Musical Influences 1. Reginald Smith Brindle

People always talk about the bands that influenced them. I could give you a list of bands I like, but maybe it’s more interesting to talk about the music educators that have had a big impact on me.
First up is a gentleman I never met, but who’s work was a big influence. Reginald Smith Brindle was a musician and composer from Lancashire. He created some really interesting works for classical guitar, particular this one written for Julian Bream.

A really interesting piece, but his main influence on me was his writing about music.
Musical Composition, his book from 1986, is pretty much a must read as far as I’m concerned.  In particular its chapters on melody writing, accompaniments and more interesting modern classical ideas. The stuff on melody writing, really looking at how to use and when to repeat ideas, was very useful.
This book had a big influence on my instrumental work at Uni, which resulted in various pieces of which I still rather proud including ‘Two’ from my first album.