A Decade Since a Day Job

This album looks back on ten years as a self-employed musician - I felt like marking the occasion by picking out favourite tracks from albums I've released during this time . . .


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2015: In May, I released an album entitled Day Job. Then on 30 July, I worked my last day in the day job, planning to train as a music therapist and make more music.

2017: Over the next couple of years, I earned a music therapy degree, taught lots of piano lessons and began running music therapy sessions.

2019: After a break from recording/writing while studying, the next album stars from a sidecar appeared, with a country-tinged sound.

2020: The pandemic wiped out all face-to-face work, but it provided lots of free time to compose new instrumental music on piano.

2021: Notes from a Scottish Summer collected many of these pieces, from jazz piano trio to contemporary classical styles. Later in the year, grow thrive bend break brought together lots of songs that I had written over the years, but had never managed to record. This cleared the decks to write brand new songs - a month of focused writing provided the next two albums.

2022: Portraits of People I Never Knew was the first of these, exploring an array of perspectives - from lovers in a graveyard to optimistic travellers. Piano for the Young at Heart brought together more newly-composed piano pieces, ranging from comtemplative to energetic.

2023: Exhibiton Pieces appeared, following a fun project of writing in 24 keys for 24 items on display at The McManus gallery and museum - with music written for a range of instruments from solo piano to brass ensemble to orchestra. Discovering this new broader sound led to rearranging previous pieces for Orchestral Adventures. Flights of Fancy was the follow up to Portraits, with more stories and orchestral backing too. Rounding off a busy year, Piano for the Wild in Spirit was another collection of instrumental pieces written around various themes.

2024: West Highland Way Suite celebrated the 100-mile hike I took the previous spring, with Scottish melodies and sweeping vistas. The geographical references continued with Streets of Dundee - another fun project navigating the roads, wynds and lanes of my home city.

2025: reimagined was a fun re-recording of some old pieces, plus a bonus track from 1994 recorded for the first time. Lucky for so long also came out this year - the first album in a new chapter of music - look out for more soon . . .

There are 29 tracks from the 200+ on these 13 albums - feel free to listen to more of them too . . .