When familiar notes become a deep dark forest There are many times when, annoyingly, frustratingly, nothing goes right at the piano. My fingers fumble, my thoughts intrude like little hammers, my brain refuses to cooperate. When I was a kid, this wave of frustration would sometimes end with me slamming Read more…
how structure helps creativity I teach an engineer who applies everything he’s learnt about structures and systems to playing piano, and it works brilliantly. He feels confident making creative leaps because he knows the structure is sound, and if he falls it won’t be very far. It doesn’t stop him Read more…
What makes something a powerful act of creativity? When I realised that giant cowbells clanging at 5am on New Year’s Eve were not part of my dream but coming from outside my window, I was not too pleased. Twenty men in costume marching up our street with giant cowbells hanging Read more…
On creative permission, imagination, and cowboys ‘Dashing through the snow, you, too!’ My three-year-old daughter’s embellished lyrics, for our first homemade Christmas songs, seventeen years ago. We’re still going strong, and this year I found ‘Christmas for Cowboys’ in a 1981 Reader’s Digest songbook. It’s written by someone who makes Read more…
How does a song change when you sing it in a different language? I grew up singing Silent Night in Australia. Now my students in Switzerland are recording their own versions of this classic Christmas carol. It’s as English as they come to me, but around the world it’s sung Read more…
How a love song from 1580 became a Christmas carol This time of year I’m so immersed in Christmas music with my students (be gone, Mariah Carey!), you’d think I’d run a mile from playing any myself. But I still love carols, partly because of their history and partly because Read more…
When too many ideas trip the switch In our house, turning on the microwave and the kettle equals darkness. And we forget every time. The same thing happens with creative work. It’s not easy admitting when I’m heading towards overload. Not when my inclination is to keep going. And not Read more…
How movement shapes creativity I’m a pretty mediocre skier. What I remember from my first time on a tiny patch of snow in Australia, is the terrifying lack of control. What do you mean I have to point those slippery skis towards the bottom and let them take me with Read more…
How one tiny change can transform not just how we do something but how we feel about it, too Your first singing lesson with me? I’m likely to ask you to lie on the floor. New students always look at me as if I’m crazy. We don’t really know each Read more…
How to learn when to let a creative idea grow and when to cut it back Wildflowers as tall as my then three-year-old daughter bloomed everywhere when we moved to Switzerland one spring. After neat English pavements, it felt almost shocking, as if nature had been given full permission to Read more…
