As my musical training is minimal (piano & viola lessons as a child), and abilities on any instrument other than the drums are rudimentary at best, I am the very definition of a ‘self-taught’ composer. However, decades of trial and error, and endless hours building functional working relationships with technology, have given me a unique compositional style that, whilst heavily based in software, also utilises numerous techniques that I can only imagine are peculiar to myself. Which is a typically self-deprecatory way of saying that I have a whole raft of experience across multiple platforms, analogue and digital media, live recording, midi programming, audio processing and general creative sound mangling – and this experience is drawn upon heavily for anything that I put my name to.

Typically my composition is now in three areas. Firstly, for clients as a freelance composer. Over the last 15 years or so I have gained much experience working with the games industry, which has seen the demands on me expand from basic sound design and jingles in the early days, to fully orchestrated cinematic pieces now. With the advent of widely available broadband, people generally expect very ‘rich’ content, and this is often reflected in the kind of music I get asked to create these days. More recently I have also been working with Claudia Paz Lighting Studio on large scale interactive A/V installations, and have won awards for the results of these – you can see some fantastic videos in my showreel here…alongside other work that I have done over the last few years.

Secondly I compose all the music for my band 7shades – this is very satisfying, but also (by its nature) very self-indulgent, and allows me to fully explore avenues that would have no outlet anywhere else. Great fun, especially when the resulting tunes are being blasted out live by a fantastic 7 piece band!

Thirdly, I still produce purely electronic music as ‘Sir Real’ – these productions come less often these days as my time is largely taken up with work and band ‘duties’, but I still knock out the odd tune and remix when I am asked. You can take a look at my discography here where you will also find links to listen to / purchase my music if you so desire.