So I have now completed a run of a hundred very nearly daily pieces, filmed for public viewing on Facebook, that I wound up entitling ‘quarantunes’. As noted in the previous post, way back on St Patrick’s Day I played ‘Danny Boy’ and the response was so lovely that it struck me (once again) what people get from music, and how helpful it can be in times of privation. We were stuck at home in lockdown, all the good stuff was shut, there were no gigs; it seemed to me that I could maybe just put a little good feeling out there with a daily piece. So I continued.

And I feel vindicated, dramatic though that may sound, by the reactions my pieces have received. Likes and loves and comments were frequently offered in exchange for my efforts, and there was, I thought, a genuine feeling of togetherness generated by the music. Which may just be what it’s for. A complete list of the pieces performed follows. Uncredited items were composed by me.

17.iii.20 Danny boy (traditional)
18.iii.20 Most miraculous accident
19.iii.20 Lunch cutters’ ball
20.iii.20 How long has this been going on? (Gershwin)
21.iii.20 Repton (Parry), with improvisation
22.iii.20 Our little systems
23.iii.20 Too precious
24.iii.20 Sweethearts (Sam Anning)
25.iii.20 Affec
26.iii.20 Covert joy
27.iii.20 The ballad of the sad young men (Wolf/Landesman)
28.iii.20 La isla bonita (Madonna)
29.iii.20 Pray without ceasing
30.iii.20 Free-ism
31.iii.20 Cardigan patrol
1.iv.20 Fix you (Coldplay)/The wrong door
2.iv.20 Lu-bird
3.iv.20 When I grow too old to dream (Romberg/Hammerstein)
4.iv.20 Change and smile
5.iv.20 3/2016 (Waltz for Andra)
6.iv.20 Free-ism 2
7.iv.20 Alone together (Schwartz/Dietz)
8.iv.20 A very simple tune for Oliver’s tenth birthday
9.iv.20 Pseudepigrapha
10.iv.20 Criss Cross (Monk)
11.iv.20 In angel arms
12.iv.20 The evenings you remember
13.iv.20 On the street where you live (Lerner/Loewe)
14.iv.20 untitled 105/2016
15.iv.20 Miss Brown to you
16.iv.20 Esj’
17.iv.20 No tickle pushes on the big girl swing
18.iv.20 Charlie Chaplin et al: Smile
19.iv.20 Imaginary friends with benefits
20.iv.20 John Dankworth: Music from ‘Darling’
21.iv.20 The way you look tonight
22.iv.20 One (Andrea Keller)
23.iv.20 The unmistaken
24.iv.20 Some enchanted evening (Rodgers/Hammerstein)
25.iv.20 I’m gonna laugh you right out of my life (Coleman/McCarthy)
26.iv.20 Let’s get away from it all (Adair/Dennis)
27.iv.20 Two secrets
28.iv.20 Golden earrings (Evans, Livingstone, Young)
29.iv.20 Darling, come back to me (Grabowsky)
30.iv.20 Free-ism 3
1.v.20 Recessional
2.v.20 The place where the lost things go (from ‘Mary Poppins Returns’)
3.v.20 Sly-pie
4.v.20 Free-ism 4
5.v.20 I see the light (from ‘Tangled’)
6.v.20 Meine Augen schließ’ ich jetzt (Bach; with improvisation)
7.v.20 The little man in his nightshirt
8.v.20 Bewitched, bothered and bewildered (Rogers/Hart)
9.v.20 Where is love? (Lionel Bart)
10.v.20 Everything happens to me (Adair/Denniss)
11.v.20 Correa (Geoff Kluke)
12.v.20 Wii music from Mario Kart/At long last love (Cole Porter)
13.v.20 Must be
14.v.20 Over the rainbow (Arlen)
15.v.20 Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone (Stept/Clare)
16.v.20 Lonesome (Kina Grannis)
17.v.20 untitled 138/2016
18.v.20 As time goes by (Hupfeld)
19.v.20 Three coins in the fountain (Styne/Cahn)
20.v.20 Creative control
21.v.20 Improvisation and St Magnus’ (Jeremiah Clarke)
22.v.20 Rufus redux
23.v.20 Every day is like Sunday (Morrissey)
24.v.20 m.i.
25.v.20 Haunted heart (Schwartz/Dietz)
26.vi.20 Isn’t this a lovely day (Irving Berlin)
27.v.20 Speaking with other parents about renovations
28.v.20 What a swell party this is (Cole Porter)
29.v.20 Embraceable you (George Gershwin)
30.v.20 Lady be good (George Gershwin)
31.v.20 But not for me (George Gershwin)
1.vi.20 The piccolino (Irving Berlin)
2.vi.20 A slow tune for Kyoko
3.vi.20 All the things you are (Kern)
4.vi.20 I fall in love too easily (Styne/Cahn)
5.vi.20 He loves and she loves (Gershwin)
6.vi.20 I’ve grown accustomed to her face (Lerner/Loewe)
7.vi.20 When she said
8.vi.20 Generating
9.vi.20 Love walked in (George Gershwin)
10.vi.20 Love for sale (Cole Porter)
11.vi.20 S. S. T. T.
12.vi.20 Affair to remember (Harry Warren)
13.vi.20 Cum dederit (Vivaldi)
14.vi.20
15.vi.20 untitled 167/2016
16.vi.20 Probationary candidacy blues
17.vi.20 Blame it on my youth (Levant/Hayman)
18.vi.20 Footbridge waltz
19.vi.20 You took advantage of me (Rodgers/Hart)
20.vi.20 Australian kakistocracy (from There’ll be some changes played)
21.vi.20 I’ll never smile again (Ruth Lowe)
22.vi.20 Hearing the whole thing
23.vi.20 The fools who dream (from’La La Land’)
24.vi.20 They can’t take that away from me (George Gershwin)
25.vi.20 Barber: Molto adagio from string quartet op. 11

And here’s the breakdown. One tune was traditional, and it kicked things off. Three pieces were spontaneously improvised in their entirety. Two others featured free improvisation in relation to a written piece (C. H. H. Parry’s hymn tune ‘Repton’, and J. S. Bach’s harmonisation of ‘Meine Augen schließ’ ich jetzt’). Forty-seven pieces were composed by me, and although that’s not more than half, it’s more than from any other source. There were thirty-seven American standard songs, and you know for some years I’ve made a big thing about not playing this repertoire but I wound up really enjoying it. They’re great tunes, and I sort of know what to do with them, so they took their place in the greater scheme. Seven of these pieces were written by George Gershwin, who is a favourite with a couple of my listeners. Three of them were by Cole Porter, and two each by Rodgers and Hart, Schwartz and Dietz, Irving Berlin, and Lerner and Loewe. Four pieces were composed by colleagues: Andrea Keller, Paul Grabowsky, Sam Anning and Geoff Kluke. And there were four pop tunes, by Madonna, Morrissey, Coldplay and Kina Grannis. Just to mix things up. I played Thelonious Monk’s ‘Criss cross’, just because it’s jazz, and there were two classical selections: Vivaldi’s ‘Cum dederit’ and Samuel Barber’s ‘Molto adagio’ from his String Quartet op. 11. This last wound things up.

On two occasions there were four standards in a row. I only ever got to three originals in succession, but this happened four times.

Now there was discussion here and there about the wisdom of electing to give away one’s music, to make one’s ‘content’ free to all comers. And I understand this, I guess, but I did it anyway. I make very little money from music, and I couldn’t expect that my silence was going to generate any more, so it seemed like a friendly thing to offer some of what I have to people who might be receptive. Nor do I regret it. Music’s capacity to divert is obvious, like reading or watching a film, but its abstract nature is very much more generous in my opinion than any other art form. The listener’s capacity to participate creatively in the musical act is underrated a lot of the time, and my objective in giving these performances was ideally that people might find a moment to be away with the music, to be able for five minutes or so to focus on just it, and to use those moments in a spirit of growth or healing or what-have-you. The feeling I got from some listeners was that just this had happened. My selections aimed to be reasonably unpredictable, so you wouldn’t know what you were getting from day to day. Forty-three of the pieces were ballads, which for present purposes just means slow, so there was a definite leaning in that direction. There was also a three-day run of Gershwin, all of which were ballads. But sometimes the slow tunes are the ones that really speak.

In any case, I felt very good about putting the music out there. All the selections are remaining, and they are all public so even if you’re not my Facebook friend and you’re curious you can hear them. Some of them are on YouTube as well. And I even managed to release an album while all this nonsense was going on. Here’s to the share.

26/vi/2020

With sickness in pursuit, and home becoming the orbit, social media are coming into their own. We all used them all along, of course, sometimes quite a bit! But now at a greater distance their capacity for keeping people connected is really valuable, and, I think, to their credit.

Just over a week ago it was St Patrick’s Day, so I got my daughter to aim the mobile phone at me while I played a couple of choruses of ‘Danny Boy’. It’s a tune of which I’m fond, and there’s some Irish blood a couple of dozen generations back in my mum’s family, so it felt good to get it out of the mothballs and give it a run. I posted it on Facebook, which is my main social hang, and the response was simply marvellous. I was so grateful that people listened – plays of the video have now exceeded 650, which mightn’t be very many if you’re a Spotify sensation, but certainly impresses me – and people shared it so that even folks I’ve never met heard it and responded with likes or comments.

So I thought, look how people need music in these precarious times. Look how lovingly and generously they respond to it, when it is offered to them. Look how sustaining people can find even a little tune played on my piano, by me.

And this led me to the idea of recording a piece each day, and making them globally accessible, and so that’s what I’ve done since the 17th.

Others are doing similar things: Yo Yo Ma is getting great traction with his #songsforcomfort and Chris Thile has taken to recording pieces under the banner #livefromhome. I’ve started using these tags too, in case it draws anyone else in and they find something they like.

Generally I’ve played original pieces, but Gershwin’s ‘How long has this been going on?’, an improvisation on a hymn along the lines of my Tell you later records, and Sam Anning’s ‘Sweethearts’ – responding to a challenge he issued to colleagues to give their own versions – have been included as well.

I’m actually finding it really enjoyable, and I’m so pleased that people are finding so much in it to relate to. We need music – never more obviously than at times like these – and it’s a privilege to be generating some therapeutic sounds.

If you read this and you’re not actually a Facebook friend but you’d like to hear the pieces, you can. Go here. Most of them are on YouTube too. There’s a link to the right.

24.iii.20