Interview

I have just done an interview with Marie from a Czech Radio Station called Wave.
I remembered the first time I recorded a soundtrack for a video; I had no musical equipment at all so I went out and bought a stopwatch from Argos and then drew piano keys on a piece of paper which I put on the kitchen table, and wrote all the keyboard parts like that.
When I got into the studio, I knew exactly what I was doing because I had rehearsed so much on the ghost piano.
I used to do soundtracks for Shelter videos and thing like that, which were made by a company called Smith Bundy Video that had been set up by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.
I've just found a box of cassettes of the sound track music that I did- The London Boroughs Disability Resource Team, a series called Sexuality for Channel 4 when it just started up, and also some musicals that I wrote, one for the Inner London Education Authority.
I used to have plastic carrier bags by the door, one for each job, with all the music, cassettes, scripts and so on, and grab the relevant one before I went out. It was all bits, bits, bits: what is now called portfolio working. Sometimes you'd be working on five things at once and then you'd have six months with no work at all and feel like giving up. I learned to do so many different things and I learned to say yes to everything and do a bit of lightning learning before the event.
Although it was completely insecure, it was incredibly stimulating and a complete adventure.
Long live freelance work!