Category: Blog posts

Two weeks ago, I posted the game sheet to my “etude game” here on my blog along with the first etude. I challenged myself to compose one short etude every day throughout March, and here at the halfway point I am 16 for 16! I have felt rather liberated, on some level, to have the… Continue reading Half-Time

In one of my favourite books, “Where Does Music Come From?”, the late musicologist Gunnar Valkare asserts that music isn’t something we learn to do or consume, but rather something we are born with an innate affinity for. Music, he argues, is foremost a human activity, a human behaviour. The book is named after a… Continue reading Why Do We Art?

Computer and video game enthusiasts of a certain vintage might recognise the reference in this week’s blog post. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, it shouldn’t be surprising that I include an off-hand game reference. It is, however, also directly related to the topic of this week’s post. So far this year, I… Continue reading It’s In the Game

Life has kept me busy in the weeks since my last blog post early this month. In fact, when I wrote that post I was still (technically) 40 years old, but have since then turned 41! In actuality, of course, these annual delineations are man-made constructs; I was only 41 years old for a brief… Continue reading Down the Rabbit Hole

In his two most recent videos on the channel “Vlogbrothers” – which he runs collaboratively with his brother, science communicator Hank Green – writer and philanthropist John Green discusses art: why we make art and for whom we make it. As is often the case, I have to say, his musings really resonated with me.… Continue reading To Instruct and Delight

Last week, I had a lecture at Kapellsberg Music School in Härnösand for the first time in three years. It felt a little awkward at first – simultaneously familiar and foreign, like my brain couldn’t quite reconcile all the new faces – looking at me with a mix of attention and disinterest – with the fact… Continue reading Back, Back Again

I have rarely, if ever, gone back and studied the development of one of my compositions like this before. I have put down lots of time and work preparing this post and I look forward to sharing the fruits of my labour with you here: A somewhat condensed but still detailed review of how Rhapsody… Continue reading Looking Back to See Ahead

I rarely plan ahead when composing. A handful of times, I have started out by making a diagram, however rough, of the structure of the piece, or even made one early on. It’s quite interesting, though, to look back on a piece and break down the result of the choices I made during the composition… Continue reading A Well-Laid Plan

Realising that it’s been almost a month since my last post was a bit of a shocker! In the intervening time, a lot has happened. Kristina från Duvemåla has finished, I have been to Norway and back, and last week I worked on Berwaldhallen’s final livestream of the year. Last week, a packed Berwaldhallen saw… Continue reading From Norway with Love

The life of a musician can be strenuous, at least at times. I know this from personal experience, even though my life is far from the worst. This is a particularly hectic period, which actually is kind of a failure on my part. I had originally planned on doing no other work besides Kristina från… Continue reading From One End To the Other