Robbie is a composer, performer and entertainer from South West London with a BMus from Kingston University (2017) and HND from North East Scotland College (2014).

His main instruments are piano and keyboards but he also plays guitar and djembe drums. He particularly enjoys blues, jazz and pop.

 

Robbie has tone colour synaesthesia, where a given musical pitch triggers colours and a scene dominated by a particular colour in his mind. For example, the note F-sharp (which for Robbie is ‘dark brown’) triggers feelings of being miserable and moody and the note A-flat (which is grey) evokes a feeling of longing for something.

 

“Some compositions provoke conflicting feelings, created by the key and what I see in my mind. For example, the movement ‘Spring’ from the Four Seasons by Vivaldi is dark blue (E major). For others, this key evokes feelings of life and rebirth, but for me it is in the “wrong” key, which evokes sadness, rather than happiness. 

 

When composing, by default the key of a piece is driven by the colour I see in my mind. I will also change the key of a pop tune to match my pitch colour associations (“Yellow” by Coldplay is purple for me).”