About James
Hi I’m James Gosling – an award-winning film composer, piano obsessive & late piano bloomer. I hold an MA in Music for the Screen from the National Film and Television School & Royal College of Art, and a BMus from the University of London. After graduating, I worked in the film and television industry, working closely with BAFTA-winning composer Rob Lane for a number of years, culminating in being part of the team that composed and produced the score for the BBC’s Merlin. I later collaborated with Tom Bailey on LEGO’s Nexo Knights, and scored my debut feature The Hallow, which won a Golden Skull award for Best Score at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in 2015.
But the piano has for a long time now been my private sanctuary. I started like so many do: childhood lessons at 8, bored at 10, quit and intrigued by knots joined the cub-scouts. By age 17 though I’d become fascinated by film music and music composition and with my basic grounding in the piano I was urged to take lessons again if I was serious in wanting to gain access to study music and composition at university, grade 7 the minimum requirement on at least one instrument. One year later, via grade-5 practical one semester and grade-5 theory the next (both pre-requisites to apply for grade-6 and above) I made this minimum grade-7 requirement with an unadorned pass, falling well short of “pass with distinction”, even “pass with merit”, the two other categories outside of fail. Looking back it was a clumsy, unsure recital of three pieces I neither knew nor liked nearly well enough. As well my oral and sight-reading skills which form part of the examination process were untrained and unformed. And the scales! The scales. It was a generous pass, pity the possible explanation.
The real transformation didn’t happen until my mid-twenties, when I discovered practice strategies that led me to the magic/phenomena known as muscle-memory. I began noticing that with a particular, consistent, systematic approach, a small side-order of patience, another of perseverance, and suddenly I started successfully pulling of passages/sequences/pieces I’d previously thought the reserve of those who’d been lucky enough to discover their instrument aged 4 and had been practicing ever since. Over the years, these discoveries have become a toolkit – techniques, strategies and habits that have taken me far beyond that which I used to assume possible as a late starter. And over those same years I’ve met so many people who’ve told me they wished they’d stuck with the piano, or wished they’d had the opportunity when they were young. The theme is always the same: “Too late now.” My experience convinces me of the fallacy of those 3 words, and PianEasy and the immersive retreats have grown out of this conviction.
It’s not too late. You can start from where you are. And you can almost certainly go much further than you think.
To demonstrate a little of the level I have reached now, here’s a short video clip. Aged 18 if cold merit had ruled the day I probably wouldn’t have passed grade 7, wouldn’t have studied music and wouldn’t be here writing this. Now though see for yourself how far these methods & strategies I’d like to share have brought me. This video was taken in January of last year when I’d invited my brother from a Somerset mother Mr Russell Marsh, a kindred spirit composer-pianist I met as a fresh man at university.
We decided to get to an oft spoken about ambition and spend a few weeks preparing repertoire before locking ourselves away for a mini piano-festival. Richard Rodney-Bennett, Saint-Saëns, Gershwin and more. On day four I began some “phone balanced precariously against something ill-fitted for the job” filming. That said, the latest phone mic technology really is impressive and does a remarkable job, and so a few of the highlights have become this short five-minute reel.
This is part of the energy I want to bring to the retreats: learning together, playing together—duets, discovery and the unexpected joy of musical momentum.
The Brews Brothers…me on the right.
About PianEasy
PianEasy began as a simple realisation: Most adults don’t quit or even avoid starting the piano because they lack talent – they do so firstly because the traditional pre-video technology route makes everything harder, for the simple reason that one is compelled to learn to read music first in order to understand the only note and finger guides available. Secondly the practicing approaches – both the minutia of the moment-by-moment approach and the frequency of the sessions are generally poorly conceived if consciously conceived at all, and which if corrected for can lead to much swifter progress per time spent.
I spent years assuming not being good enough was the simple inevitable consequence of having started late – that there was naturally a low ceiling that anyone in my late-starter situation was destined/cursed to stay below forevermore. So it was with great joy that I stumbled upon the approaches that made the piano feel intuitive and genuinely approachable, and in the twenty years since, I’ve become convinced of one thing and am out to prove it: anyone can play, and it’s never too late to start, restart, or go further than you ever thought possible.
So PianEasy is where I’m going to share what I’ve learned – through immersive retreats and online resources – a growing library of piece by piece tutorials, workshops, techniques and strategies that focus on tapping into our inherent musicality as well as our oft-dormant motor-neurone and muscle-memory capabilities. It’s for those who want to discover playing by going straight to something they love, without the old obstacles that sent so many of us running to the cub-scouts – and with techniques and strategies which are repeatable and sustainable.
So if you’ve always wished you’d stuck with the piano—or wished you’d begun at all—or wish you could spend an immersive week developing your skills or playing duets or trios with those of similar interests in a space dedicated to it—then this project is conceived with you in mind.