It used to be back to school in September, but now it’s back to choirs, back to composing, back to trying to persuade people to sing my songs and play my pieces! September’s musical blog will be full of my music – old and also new, I hope!

September 1st
Sunday, as it happens, so things actually start tomorrow. Therefore, I’m looking back at last week’s trip to Arbroath Abbey (1178, it was founded!) where I was somewhat taken by the Round O in the ruins. One of the guides at the Abbey told us that the O was repaired by the fellows building one of Robert Stevenson’s lighthouses on their days away from the sea in the early 19th century, and that it’s actually wide enough to sit on. We did also learn a lot about the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320. The museum-y bit is splendid, we agreed.

September 2nd
Back to….Monday choir practices with The Bridge Singers. Also, work has started on the K6 telephone box on the bridge. Here’s a bit of both of those with an excerpt from Saturday’s concert.

September 3rd
I discovered today from APRA/AMCOS (Australasian Performing Rights Association/Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society) that I earned 5 Australian cents in August because my song Rain is on a “streaming service”. I don’t know any more than this, but these miniscule amounts from this same source and song, have been coming my way for several years now, and I guess if you add them all up, it perhaps amounts to a bar of chocolate, which is nice. There are also slightly larger amounts of money in the offing for broadcasts of Motu Puketutu an Hodie Christus Natus Est on radio and TV in New Zealand, so that’s also quite cheering! The only recording I know of of Rain is this one, but there must be another out there somewhere!

September 4th
Not much happened today to be honest, so I will choose a song and tell you about it. It’s The Swing, which is one of a set of five settings of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson for high voices. This one’s in two parts an is the first ever choral piece I wrote when I was doing my master’s degree in Auckland. It was first performed by Auckland University Singers under the direction of Karen Grylls. It’s been performed quite a few times since then. It’s also one of Jamie’s favourite songs of mine, and it’s his birthday tomorrow. One of the things I did do today was go shopping for cake ingredients, so you might get to see the upshot of all that tomorrow! The Swing is in a variety of time signatures and rollicks along conjuring up the movement of an actual swing up and down.

September 5th and 6th
Jamie’s birthday is 5th, so there was cake making, eating and sharing. We were going to go up to the Upper Coquet for an excursion in the afternoon, but the weather was so plop that we postponed it until 6th when it was sometimes sunny, sometimes foggy and sometimes just grey. We took lots of photos for Jamie’s CRAG website task, then came home and ate more cake!

September 7th
I made runner bean fritters. I improvised and, yet they’re good, and a delicious way of varying our current over-consumption of beans. I have photos, but no time to make a video today. I’ll make and add another day …

September 9th
Choir night and we cracked on preparing for our concert at the end of the month and also a wedding this coming weekend.

September 10th
It’s deadline day for our village’s newsletter “The Bridge” and so I’ve been busy writing something about The Bridge Singers, as I do every other month. As we’ve got our world première of A Takeaway Sunrise coming up, I’ve written about that. It feels a bit indulgent, but I’m assured by others that it’s a good idea! It might be a bit long for them and they edit it, I guess, so here’s the full story with added videos and photos! Song Stories: A Takeaway Sunrise.

September 11th
Back to…Swarland Voices tonight and a very merry time was had. It reminded me that I said I’d make a video of some our performance in July of my pal Chris Marshall’s song/arrangement of Minoi Minoi. The beginning of the song was missed by the person recording it anyway, so it was never going to be a full version! Earlier today I went on a river walk to take more photos for my rivery videos coming up later in the week. Here are a few of the spare photos with the song. There’s no link between photos and song, except me…conducting, photographing, being Chris’ friend!

September 12th
I’ve made a new video over the last couple of days using pictures of the River Coquet (and one of my “lovely” songs!), for Jamie’s CRAG website that he’s working on.

September 13th
On a sunny Friday, a cheery thing to find while out and about stomping, is a field of sunflowers. Naturally, I have a song for the occasion!

"I’m a sunflower with a sunny, funny face.
With my friend I’ll have a “who’s the tallest” race.
In the open ground, the wind will blow me down.
Against a wall, or a fence is a sunflower’s place."

September 14th
I strolled around Cragside this afternoon and noticed things. This song is well and truly in my head on account of its world première coming up in a fortnight!

September 15th
The Bridge Singers sang hymns at a wedding in Cullercoats today. Photos were taken, as you see! After we’d practised the hymns with the organist, we sang a couple of songs from memory to enjoy the acoustics: Aya Ngena and Dona Nobis Pacem. I didn’t have the recording machine with me, so here’s a bit of Aya Ngena from our recent concert in Longframlington.

September 16th
I finished a video of The Bridge Singers performing my arrangement of the Northumberland folk song, The Fisher’s Invitation, in Warkworth in May. The photos are all of the River Coquet in Northumberland.

September 17th
I went a-strolling at sunrise and it was a glorious one. It followed an exceedingly bright and magical moon, which guided us home after choir. At choir we tackled A Takeaway Sunrise with energy, determination and increasing confidence. This part of Ian McMillan’s lyrics were in my head this morning. I wasn’t anywhere near any rock pools, but still…

This morning 
Is the brightest
That there’s ever been
The light is dancing
Over the rock pools
Smiling at me

September 18th
I walked to Amble first thing, to see Michael and Mum. It was a full moon setting and a foggy sunrise, so much to photograph. Later it was Swarland Voices and we sang Moonfinches in honour of the full moon. Here’s a bit of it from an earlier rendition, along with some of my sunrise moonset photos.

September 19th
Two thrilling composery things have happened this week:
1. I received lots of royalties from APRA for performances or broadcasts overseas. It’s mostly for Alleluia Into The Light in the USA, but also for a couple of other pieces in Belgium.
2. My seapieparcel YouTube channel tipped over 100,000 views.

September 20th
This afternoon I spent an exceedingly cheerful three hours with my dear pals Gwyn and Anne, chatting over the photos Jamie and I took in August, of Gwyn’s childhood home village of Brithdir in Wales. Last year, I wrote a song for Gwyn about his ghostly walks home as a boy past three churchyards in Brithdir. Here’s a snippet of the song, and a clutch of photos that inspired the most chat and reminiscence yesterday.

September 21st
News today of sales of my arrangement for choir of Paul Simon’s Leaves That Are Green (It’s available from sheetmusicplus if you want copies for yourself!), which is exciting – it’s been a good composery week, eh!? Here’s a snippet of that arrangement as performed by The Bridge Singers in Lanercost Priory in 2019 along with some drippy photos I’ve taken while out and about in the mist today.

September 22nd
I’ve made a couple of more snippets of A Takeaway Sunrise to help the choir. I was hoping for a dazzling sunrise when I went out for my walk this morning, but it’s a pretty dull day today, so I found photos from just after sunrise on 9th July 2015 to accompany these two minutes of song – there were jewel-like jellyfish on the beach, and clearly a tall ship moored off the coast on July 9th 2015 – quite the morning! And for the birds bit, I found some sunrise birds from various days on the same year. It’s lucky that I have such a vast store of sunrise photos!

September 23rd
It was our final rehearsal before next week’s concert tonight, and therefore also our last chance to grapple with A Takeaway Sunrise, pre-premiere. It’s just about there. I’m very proud of the song and of the choir, who have clearly done lots of work since last Monday. They say that all my little one-minute videos have helped, so I’ll keep on making them! The weather today has been grim with greyness and raininess, so I’ve rootled back through my sunrise archive to December 31st 2016 for this series at Ross Sands.

September 24th
Here’s another bit of A Takeaway Sunrise with some photos of a rather dull sunrise from this morning. When it’s grey and a bit drizzly like this with no sunshine to provide the sparkle, you have to work a bit harder to find the colours and shapes. I stood in one place, took a couple of panorama shots, then headed into the hedgerows to find details.

Also tonight, someone bought 30 copies of this song! Wheeeeh!

25th September
I went to Rennington to check out the church for Monday’s concert with The Bridge Singers, took some photos and made a teensy advert. Tonight was Swarland Voices where we spent most of the time on Weep O Mine Eyes by John Bennet, which I love very much. I walked home because Jamie needed the car. I won’t be doing that again now until April – it’ll be too dark. Boo!

26th September
A grim day weather-wise, so I’ve cobbled together some pictures I found the other day while looking for something else – all of boats in the sun, and married them with a bit of my sea shanty Push The Boats Out. In the evening there were four of us at Lionheart Harmony – one per part, and a pleasing sound, and also pleasing comments about my Chattanooga Choo Choo arrangement…more on that tomorrow…

27th September
I started composing my barn owl songs using Annie’s lyrics today – slow progress, but it’s a start! I also tinkered with my scores of Chattanooga Choo Choo – an arrangement I made for Lionheart Harmony. It was originally made a few years ago with lyrics pertaining to Aln Valley Railway – a charity CD for Ron. You can read a bit about that here! Anyway, I’ve now revised that arrangement with the original words and it is available for sale on Sheet Music Direct:

Chattanooga Choo Choo for TTBB choir with solos at Sheet Music Direct

28th September
Here’s a second mini-advert for The Bridge Singers’ concert on Monday, this time featuring our local composers’ works. The photos are all from this morning’s sunrise walk, which was a rather colourful and sunny one!

29th September
There was an extra rehearsal this afternoon for a few of tomorrow concert choir. It was merry and useful. Before that, I went a-walking at sunrise, and then again later with Mum and Jamie at the grey seaside. I went for pictures of the sunrise and some music we practised this afternoon!

30th September
Morning – I’ve made the third video for tonight’s concert.

Night – and here’s the end of our concert, which included no fewer than fifteen of my arrangements, and one of my pieces, of course: A Takeaway Sunrise. This clip is from Run For Home.