Sad songs and a singing apprenticeship
The pleasure of listening to sad music fascinates researchers. Studies have been designed that measure our heart rate, our breath and our...
2019: Habits, happiness and Hindi singers
Make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing, that’s what they say now. That’s the only way to break an old habit or...
Everyday pleasures: Songs, invisible dancing, imagined passions and a bigger life without the boring
I’ve just been reading Paul Bloom’s 2010 popular science book, How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, looking...
Dragonfly Silver
Ruth was behind glass and under a sheet. The nurse manager who took me to identify her was jumpy. I filled the uncomfortable pauses with...
Trav'lin' Light
Time to take the long view. I’m here alone in San Pedro de Alcantara. It’s a trip I’ve planned for and dreamed about. To be a long way...
‘Waterloo Sunset’, Memory and interiority: TSA Blog 4
I remember when I became entranced with ‘Waterloo Sunset’. It was a late afternoon in September 1982. I was in my grand high-ceilinged...
The Way Young Lovers Do, Formation of an anti-chick singer: TSA Blog 3
Let’s start with the first time I got paid to sing solo, it was a comedy variety set called ‘The Electric Frock’ sometime about 1986 at...
Is That All There Is?: sketching 'The Singer's Anatomy' part 2
Time travel, one song, many memories. Half a lifetime ago I was a young jazz singer dancing madly to the beat of my own hormones,...
This Gift: sketching 'The Singer's Anatomy' part 1
What are songs for? What do they do? Songs have been with us since long before we started to write or record history. In more traditional...
Fish Vest: the first set for Women In Voice
It started in 1995 with the mental image of a three-piece suit, the essence of a country gentleman. I already had a neat 60s lounge suit...