a few to see what could be arranged. I thought I'd start local, at Christ Church Freemantle (CCF) down the road from my studio. The plan was to rotate between venues every 4 months, to give students experience on a wide range of instruments and acoustics. The plan was to start with a few 'open-mic' style workshops, just to get people used to playing. I was quite nervous about running these the first time as I'd never done it before, so I anxiously awaited our first meet-up with bated breath!
February
This month saw a fair bit of depping work on the organ come my way - people were still not often signed up for early Sunday morning slots so this gave me the opportunity to get out and about on different organs and try out some new repertoire for a change! I trialled out some more Bédard and it was around this time that I starting picking up some more Scarlatti again to plan out my Licentiate repertoire fully...(ahhh!)
I took on a few more Diploma students around this time, and the second digital recording session for exams was in full swing before half term - so I'm sure my piano would have been sky-high piled with accompaniment books...!
Our Feb workshop came and a surprising number of people came along - some of which I hadn't seen in person for quite some time. Being 5' 6" (in shoes) certainly makes me realise how quickly my students shoot up...!
March
This month, we came to the end of our time at CCF with a Spring Concert, which was really well attended and we ended up playing for a lot longer than I'd anticipated, but it was so wonderful to see everyone come together after the lockdowns began to fade into memory, and to start building the piano community that I've dreamed about for some time.
I think it's fair to say that a lot of players were very apprehensive about this - of course they would be! For some people it was the first time they'd ever played in front of a) anyone other than me/their household and b) to a large audience! So I really had to hand it to them, because it really does take a special kind of bravery to get up and perform like that. We had a wonderful mix of pieces too, including Burgmüller etudes, original compositions, Chopin nocturnes and more modern composers such as Chee-Hwa Tan and William Gillock!
I played for a few concerts in this month - including a lovely Storytelling Concert in Romsey with Romsey Sinfonia and started to gear up for the Award Holder's Concert for the Southampton Music Service for April 1st. Little did I know I would get a surprise in store in my inbox the night before...
April
So I'd just finished my teaching for the day on Thursday 31st, having organised all my music for the concert on the Friday evening. But as I was just shutting down the studio I noticed a last-minute email had come through from a student who had, unfortunately, forgotten to send the accompaniment part through for their music. "Oh well," though I, "I'm a quite confident sight-reader, how bad can it be?" But of course curiosity got the better of me, so I peered through at the attached scans, to find this:
"Oh, it's Mambo! I know this, right?". Of course, forgetting that the tempo for this would be 150bpm (if I'm lucky!)
The original plan, after finishing our WNO workshops for the day, was to head home and grab some tea before making my way over to MAST and setting up with probably plenty of time to spare. But alas, the musician's life strikes again. I got back, blasted through the music all in one go and ran over to MAST, sandwich in mouth and music in hand. In retrospect, whilst being a little bit stressful, I definitely think my page-turner had it worse!
This month saw the conclusion of my project with the Welsh National Opera's outreach programme in Southampton alongside the fantastic singer/conductor/musician extraordinaire Rachel Maby. It was a real joy and a big challenge going into schools and reintroducing them to the world of singing and opera. Many of these children were still struggling with the rather strange but necessary day-to-day life of social distancing and an increasingly digitised educational experience when entire classes were self-isolating at times. So always on our list was getting their confidence and ease of self-expression to the fore, and to their credit the classes we worked with (each in 6 weeks stints) did such a fantastic job at taking our small seedling projects and growing them into little mini operas. I certainly learnt a lot from my colleague and I'm really grateful for being called onboard with WNO. I'm sure we'll all cross paths again!
May
This month, I had some old students return, either from their travels or circumstances made it possible for them to join us at the studio again, which was a real treat. I also picked up a few more international students - by this point, I was teaching digitally in the US, Italy and France! Having Italian students is a real eye-opener on my pronunciation of performance terms, but managing appointments in multiple time zones simultaneously takes some getting used to!
I also ran a masterclass for Wessex Chorus in Bournemouth this month, who was so friendly and welcoming and we had an absolute blast of a time, exploring new and old techniques and recipes for success as a singer, both individually and as an ensemble. I hope to catch them at a concert sometimes in the new year. What a fantastic group of people!
More deputising work this month, a mixture of funerals, weddings and the occasional service (although Sunday mornings were definitely starting to fill up quick here! A few more of my students also started their journey past Grade 8 onto Diploma this month. A really ground-breaking moment for a lot of them and for myself, as some of them I've taught since Grade 1 and half my height, and now I have to crane my neck to meet their eye level!
The workshops by this time of the year had moved venue again, this time to St. James Church in West End. Vicky and the team were more than happy and extremely helpful in getting the studio booked in and warmly welcomed. Suffice to say my students definitely enjoyed the touch and sound of the Venables baby grand they have there and the acoustic just adds to it! I started to record a few things when I had the time to add to my Youtube channel but alas work overtook things quickly and my planned upload schedule was not anywhere near where I planned for it to be. But a lesson was learnt there to be a little bit more realistic about how long all the recording, editing and uploading actually takes! I had never realised how time-intensive it would be; but hopefully I can plan for something a little more plausible in the new year! I know students definitely find it helpful to see examples of pieces or demonstrations of scales by video so it's definitely in the diary to start drip-feeding onto that channel next year.
June
This month I found myself playing in the inimitable Hugh Benham's stead at St. Boniface with their lovely colourful organ. It's always nice to be playing further afield and exploring new instruments, but I am always so conscious when filling in for such esteemed musicians; however they are, as in Hugh's case, invariably so welcoming and kind as to always put me at ease. If you're interested in finding out more about Hugh Benham and his work, you can find more information here.
I also had the pleasure of accompanying some of my piano students for their instrumental exams. Many of my piano players are, by chance, multi-instrumentalists so it's always nice working with them in a different capacity and on instruments which they are much more familiar than I am. It's quite fun getting to swap roles when a student gets to teach me about their instrument!
I also stepped in to help Conchord Singers rehearse for their upcoming concert which involved specially composed music by Andrew Wilson to commemorate the postponed. Mayflower 400 celebrations. This was really fun to explore this music briefly with the choir and sit in on Craig Lawton's rehearsal and get some further inspiration for some fun warmups.
July
By this point of the year I had certainly started to notice that despite all my running around, being indoors teaching for long periods of time without moving particularly strenuously will certainly start to have knock-on effects to your health! It is embarrassing to admit, but the first time I noticed was that my regular concert gear was rather snug around the waistline! So I started to carve a little bit of time into my routine to get out for runs and exercise. Read on to December to see if I kept up with it!
More exam accompaniment this month too - taking me out to Mountbatten School for a lot of grades 6-8 on a quite wide variety of instruments this time; french horn, harp, bassoon and viola! When you do instruments in 4 clefs back to back transposing for rehearsal reference in your head gets quite fiddly but it's all good for the grey matter! It reminds me of preparing for my ARCO exam, reading in all those clefs at once!
We also had another Storytelling Sunday at the end of the month which was quite fun - on Ravel's Mother Goose for lots of little ones to enjoy the music!
August
By this time in the year, as the summer holidays swung around I decided it was time for a website revamp (which if you haven't seen yet, you can find here!). I also used this time to write up reports, plan out the rest of the workshops for the rest of the year and also managed to get a bit of a holiday in there somewhere. Unfortunately I came down really ill over my break, with a quite persistent chest infection so I spent a fair bit of it convalescing but my journey took me from Southampton, to Hull, and then into Devon! Certainly clocked up the miles on the little car.
At the end of August I had booked and arranged our final venue for the rest of the year at St. Andrews URC, on the Avenue. It just so happened that a few weeks prior I was depping for a morning service (I'd never actually been to this venue before!) and noticed their fine acoustic and choices of instruments so it gave me some inspiration for a good choice of venue!
At this point of the year the number of my students starting to focus on theory increased by quite a large percentage - so I started compiling all my resources on transposition, harmony, rhythm - the lot! Theory is always a fun one to teach as you start to see the moments when it all connects together and opens out the student's whole conception of music, but sometimes it can get a little complicated...
September
New academic year and new challenges ahead, including delivering an INSET presentation to the Music Hub on using composition as a teaching tool, which was really fun to do! Some of the new student intake started this month, which is always exciting, but of course balanced against the fact that I had to say goodbye (in some respects) to some of my alumni students who went off to university or conservatoire study; most have stayed in touch anyway with online lessons so it's not so bad but it feels only like yesterday they were thinking about their GCSEs! I'm so proud of all their hard work to take them on to their next steps and I really can't wait to see what lies ahead of them. I will be starting to compile a section on my website of alumni as they often have fantastic advice for students who are earlier on in their musical lives.
My partner and I did manage to steal a Sunday to go see Star Wars Ep. VI in concert at the Royal Albert Hall with the LSO. I'll never forget it - I am absolutely not ashamed to say I, along with a number of others, cried a great deal through that (particularly when Carrie Fisher came on screen...).
A mere 24 hours later however, I found myself back in my secondary school again! No, no case of Benjamin Button here, but the school's first live show (Clue: The Musical) in a number of years, which I was very kindly asked to come and MD for. A classic who-dunnit, and of course an excuse to dress up!
I also decided to start going full digital with my student notes this term by making shared spreadsheets with each student instead of handing them gargantuan amounts of paper over the course of a year. Seems to be working quite well (and I've reduced the studio's carbon footprint a bit too, which is nice).
October
Unfortunately this month started with a bit of a bug, so not the best start, but it quickly rallied - meeting with some other freelance professionals to get ideas about workshops and events for next year which I'm excited about if it all comes together!
Lots of students did online exams this month - so lots of marking recordings at the laptop. We also had our first proper workshop at St. A's, which this month I decided for something different would be an organ workshop (as they have a three-manual instrument) for students to experience something new and try out an instrument many of them may have never seen before! Pipe organs, as with anything that is very expensive and requires constant maintenance seem to be becoming rarer all the time so do take the opportunity to go and listen to one in concert whilst you have the chance!
I started to compile student resources onto the website that I've collected or made over the years which is hopefully going to make it a little easier for students to keep track of too.
November
By this point in the year the lovely Yamaha CLP-775 had certainly been put through its paces, and I started to notice that it required a little bit of TLC, so had it serviced on the studio closure days; which spurred me to completely rearrange the office! Don't think I've quite got the feng shui perfect just yet (I always say there's a reason I'm a musician and not working in interior design) but it's a work in progress!
We went up to Birmingham Comicon (my first time ever) for a little break before the business of Christmas preparation got fully underway. I met an amazing artist there who produces the most colourful clothing I've ever seen (you'll spot it in December's concert) but how incredible to be surrounded by thousands of creative and colourful people! Looking forward to next year!
Graham Kidd very kindly invited me back to St. Faith's (Havant) for a winter concert there - a mixture this time of Scarlatti, CPE Bach, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Louise Farrenc amongst others. Such a lovely piano and it's always great to play there. I'll have to mix it up and do another organ concert next time.
December
And just like that, it's December.
I should probably start this month by fully admitting that I didn't manage to keep up with the running unfortunately. It's definitely needing to be a bit higher on my priorities in the new year - I thoroughly believe that a fit body encourages a fit mind! However, as for things I did keep up with...:
We had our studio Winter Concert this month and finished up with some really lovely performances, with some famous pieces such as Für Elise, and also a grade 4 exam piece called Presto (3rd mvt from Sonata No. 6 in C minor by Pescetti) which we discovered was actually written by the composer for organ originally. So, we thought, why not perform it on the instrument it was written for? I was very impressed with the student in question who managed to pull this off with very little contact time with the organ in question. For those that aren't aware, the action (weight and response of the keys) is very different on an organ compared to piano, which makes a massive different to the speed and articulation choices that a musician might make, notwithstanding the choice of stops and manuals!
This also of course marks the first full year of doing these workshops. It's been a learning curve for me, finding the times and styles of workshops that work, and there are a few things I will certainly take away from this year in terms of the timing and regularity of the workshops. It goes without saying that winter events are always a little less well attended, and sometimes there doesn't need to be a particular topic at hand; it's sometimes enough to just get together and play! So definitely more jamming sessions in the new year, plus some cameos from other local musicians I'm hoping.
Each Christmas, I always get a few bookings for small, private concerts which are usually for work celebrations or family get-togethers, usually with personalised repertoire to the client. This year I've had a few come in again, taking me through Winchester, Bournemouth and around Southampton to play on people's pianos - in doing so I've also discovered how amazing the models of hybrid pianos are (I can't say I've ever had the chance to own one!) but being able to flick a switch on a grand piano and all of a sudden it's playing through a midi file is very surreal!
Our aforementioned Mr Lawton invited me back again to CCF to play for their final recital of the year. The programme was a medley of famous Christmas tunes but arranged in such a way as to be jazzy/bluesy/rhapsodic in ways that even I didn't expect when I first discovered them. Arrangers Steve Calederone and Shiori Aoyama featured prominently in this concert and I'm pleased to say the pieces went down a treat!
Now, ever since I very first started my studio, I've been manually handling all of my bookings using Google Calendar, which has been fine until the schedule gets very busy, and then I've got to go hunting for the regular, semi-regular, and ad-hoc slots in my diary for people's enquiries. However I've been saved from this at long last by Google Workspace which has now enabled me to essentially put up my availability for sessions all in one place and enables students to book sessions and change them easily at will without requiring them to wait for my reply! So that's definitely going to make 2023 easier.
By this point in the year I had about a half dozen students regularly using Logic so I've become quite accustomed to the software. The problem always was how to manage projects together remotely. I've discovered the wonders of Muse which has massively helped to manage projects and have a crystal clear audio quality with the option of remote screen control too! I've still got a fair bit to learn about Logic but it doesn't feel quite so alien as it did a year ago at least.
Of course, what December would be complete without a wonderful performance (or 3) of Howard Blake's score to The Snowman at Romsey Abbey? All we were missing was the snow (which we very nearly had in all fairness!) but each show was booked to the rafters and really warmly enjoyed. Always such fantastic players in Romsey Sinfonietta that come together and having done the Snowman for about 3/4 years it really does cap off the year really nicely.
And that about wraps up the year! Professionally, it's given me the space to start moving in the direction that I want to develop and personally, I think I've definitely found the right balance between work and life to be able to enjoy both even at their busiest times. My students have taught me a great many things also and their development over the past 12 months is really encouraging for me, as I get to see the results of our work together.
A lot of my new students will recognise this next question. What worked well this year, and what would I want to change or improve?
Well firstly I'm really pleased with how the new format of lesson notes has gone; it's enabled me to keep much better track of targets and by being a collaborative document students are able to edit and add to it at will, putting them much more in control of their lesson targets. The new calendar system has already made a massive difference and I'm quite happy with the balance of teaching and performing that this year has brought.
As for what I'd like to improve, I definitely think I need to get out a little more! I'm going to start scheduling in breaks more rigorously, even if it's just a walk and not a full workout! I'd also like to rearrange the office (again); I've always got so much music on the go and currently it's arranged in organised but myriad piles. I want to keep going with more solo repertoire and maybe even some duets with some other pianists would be really nice!
So here's to another year of music-making, and looking forward to seeing you all in the new year!
Myles
