It looks as if these latest ramblings of mine are going to be mainly concerned with words and their etymology. I know that word because one of the brightest people I know studied the subject at Cambridge (or Cantabrigia as…
Continue reading →I suppose the true definition of ‘name-dropping’ includes one having actually met the name one is letting fall and subsequently mentioning it proudly over supper. In what follows, that definition is largely accurate. I cannot be alone in not having…
Continue reading →Dear Friends, after many years of threatening to write a book and being teased about the fact that I had not yet done so, I’m pleased to announce the publication of Playing the Horn: Technique and Beyond. With a goal…
Continue reading →Dear Friends, at long last, I am delighted to announce the publication of my Studies and Technical Exercises for the horn. The Creative Horn Player is over sixty pages and contains a collection of 44 technical exercises and melodic studies….
Continue reading →Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration. Izaak Walton If you can’t be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped Izaak…
Continue reading →The 29th of May, the Feast of the Ascension in the Anglican calendaris the fortieth day after EasterAnd around the end of this month occurs a most important day in the Angling calendar; the trout’s annual Feaster At this time,…
Continue reading →The older I become, the more I appreciate the disparate threads that have drawn together different parts of my life. I suppose it’s partly the past catching up with me. I may be wrong, but I suspect that musicians are…
Continue reading →Over the last – maybe – nine months, although until now not expressed on the page, many thoughts have popped into my head; sometimes of the armchair amateur philosophical kind, sometimes just memories from soon after the cradle onwards. It…
Continue reading →There used to be a chap in the BBC’s brain trust, Professor Joad, who said, as an opening to every answer he gave, ‘It all depends what you mean by …’ When I was writing something a few years ago,…
Continue reading →It is sometimes said that some people seem to waltz through life without an apparent care in the world. Others march through, often not always minding where they tread. On an immediately mundane note, I tried one evening to do…
Continue reading →One aspect of getting on a bit and having time to think has led me, inevitably, to look back and review carefully selected areas of my life. Many good friends are involved. For example, Tony Tunstall started at the Royal…
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