Melanie Spanswick is a pianist, author, teacher and composer. She’s a piano faculty member at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Eton College, and she’s a regular contributor to Pianist Magazine. She tells Remain Composed that composition is an activity she’s come to relatively recently.

Melanie explains the process that goes into compiling anthologies, such as her ‘Play it again’ series designed for people returning to the piano after a break. Melanie discusses the challenges of making music for beginners which is both playable and not boring.

Working as an adjudicator of music festivals, Melanie says she’s seen numbers of performers falling. She says it’s a real shame, and everybody should learn a musical instrument.

Melanie describes what goes into writing her piece and column for each edition of Pianist Magazine - and how she manages to come up with names for so many individual works. She also has words of advice for anyone entering the magazine’s composing competition.

Thomas James Owen is in the early days of his compositional career. Thomas has always been curious about how and why music can evoke emotions. Thomas says he’s learnt to not imitate other composers, but he does sometimes aim to generate the feelings he’s felt when listening to certain works.

Thomas writes music most days. Normally, while sitting at his keyboard, his fingers come up with the ideas before his head does. He describes how he uses different processes to develop those ideas.

While discussing creative stimuli, Thomas discusses experimenting with his daughters to see whether they can associate ‘positive’ thoughts with major chords.

Thomas says AI-created music is only rehashing stuff it’s heard before. He says the only way to get a quality product is to use human creatives, though he does concede that times seem to be changing rather quickly.

Dawn Walters has written vocal settings of all of Shakespeare’s songs, and many of his sonnets. She explains how she discovered her love of Shakespeare - and tells us how that project started and grew.

Dawn says her ideas often stem from mental pictures, which she develops by thinking about the text she’s setting. She says the final versions of her pieces are often very different to the initial drafts. Dawn says she tries to reflect her own emotions in each piece.

Dawn explains how competitions can be great experiences for composers - but some come with hefty entry fees. She also discusses the benefits of going to university as a mature student.

David Lowe has composed many of British television's most iconic theme tunes including BBC News, The One Show and Grand Designs.

David tells Remain Composed about his beginnings in local radio, and how buying a polyphonic synthesizer would set him up for a career of writing music.

David explains the types of conversations he has with TV directors and producers when asked to create music for them. David shares his thoughts on the way TV is changing, and says the introduction of the 'skip intro' button on streaming services has created a unique challenge for composers.

David also discusses his upcoming album with his long-time friend Donna Lewis.

Crystalla Serghiou composes music in both pop and classical styles, and she also works hard to fuse the genres. She explains how genre-blending is a reflection of her wide interests, all of which stimulate her.

When writing pieces for the National Youth Choir, Crystalla has taken inspiration from both her Cypriot upbringing, and her fascination with yodelling. She discusses writing music to suit different groups within the NYC and balancing fun with challenge.

Crystalla collects ideas in voice notes on her phone. She says she’s a perfectionist at heart, and has had to learn to accept more imperfections as she’s developed as a composer. She says it’s sometimes alright to start by writing, and come up with the meaning of the work later.

Jacob Fitzgerald is a composer of contemporary music. A piece Jacob wrote whilst studying music at school has been on the Trinity College London grade 8 piano syllabus. He explains how that came about, where the idea started and the response it’s had online.

Jacob discusses the programming of living composers’ music in concerts. Whilst he’s appreciative of opportunities, Jacob says sometimes it can be frustrating to be a token piece of new music.

Jacob says he tries to start writing music by hand, before inputting it into a computer. He says he composes quickly and doesn’t make many revisions of each piece.

Frankie Archer is an electrofolk artist who blends traditional music with synths and electronics to create a truly distinctive sound. She says she didn’t set out to necessarily create electrofolk music at first, but to bring together her interests.

Frankie explains how she comes across tunes and stories to work with and the process she goes through to make them her own, often starting by plucking melodies on her fiddle.

Frankie suggests the reason folk music contains lots of sad stories may be a reflection of people’s obsession with drama and gossip.

Frankie describes how she involves audiences in her live gigs, using special MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) controllers, and explains where the idea for that began.

David Lancaster is a composer and associate professor of composition at York St John University. He says while he writes a wide range of music, all of his work is related and each piece is a chip off a bigger block.

David constantly has a list of musical ideas queuing up, waiting to be written. He lives in York and he discusses how some of his ideas come from the city’s architecture, not least York Minster, and the stories of people who have lived in the city through history.

David describes the process he goes through when writing a new piece: often starting with the structure, then collecting material and developing ideas in a sketchbook before stitching them together. And David explains the joy he gets out of working together with performers.