About Me
I'm Paul, welcome to my site
I'm a huge fan of music, notation, playback, and the work that connects them
This site brings together the main strands of the work I care most about: music, notation, playback, and the practical craft that sits between them.
Over the years, I’ve found myself drawn not just to writing music, but to the whole process of shaping it, hearing it back, engraving it clearly, and finding better ways to move from musical idea to finished score. That is really what this site is about.
Where It Started
My musical journey began when I was 11, after my mum and dad bought me a clarinet.
I grew up listening to everything from Benny Goodman to Vangelis, but in truth the clarinet rather found me. My dad was a huge Acker Bilk fan, and Stranger on the Shore always seemed to be playing somewhere. And if it was not on at home, it was being whistled, so it ended up completely burned into my head.
At 15, I discovered the guitar. Not the electric variety, but classical guitar, after hearing a performer in Bracknell shopping centre play a piece of music that I instantly fell in love with. It took me quite a while to discover that the piece was Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tárrega, but once I did, something clicked very deeply.
From that point on, my love for the instrument grew and grew. For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to play professionally. But after years of practice, I eventually had to admit that I was not going to make a living as the performer I had once imagined.
So instead, I opened a guitar shop dedicated to the instrument.
Baroque And Roll
Baroque And Roll was a dream to own and run. Being surrounded by some of the finest guitars in the world, and meeting both new and established players every day, taught me a great deal.
It also helped me realise something important. What I really loved was not only the instrument itself, but composing for it, arranging for it, and helping people get the very best from it.
That shift in understanding mattered. It moved the centre of gravity from performance alone to something broader: writing, shaping, listening, refining, and finding better ways for music to live on the page and in sound.
Learning, Listening & Staying Curious
I always wanted to go to a conservatoire or university to study music, but never really had the opportunity.
Even so, music has been the constant thread running through my life. I have spent years learning through private study, one-to-one tuition, and a lot of independent work, and I have devoted most of my free time to music for the last 25 years.
What has fascinated me for as long as I can remember is the sheer physical power of music. I still remember listening to my dad’s copy of The Planets on vinyl as a kid, hearing Jupiter, and suddenly realising that every hair on my arms was standing up.
That feeling has never left me.
Music can grab you in ways you never imagined. The ebb and flow, the dynamics, the tension and the release, the sudden lift of a phrase or the weight of a harmony, it still feels like one of the most magical things in the world to me. I am completely in love with it.
What This Site Is For
I wanted my site to feel less like a portfolio on one side and a teaching space on the other, and more like a musical home where those things can sit together naturally.
That means you’ll find original music, score pages, long reads, practical guides, and longer thoughts on notation, playback, workflow, and the craft of getting music onto the page clearly and effectively.
Some visitors may arrive through the music. Others may come looking for help with notation software. Others may be interested in mockups, playback, and sample-library workflows. However you arrive, the aim is the same: to make the site useful, thoughtful, and musically grounded.
Why Notation Matters To Me
Notation software can look technical from the outside, but at its best it is really about clarity, expression, and helping music communicate.
That might mean making a score easier to read, shaping a playback more convincingly, or simply finding a workflow that helps ideas arrive with less friction. However it shows up, the goal is the same: to give the music the best possible chance of being understood, heard, and performed well.
That is a large part of what sits behind both the How-To Hubs and the Long Reads.
Alongside my own work, I also run Binary Sky Records & Publishing, which has given me a broader space to develop projects across composition, arranging, publishing, releases, and the practical side of getting music out into the world. That experience has shaped a great deal of the thinking behind this site too, especially where notation, presentation, playback, and musical identity all meet.
So Welcome
If this site inspires anyone to start writing, playing, composing, tweaking, orchestrating, or simply exploring music more deeply, that would make me prouder than just about anything.
So with that in mind, welcome to my website.
I really hope you enjoy it.