Here is a collaboration with a lovely old friend Liz Monument. Liz and I both studied music at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire a few years ago. Those of you who have had the chance to do something like that will know that the friendships you make there go beyond the social...you share creativity with your classmates and for me, I always keep a cozy seat in my heart for anyone with whom I make good music. Back then, Liz was a fantastic classical guitarist, but since then she has widened her range to encompass many more styles and stringed instruments....including the sparkling harp that features here alongside the guitar. A couple of years ago we renewed friendship via facebook and this year we're making music again via soundcloud. Please listen to more of Liz's beautiful playing at http://soundcloud.com/lizmonument

Here I play the Uillean Pipes and Low Whistle. I absolutely adore the pipes, but they also frustrate me as I don't think I'm physically cut out to play them to the standard I'd like to. But now and then I give them a day out. If by any chance you like the sound here, please do me the favour of going to youtube and checking out what REAL pipers can do, like Paddy Keenan, Cillian Vallely and Davy Spillane.

Liz's harp provides a perfect setting here for Louis MacNeice's amazing poem The Strand. The harp's chords lap like waves on the poet's beach. I have a strong identification with this poem; my father was also a Northern Irish clergyman who “kept something in him solitary and wild”. The last quality time I spent with my father was a wordless walk on such an Irish strand. The image attached to the song is a washed out old slide I took that very winter afternoon....'white Tintoretto clouds' behind Slieve Donard, towering above the beach at Newcastle, County Down. All that's missing is the 'square black figure' beyond the viewfinder to the left. 

The Strand

by Louis MacNeice

White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet,
This mirror of wet sand imputes a lasting mood
To island truancies; my steps repeat

Someone’s who now has left such strands for good
Carrying his boots and paddling like a child,
A square black figure whom the horizon understood -

My father. Who for all his responsibly compiled
Account books of a devout, precise routine
Kept something in him solitary and wild,

So loved the Western sea and no tree’s green
Fulfilled him like these contours of Slievemore
Menaun and Croghaun and the bogs between.

Sixty-odd years behind him and twelve before,
Eyeing the flange of steel in the turning belt of brine
It was sixteen years ago he walked this shore

And the mirror caught his shape which catches mine
But then as now the floor-mop of the foam
Blotted the bright reflections - and no sign

Remains of face or feet when visitors have gone home.

davemckeown.co.uk

The Strand, Dave McKeown with Liz Monument

  I was introduced to the  folkloric musical traditions as a young child. 
A London primary school  ,who favoured  the arts nurtured my curiosity,giving me the opportunity to play a wide variety of instruments including violin , percussion ,flutes  and singing too  I  participated  in a buoyant  musical and artístic community.
A  female music student from Kingston University London , who lodged  introduced me to the piano,  before I started at the local primary school.
After a wee while, 
  ,I was sent to take piano lessons from 
a   female Czsec piano teacher, who was  also a concert pianist . She took up the  unenviable task of training me in the classical piano music traditions and entered me to audition for a  junior  scholarship place at what is now The Guildhall School of Music , London .
 I was awarded a full grant  to attend by the London Arts council to attend.
The Grant include fully funded tuition on first study Piano and 2nd study Flute. Also included were  musicianship classes to cover aural training theory, extemporisation . composition  and orchestral  and choral participation.

Regular opportunities to perform in the classic salon  with ensembles  and as a soloist  in the main college was all part of the lively and cohesive musical community. 
All  learning materials ,scores were  reimbursed on submission of receipts to the  conservatoire's accounts department.





 

Hi, Seb Mankoo is Bas Kooman (@bastiaan-kooman) writing and producing songs in English.

I am a working full-time musician, teaching, performing, composing, recording and arranging, and my gigs in the last few years have included jazz combo, big band jazz, folk, Irish traditional, rock, soul, latin, klezmer, funk, orchestral, chamber, minimal techno, musical theatre and more, so, safe to say, I’ll have a go at anything. 

I'm a firm believer in demolishing boundaries between genres, cultures, languages and ultimately people, and Soundcloud is a terrific place where all this can happen.

I love making music that soothes, inspires, and rejuvenates. Downtempo, chilled Lo-fi, non-AI music set to hip hop, pop, and jazz beats. Lover of Boom Bap.

My creative journey began as a visual artist, and now I'm concentrating my energy into creating music that can instantly impact minds and moods for the better. 

Almost all of my music is chill @ -100 bpm to hopefully stimulate calm and feelings of well-being in listeners as it does for me. 💙

I don’t use AI or samples. My music is original, digital, and composed using a MIDI keyboard and DAW. I also record live LoFi audio of ambient sounds such as birdsongs or rainstorms using an iPhone or a microphone connected to laptop.

A helpful tool to evaluate whether music is AI or human: www.submithub.com/ai-song-checker

I’ve been called Rebecca of Sunnybrook like the children’s book because of my birth name but call me Beck like my friends do. I chose Sunnybeck to use as my nickname as I’m an eternal optimist and love the sun.

sunnybeckmusic @ gmail.com

Hi! I'm really proud to introduce you my new album "Flying", I hope you'll enjoy it.
"Flying" is composed of five different songs inspired by my life and my passions.
Passions that somentimes take the shape of my most close affections, and other times come and suddenly disappear like deep inspirations, hard to immobilize and catch.