My main hobby is Musical Directing amateur shows. I am not a member of any one society, but have had the privilege of working with many local groups.

I play piano, organ, and keyboards, and usually Piano-Conduct shows, playing keyboard or piano parts as well as leading the band rather than just conducting. For almost 10 years I was also Organist and Choir Master of Spital Street Methodist Church in Dartford, and played organ and piano for various other churches in the area. I also accompany singers, play for rehearsals, coach singing, and play for dancing schools and exams.

The links above will give details of all the shows I have done in the past (all the ones I can remember, anyway!), the Church Music with which I have been involved, and shows which are coming up in the near future.

I started piano lessons at the age of 5 with the daughter of one of my Lunchtime Supervisors ("Dinner Ladies") who was just starting to teach the piano. When I started with Judith Bourne it cost 25 pence per lesson, and I can remember crying a few times when I could not get my scales and pieces right! When Judith moved away, I transferred to Miss Jan Hall - no relation (who later married and became Mrs. Hartzell) - and had weekly lessons until I was 18, except for one year off during my O-Levels.

I achieved Grade 8 Piano, Grade 5 Theory, and Grade 4 General Musicianship, and had been entered for many music festivals. Although I cannot say that I really enjoyed them at the time, they were extremely helpful in preparing me for playing in public. My parents often used to make us perform in front of (long-suffering?) friends and relatives, and all this probably explains why I don't usually feel nervous when playing in front of other people. I am extremely grateful to both my piano teachers and my parents for all they did for me while I was learning, and I hope that my playing now brings them as much pleasure as it does me.

I was hopeless at sight-reading for many years, and despite lots of advice from people who could sight-read very well, I really could not get to grips with it. I tried various courses and started playing my way through the Methodist Hymn Book day by day, but still struggled. My mark in one piano exam for sight-reading was just 4 out of 21. There is no magic formula for getting better at it, but by just keeping trying eventually I did improve, and I am now prepared to have a go at sight-reading almost anything. One thing which really helped was playing for dancing schools, because I had to keep going at the right speed, even if the notes weren't correct. I am very grateful to the kind dance teachers who put up with my wrong notes, as they made a major contribution to my musical progress, probably without even knowing.

I started playing for a dancing school (the Duet School of Dancing) when I was in my first year of Grammar School, age 11, originally by playing for the first hour or so until my music teacher (Miss Hall) arrived to play for the rest of the evening. Eventually I was playing for the whole evening's classes from about 4 to 9.30 each Monday night - and I really enjoyed it. I continued until I left the Sixth Form, some seven years later, and I still enjoy playing for dancing schools and exams now. Yes, you do play the same set music for exercises week after week, but you get to see the pupils progress from their first attempts at more difficult steps until they are ready for their exams - a very similar feeling from working with people singing in shows, and very rewarding....and I probably know more French names for ballet steps than most of the pupils!

I've played regularly for another couple of dancing schools since I returned from University, but because the classes tend to start early in the evening, my daytime job prevents me from doing this now, except for exam classes and the exams themselves. When I first went to Dartford Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society as their pianist, the choreographer for the show (Blitz!) was one of the teachers at the Duet School of Dancing - it was nice to work together again after such a long gap, and we are still working together on shows now.

Apart from dancing schools, concerts, piano duets with my brother Chris, accompanying instrumentalists, singing in choirs and musical groups at school and University, I have been very involved in Church music - but you can find those details on another page. I also played timpani and percussion for various school and local amateur wind bands and orchestras, following on from my cousin who was a school year ahead of me, so I took over when he moved on. He is now principal percussionist with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but I haven't followed quite that far! He also used to accompany on the piano, and again I followed in his footsteps when he first went to music college.

Hardware

My preference is to play a real (acoustic) piano rather than a keyboard, but pianos are not very portable for rehearsals! Many rehearsal venues have pianos of dubious tuning and functionality, or no piano at all, so keyboards tend to be a safer bet. My parents have a real piano on which my brothers and I learnt, but I now use mainly keyboards. I own four "good" keyboards, listed here in order of decreasing complexity, or - to put it another way - increasing age:

All of the above are short keyboards with internal amplification and speakers, but only 61 notes rather than a full piano range. I know this may seem a bit restricting, but if I am using the keyboard for shows with a band or orchestra, there is nearly always a double bass or bass guitar playing the lowest notes, so it is not really a problem. Bass players don't like you doubling the notes they are playing anyway, so it's quite useful that those notes aren't actually on the keyboard!

I have used other makes of keyboards, but have been most impressed with the instrumental sounds of the Rolands, especially the piano which I use most often. I have used the VA-7 for every show I have done in the last two years, and absolutely love it!! I have seen one or two criticisms of it in terms of its use as a solo performance instrument, but for my purposes it is unsurpassed in terms of its versatility and sound quality. I am considering buying a VA-76 which is basically the same instrument but with 76 notes rather than 61, but whereas the VA-7 has built-in (powerful) speakers, the VA-76 has no internal amplification so it will actually be less convenient for rehearsal purposes.

The other equipment I use regularly is

Roland PC-200 - a small keyboard/MIDI-controller which I use as an add-on to whichever of the above keyboards for live performances to allow me to add extra instrumental sounds or effects using the sound generator of the main keyboard.

Casio WK-1200 - a 72-note keyboard that I generally only use for playing music into sequencing/music writing software; the instrumental sounds are not brilliant, but the extended range of notes is useful.

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy sound card (second edition), although for backing track recording I nearly always use the VA-7's sounds as they are even better.

Backing tracks I generally record on MiniDisk as these seem to be more reliable for performances in theatres (CDs seem to have an unfortunate habit of jumping or failing), and rehearsal recordings are usually on CD or cassette. I have Yamaha and unbranded CD writers; Sony, Sharp, and Pioneer MiniDisk recorders; and JVC, Yamaha, and Sony cassette decks. My two desktop computers are both based on Novatech systems which have been considerably enhanced over the years, and I have Toshiba and Packard Bell laptops with an external Roland MIDI interface. As you can see, I'm not particularly biased towards a specific manufacturer except when it comes to the main keyboards.

Software

For quick sequencing I still use Voyetra's Midi Orchestrator Plus. It is cheap (in fact, free) and cheerful, but for quick and simple MIDI recordings it is ideal. I also have a copy of its "big brother" Digital Orchestra Pro which allows you to do a lot more, and I have used heavily on more complicated projects. Both of these are 16-bit programs, so they do not understand long file names. I previously used Arbiter's MidiWorks for simple recordings, but find the Voyetra programs more user-friendly (probably through familiarity).

I have various flavours of Cubase and Cubasis, but have not used these as often as the other software mentioned here, although I am well aware of their more extensive capabilities, and know quite a few people who would never use anything else. For the sort of arranging and backing tracks I have done, however, I have not often required the more exotic features. I have also had a very brief dabble with Cakewalk, but this was a long time ago, and I did not find the early versions at all easy to use.

For music arranging, orchestrating, and more classical backing tracks, I use Sibelius (version 2, and previously version 1.4). Although this is not intended as a sequencer, for certain types of music it is ideal in this role, and its music printing and arranging capabilities are second to none. It is expensive, but is good value for money. Prior to Sibelius, I used Arbiter's MusicTime (various incarnations), which was about one-tenth of the cost of Sibelius, but was still a very good tool for what I was arranging at the time.

If I am providing my own amplification in smaller venues (where the amplification is not provided by the theatre, and the singers do not have microphones), I use a different approach from some other people, but it is a way that has been proven many times in my experience. I use a good quality, high powered hi-fi amplifier and good quality hi-fi speakers to amplify the keyboard, and the speakers are placed as wide apart on the stage as possible, pointing towards the singers rather than the audience. The wide separation of the speakers ensures good stereo spacing in the sound (if required), and gives good coverage across the whole theatre width for both audience and performers. The speakers can be on floor level or raised (above the curtains if necessary), although there may be problems if they are behind the curtains and any scenes take place with the curtains closed!

By pointing the speakers at the singers, it tends to make the singers project their voices more, as they can hear the accompaniment clearly; it is also easy to balance the level of keyboard to the singers as what you can hear from the middle in front of the stage as a Musical Director is pretty much what the audience is hearing. If you can't hear the singer over the top of the keyboard, you are too loud! If the speakers face the audience, like they do in many places, not only does the audience tend to hear the keyboard more loudly than the singers do, but you will probably have to provide foldback to the singers on the stage so that they can hear the keyboard to keep in time and in tune. By facing the speakers towards the singers, it makes life easy, and it works!

Obviously, if you are working in a theatre with sound engineers, it is a good idea to leave this up to them..... (I have had some good and bad experiences with sound engineers, but probably should not share them in public! By all means get in contact if you would like to learn from my own experiences.)

One final tip: for performances, always make sure you have spares of everything. If you are using a piano, it's not quite so important as they tend not to fail catastrophically, but if you are using a keyboard, do make sure that there is another keyboard in the building, or a piano - but if you are relying on the keyboard to transpose keys for singers, the piano might be less useful. I always keep spare leads and amplifiers around just in case. I have even had the sustaining pedal for my keyboard give up on one show, so I keep one of those spare too. If you are playing any tracks from disks (MIDI files in a keyboard, or audio on MiniDisks or CDs) make sure you have a backup copy close at hand, and guard your music with your life, especially if your copy is the only one marked up with all the cuts and changes. Oh, and do keep a spare light bulb in case the one in your music stand blows part way through a performance!