Why are dusters yellow?
Here’s something to mull over before the year goes out. Why are dusters yellow? And why has it never occurred to me to wonder why until now? It seems I’m…
Snow and rainmates
Since installing some site-stats software on my blog, I’ve been able to see how and why people end up at my site: by checking out the stats page, I can…
Musical surprises #25: A bit of Tooting history
Happy Christmas! Today’s revelation is not strictly a musical surprise, except that it vaguely concerns me and I’m a musician. But it’s quite surprising all the same, and I love…
Musical surprises #24: What Rumanian dances sound like without the Bartók
I love Bartók’s Rumanian Dances, and indeed, I’ve just recorded them with the violinist Gillon Cameron on the album After Class 2. But I was gobsmacked when I heard my…
Musical surprises #23: Vauxhall, Strauss & Tchaikovsky
Although the light and popular dance rhythms of Johann Strauss II seem a sociocultural world away from the ‘classical’ Tchaikovsky, they’re not. It’s our own snobbery that obscures the connections…
Musical surprises #22: There’s a psychopomp in my barcarole
Next time you get to a slow bit of a ballet where there’s something a bit wafty and barcarole-ish in 6/8, look out for a psychopomp. A psychopomp, explains the…