“Should auld acquaintance be forgot…” – 2012 highlights!

It’s been another exciting year and one that I’ll always remember for taking the plunge and turning a lifelong ambition – to be full-time self-employed as a composer, arranger and session musician – into a reality.  I thought I’d end 2012 with a look at just some of the things I’ve been up to this year.

First up, a mention for someone that epitomises the kind of attitude I admire in fellow musicians.  He’s talented, straight-talking, ambitious but down to earth with it too and released a debut single in December to help raise funds for Help For Heroes.  It’s been a genuine pleasure to join Gary Edward Jones and drummer Chris Haywood for recording, performing and filming two videos over this last year or so, have a look at the video for his track Friends Of Mine here.

Next, the wonderful Kaya, a songwriter and performer I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few times before on various projects.  This year, our paths have crossed more than ever before, always with exciting results.  Her band, The Science of the Lamps (a collaboration between Kaya and Grethe Borsum) recorded a new EP and I was delighted to be asked by them to contribute string arrangements to two of the three songs on it, Duckling Hell and Secret Of Orion, produced by the very intuitive Mark Brocklesby.  Their EP launch night was as quirky as it was fun, but convinced me that accordionists on trapezes should be compulsory for such events!  Have a peek at the video for Duckling Hell.  Kaya also brought her talents to a piece of mine that I felt needed another pair of eyes and some honest feedback, before a final redraft and rehearsals with a choir and soloist.  Credit where it’s due, the choral harmonies she devised for the song really gave it the festive feel it needed and she got the best out of the choir too.  With a dedicated team effort from soloist Christian Fa, Ben Stafford, the choir and a whole host of amazing musicians, the result was the track Up To Us.

In summer, a mutual friend introduced me to a very charismatic singer-songwriter by the name of Andy Cowan.  Not long after, I spent some time with him in Parr Street Studios doing some work on his debut album and got to work with producer Russell Cottier for the first time.  After scoring strings for some of the tracks and playing cello, bass and piano on the album, it was great to hear the finished result just before Christmas.

On top of that, here have been quite a few other sessions, other writing and arrangements and I’m particularly looking forward to hearing the finished record by Kalika after adding a mixture of scored and really frantic improvised gypsy punk style strings to several songs.

As well as working with so many amazing artists this year, there have also been some very exciting opportunities to write music myself.  It’s been a really mixture of output too, including a flurry of songwriting that I have some plans to find a home for, through to my first commission writing for schools string orchestra that will be premièred in Easter 2013.  The single biggest piece of work, however, was composing, arranging and recording around half an hour’s worth of music for Chester’s Christmas Lights Parade.  The brief included needing to compose some music that would be the basis for two separate dance groups to choreograph to and perform on the night and seeing the results of their work was a very special experience.  Knowing early on that I’d stick to scoring the music for strings, wind, piano and some percussion, I was keen to record with musicians that I knew could deliver great results- Greta Svabo Bech, Mimi Pearce, Rachael Diop, Mark Jones, Vicky Mutch, that’s you… – and an engineer that could deliver to a high standard in a fairly limited time scale, namely Jon Withnall (congrats again to him for being part of the team that recorded the Justice for the 96 single, a truly worthy Christmas number 1).

In addition to all of that, I’ve also had the pleasure of doing more radio than any other year which is something I particularly enjoy.  I was invited to the Favourite Three slot by BBC Radio Merseyside’s Dave Monks (mine being Break My Soul by Hybrid, Let It Take You by Goldfrapp and Within You, Without You by The Beatles) and later in the year, performed my song Once Great Notions and a cover of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas on the show, both sang by Mersey Wylie.

Amongst all of that, there’s been some time to teach music theory to university students, workshop lyrics and write music for several singers, pen a few reviews, help out with a few events and be invited as a guest speaker at a couple of courses full of budding entrepreneurs looking to start out in business themselves.  All in all, a really nice mix.

There have been a couple of challenges too, but whilst some things may have fallen by the wayside, with that comes the very useful realisation that success, hard work and division of labour mean different things to different people.  Lesson learned; avoid childlike egos and overly-fastidious owners of audio equipment… but if you think something has got the potential to be truly great, get a written agreement and specialist advice in place from the outset – if nobody’s willing to do that, you probably don’t have something worth taking a risk on.

Enough of that though, and going into the New Year with a range of projects to work on, plans to record, more experience and knowledge than before and that renewed sense of confidence that comes from being paid to do what you love, I’m looking forward to whatever may be round the corner in 2013!

Thanks to everybody that’s made 2012 one to remember and a Happy New Year to everyone involved – you know who you are!

Luke

Photo: Richard Geraghty