performance - open mic, Earl Beatty, Motspur Park

The set was:

1. Jamie Gray - Beseechingly
2. Michael Buble - Learnin' the Blues
3. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
4. Muse - Unintended
5. James - She's a Star
6. Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

performance - open mic, Tavern, Worcester Park

Felt really good to get out and play an open mic again. I met some new friends and a lot of people were complimentary about my performance, including the bar girl and an audience member who apparently wants me to play at his open mic in Wimbledon, which is nice!

The set was:

1. Jamie Gray - Fantasia
2. Katie Melua - Learnin' the Blues
3. The Beatles - When I'm Sixty-Four
4. Muse - Ruled By Secrecy
5. Vera Lynn - The White Cliffs of Dover
6. Alexa Pol - Never Stopped Loving You
7. Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes - Love Lifts Us Up
8. Elton John - Your Song

composition - 'Removals'

As usual in the middle of the night, I've started work on a new song. The working title is 'Removals'; I'm actually pretty pleased with how this one is progressing. Considering I have had writer's block/lack of inspiration of late, I have surprised myself with how organically the structure is forming. The melody and harmony do seem to be "writing themselves". I'm scoring it for drum kit, (will probably replace this with something from the VST library in due course) neutral voice and piano. It's one of my typical depressing songs concerning how a fictitious guy wants to "remove" all aspects of a girl he once liked from his life so he can start feeling happier.

composition - rock opera: "Angry Father"

I've decided to completely redo the 3rd act of the rock opera because the storyline as it currently sits makes little sense. Decide for yourself:

Original synopsis: (Act 1) Eileen is a fifteen year old girl. She lives with her father – her parents separated 6 years ago. She has a penchant for Guns n Roses and gets into trouble all the time at school. One day she goes too far and gets expelled, so her father decides that she needs morals and values drummed into her. So he sends her to a nunnery in the hope of changing her attitude. (Act 2) Predictably, the ways of the nunnery prove to strongly disagree with Eileen’s attitude. (Act 3) She escapes and hides out at a friend's house, during which time they form a rock band and start gigging at local venues. The band works hard and eventually finds stardom and wealth.

Revised synopsis: (Act 1) Eileen is a fifteen year old girl. She lives with her father – her parents separated 6 years ago. She has a penchant for Guns n Roses and gets into trouble all the time at school. One day she goes too far and gets expelled, so her father decides that she needs morals and values drummed into her. So he sends her to a nunnery in the hope of changing her attitude. (Act 2) Predictably, the ways of the nunnery prove to strongly disagree with Eileen’s attitude. (Act 3) She escapes and hides out at a homeless shelter at the other end of town. Back at the school, her father is alerted when nobody can find Eileen, and a TV broadcast goes out. Eventually she returns home and reluctantly agrees with her father to try a little harder.

Following on from that, I have archived the original scores (crap, I even got the original rock opera score bound in its entirety at not inconsiderable cost... whoops) and have set out to compose new pieces to bring the work to a satisfactory conclusion. It seems to me that the path Act 3 should take ought to be something like this: Homeless Shelter -> Angry Father -> TV Broadcast -> Returning Home -> Promises -> All's Well/Finale

'Homeless Shelter' was rejigged a few weeks ago from the original 'Lying Low at Claire's' with some changes to the music and obviously the lyrics too. It should take another couple of months to finish the whole thing, time permitting of course!

performance - coming out of hiding

It's been nearly a year since I posted on here...and not long after I wrote on my other blog to "not expect any updates on JAG Music for a while as my musical creative drive has been flatlining", I have been asked to play the piano at two weddings. One of them would be for one of my best friends, Ben, who I have known since my student days at Leeds University. The other would be for my sister. I can hardly say no to either of them! Here's a taster of the set I have drawn up for my sister's wedding:

The Closest Thing To Crazy                      Melua

(Getting Some) Fun Out of Life                  Leslie/Burke

Love Lifts Us Up                                Cocker/Warnes

Your Song                                       Elton John

She’s a Star                                    James

Unintended                                      Muse

Drive/Sway                                      Runga

Mercy                                           Duffy

Heartbeats                                      Gonzalez

When I’m Sixty-Four                             The Beatles

Hands Down                                      Dashboard
                                                Confessional

Oxygen                                          Feeder

Never Stopped Loving You                        Pol

Fields of Gold                                  Sting

Brown Eyed Girl                                 van Morrison

Pretty Woman                                    Orbison

Moon River                                      Mancini

Arrivederci Roma                                Martin

Stand By Me                                     King

Hallelujah                                      Cohen

Sometimes When We Touch                         Hill

I Know Him So Well                              Paige

Unchained Melody                                North/Zaret

All I Ask of You                                Lloyd Webber

Prelude                                         Gliére

Clair de Lune (Bergamasque Suite)               Debussy

Sonata in C                                     Clementi

Le Onde                                         Einaudi

Stella del Mattino                              Einaudi

Gymnopedie I                                    Satie

Lied Ohne Worte                                 Mendelssohn

Prelude (Op. 28 No. 15)                         Chopin

performance - open mic, Grey Horse, Kingston

Other guests included Jim Page, Maria Ahearn and Louie Green (happy birthday!). The set was:

1. Jamie Gray - Fantasia (excerpts from Iridescence Fantasia)
2. Michael Buble - Learnin' the Blues
3. The Beatles - When I'm Sixty-Four

performance - open mic, Grey Horse, Kingston

Other guests were Mary In A Tree. The set featured an old favourite of mine from the American Pie OST:

1. Jamie Gray - Beseechingly
2. Bic Runga - Sway
3. Jamie Gray - Fantasia (excerpts from Iridescence Fantasia)

performance - open mic, Grey Horse, Kingston

The set was:

1. Coldplay - The Scientist
2. Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade of Pale
3. James - She's a Star

performance - open mic, Grey Horse, Kingston

The set was:

1. Jamie Gray - Beseechingly
2. Bic Runga - Sway
3. Jamie Gray - Fantasia

performance - open mic, The Grosvenor Arms, Hanwell

The set was:

1. Queen - Too Much Love Will Kill You
2. Jamie Gray - Beseechingly
3. Jamie Gray - Fantasia

composition - 'Just Once'

I've spent the last day or so rejigging the structure of 'Just Once'. It originally had a verse-bridge-chorus-verse-verse structure. I really wanted another chorus in there. So now it's verse-bridge-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus. It's one of the key moments on my forthcoming home-produced album 'Moments In Time'.

performance - open mic, Brave New World, Surbiton

The set was:

1. The Beatles - Yesterday
2. Alexa Pol - Never Stopped Loving You
3. Queen - Too Much Love Will Kill You
4. Muse - Ruled By Secrecy
5. Michael Buble - Learning the Blues
6. The Beatles - When I'm Sixty Four

performance - recent open mic gigs

Apologies for the lack of updating once again!

In late April, I did a bit of networking and ended up being invited to play at an open mic night at Fairfield Tavern in Kingston upon Thames. I elected to play a selection of covers and original pieces. The set was received quite well - one guy there asked me on the spot if I could give piano lessons to his 13 year old son. Additionally, I got to perform Fields of Gold and Unintended with Maria, who promotes the night. A week later, she asked me to help co-promote the night - involving setting up equipment, monitoring output levels, etc. and was willing to pay me £40 a week. Naturally I obliged! Just two weeks later though, she had disappointingly changed her mind, citing the reason as she needed someone who had more free time on their hands.

I was at Brave New World in Surbiton last night to see my friend Sumeet play in his band Mary In A Tree at their open mic night. I was also due to play yesterday but the promoter Will 'forgot' about me as there were several acts to get through. No hard feelings though, he invited me back tonight to support Mary In A Tree on bank holiday Monday! :)

performance - open mic, Fairfield Tavern, Kingston

The set was:

1. Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes - Love Lifts Us Up
2. Elton John - Your Song
3. The Beatles - When I'm Sixty-Four
4. Sting - Fields of Gold
5. Muse - Unintended

composition - 'Goats and Tigers'

The free version of the game has now been finished and released on iTunes and can be download to your iPad, iPhone or iPod free of charge by following this link:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/g-t/id399598547?mt=8

The premium version will hopefully follow by the end of December, as will an entirely new game, codenamed 'Bridges'.

Modulus - here we go again...

Once again the band suffers upheaval as my latest singer Aimee has decided to quit in light of her heavy workload at the school. We are grateful to her for organising our rehearsal spaces over the last three months or so. I have informed our drummer Yuri that the band is to cease with immediate effect. It's just too much hassle trying to do this when other people can't commit.

orchestration - radio 4 work

It's been a while, hasn't it?! Recently I was quite lucky to be offered some work by Ben's girlfriend Becca, who works as a broadcast assistant at Radio 3. The work was essentially two transcriptions of cabaret songs for a forthcoming Radio 4 production. It was unpaid, but the experience was still extremely valuable. The work had an absolute deadline of this evening, and I'm pleased to report that it was completed by 3am early Friday morning. Hopefully this will have portrayed me in a good light and might therefore place me well to be offered further work.

composition - 'Encaustic'

Unfortunately, Encaustic did not make it through to the shortlist of the Citta di Udine competition. Still, there's always next year.

composition - 'Goats and Tigers' title themes

Currently on my MySpace are three versions of the title theme I've been working on for the forthcoming 'Goats and Tigers' iPhone game. Please do have a listen, all feedback is genuinely welcomed, good or bad. We are aiming for a release date of late August to early September.

composition - 'Goats and Tigers' iPhone version

The iPhone version of 'Goats and Tigers' is due to be released this autumn. As composer of the original video game soundtrack, I have been asked to write more music for this release. It has been decided that the game will have a distinctly retro feel, with the others requesting me to write in an "8-bit C64/Spectrum style". This is an exciting project to be working on as our little design group branches out into hi-tech applications like the iPhone. Whether it is successful or not, I've been asked to compose music for two further video games (also coded by Dan) - which are 'Bridges' and 'Suicide Chess'. All of these three games can be played in a Java format here. Please send any feedback here.