To celebrate the release of my new album Mindfulmess, Im going to be performing at the Midlands Arts Centre on Saturday June 11th – something which Im excited about in all sorts of ways. This is going to be the biggest fully solo show Ive done yet and Im really looking forward to the chance to play a lot of the songs and pieces that I dont have the chance to perform in half hour sets.

Some of the songs on Mindfulmess are very personal and (I think) kinda beautiful, so the chance to share some of them with some friends and fans is going to be very special indeed.

The album will be ready by then and Im planning a special limited edition CD release – maybe as few as 150 copies – to mark the occasion.

I’ll be joined by VJ Chromatouch who is working on some special visual delights and another friend who is a very fine singer/songwriter will be joining me as a special guest.

Tickets for this very special evening are on sale for £7 or £5 concessions – please order online via the mac box office or call them on 0121 446 3232.

Many musicians are pretty wary about puting their music in a pigeon hole and yet choosing a suitable label for your music is pretty much indispensible in terms of getting your music out there and helping it reach the ears of suitable listeners.

Personally Im something of a reluctant marketer – I certainly dont want to push my music down the throats of random people, but I do relish a chance to share my music with someone who I have a reason to believe might enjoy it.

And so Ive been on a continuing quest to pick a suitable genre. Many websites Ive uploaded music to only allow you to pick from a short list, but if you want an idea of the full gamut of options available, look no further than the perenially excellent resource that is wikipedia and their list of no less than 1650 different musical styles!

Interestingly, Wikipedia offers a short series of genres and movements – Art music (Classical music (European) · religious) · Traditional music · Electronic · Popular music (Blues · Country · Hip hop · Jazz · Reggae · Rock (Heavy metal, Punk rock)) · Folk.   Within that list I think for my music I would plump for Art Music for my solo piano music – given my classical influences and spiritual leanings and also that I cant see it fitting under any of the other headings.

Now to go through the 1650 listed styles and see if I can find the perfect fit.

It feels like I’m working hard at the moment.

Of course that doesnt necessarily mean that Im doing more work than any other time, but it feels like heavy going. In fact, you could argue that Im hardly working at all – Im well ahead with my main work at the moment (as a booking agent in stand up comedy) and have relatively little to do on that score just now.

Consequently, Im seizing the opportunity to spend some quality time progressing my music career which, altho it doesnt currently make me any money and so usually takes a back seat compared to paid work, is something I am very passionate about. The strength of my motivation to succeed in music is a good thing I think – without it I’d have very little chance of making any headway amongst the (literally) millions of other musicians in the world today.

Im finding myself pretty stressed tho, so alongside my musical and promotional efforts I’m doing some spiritual work – that is, trying to maintain perspective, bring to my efforts a lightness of touch, trust in the process and hang loose to the outcome and recognise that doing whats important to me matters more than whatever the results of those efforts might be.

Examining my motivations also helps – when Im acting out of a pure desire to create, develop and share I feel positive and enjoy myself whereas when Im feeling stressed and worried, looking “underneath the bonnet” often reveals egoistic efforts to create financial security or gain reputation and success for my own benefit.

As with all things, its not easy finding the right balance and its all too easy to be self critical – setting arbitrary standards for myself and then feeling bad for not meeting them seems to be a favourite of mine.

Maybe this is a stage Im going through where my musical career feels like its scrabbling for a foothold in my life and once its more properly established as an equal partner alongside my comedy work, perhaps I can relax a bit more.

Or have I just set myself another arbitrary standard again..?

Anyway, thats all for now, I better get back to work

Its great to be able to plug a local artist and really mean it.

Jo Hamilton is a fine and subtle songs with a very individual feel – often inspired by her unusual upbringing in the wilds of Scotland as well as periods in Turkey, UAE, Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

Now based in Birmingham’s Bohemian capital – Moseley – Jo has teamed up with superb producer Jon Cotton to create a debut album which marries up Jo’s delightful vocals with a rich array of talented instrumentalists.  Not surprisingly, the album has received absolutely glowing reviews from the likes of the Guardian, Independent and Mojo.

Now Jo and her team have released a new special edition of the album, so if you dont already have it – nows a good time to buy it.   Meanwhile you can listen to some of the tracks right here:

A very exciting project for music in the West Midlands is now live:

The Pilot Project started when local music enthusiast and one time BRMB broadcasting legend Robin Valk realised that with the ongoing demise of CDs and records, there was a danger that the best in new and contemporary music was no long being catalogued as it would have once been by the British Library.  Conscious that there’s a staggering amount of quality music in the region that might not otherwise be around for ever, Robin has put together an amazing team and created the Pilot Project.

With a lot of nous and clever work from the guys at Carousel Digital, the team have created something much more than simply a time capsule for future music historians.   Instead we have a wonderfully user friendly and accessible data base of hundreds of tracks of astonishingly high quality music in a vast range of styles.

I really urge you to explore this archive and experience the breadth and quality of music around – you can listen by style, search by region or look up your favourites and click on from there.  Spend a few minutes on the site and you are absolutely bound to find some new artist that floats your boat.

Birmingham has long had an amazing number of quality artists in a truly diverse range of styles – so much so that the area’s very diversity has probably held it back in the sense of developing a strong, cohesive “scene”.  But now, innovations like the Pilot Project offer not only a fabulous snapshot of where that scene is right now, but also a very real and practical method for enabling that scene, no, that community, to really blossom and grow.

I came across Peter Cox’s music blog via a Yahoo egroup which I’m a member of which probably deserves a blog post in itself as its a valuable musicians resource – its a place where muso’s across the world hang out to exchange ideas and tips and music chat called Music Thoughts – and theyre a really friendly bunch of people.

Your Music Blog is a new enterprise and well worth checking out, particularly for rock music which is Peter’s own specialty (he’s in established rock group Chinawhite).

He’s given Valentine Court an interesting review too.  He starts with some kind words about the music and then goes on to do what many reviewers shy away from and gives some interesting critical feedback.  He suggests that I might consider experimenting with some pieces with fewer notes in the future, or putting it the other way around, with more silence and space.

This I found an interesting comment – composer/pianists I enjoy such as Satie (as Peter states) and also Ludovico Einaudi are able to produce much simpler and sparser arrangements than I and I wonder if this is partly me compensating for a lack of confidence by keeping things busy.  Or perhaps to put it another way, one’s music reflects one’s state of mind and to date I’ve had to work quite hard (in a way) to achieve space in my mind and I think thats reflected in my music – there are moments of relative stillness – particularly in the climax of Jewel and Namaste, but these tend to be hard won, coming as the result of a build up towards that moment.

Mind you, Satie was an absolute master of tonality and Einaudi has a remarkable ear for melody, so perhaps the relative simplicity they sometimes achieve is hung on those particular gifts.

One of the many musical ideas I have saved on my digital piano is a very still and simple piece with only two chords, so perhaps I will be exploring that territory more in the future.  Time will tell of course, but in the meantime, thought provoking comments from Peter.

Very pleased to discover that my track Namaste is featured in an Imix of Birmingham music, alongside some really top drawer artists such as the Destroyers and Soweto Kinch.

Its a really good mix of styles and good quality, so if you fancy a sampler of music in Birmingham, well worth a go I reckon: