john hymas

I went to a concert given by violinist Fenella Humphreys at the Presteigne festival last year. It was part of a series of concert entitled Bach to the Future – ha ha – sounds…

photo: Errol Walsh

When you listen to one note for a long time you hear harmonics from that fundamental note but you also start to hear other notes and sounds. Sometimes it’s hard to know if the…

Bartok wrote two volumes of violin duets strongly influenced like much of his work by Hungarian folk music. I was inspired to write this piece after playing through some of them with one of…

It’s ok. You haven’t been misdirected to ebay and these boots are definitely not for sale! This piece started off as a gentle, rolling piece of ambient music which kind of went a bit…

7 Heaven is almost entirely in 7/8 time. It’s a very addictive groove and a few years ago I found that I was using it so much, (a fact some of my fellow band…

Yule uses the melodies from four well known carols. If you can recognise all of them you’re probably already enjoying a glass of port by the fire in your festive jumper. If you score…

This is a kind of pop lullaby. Once when my partner’s grandson wouldn’t stop crying she suggested I play the accordion to see if we could get him to sleep. I was skeptical of…

Our band Little Rumba play a wide variety of gigs over the course of a year but one of our favourites is a tango club in Oxfordshire. We assume very much a supporting role…

I’m occasionally tempted to try my hand at water colouring. Due to my utter incompetence at visual art this tends to be a rather disappointing experience. What I really do like about water colours…

Spent a very pleasant week earlier this month on the Llyn Peninsula staring out to sea watching the white horses.                                      photography © Alex Ramsay

photography © Alex Ramsay

This post features a homemade one-octave glass organ made from wine glasses of varying size and shape. The sounds they produced inspired the rest of the piece.                                           photography © Alex Ramsay

This piece was inspired by seeing one of my favourite bands Spiro who were in town last month.                              photography © Alex Ramsay

A few years back our band created a project based on trains and used the rhythms they generate as backing tracks for pieces of music. I really enjoyed it so have decided to revisit…

It seemed to be getting warmer but as I was writing this piece it started snowing again. photography © Alex Ramsay