A little night music led to a new career

Nov 14 2007 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

BUSINESSMAN and inventor David Jephcott was feeling stressed after negotiating a series of business deals. “I was coming home late and I couldn’t sleep,” he reports.

“I decided I needed something to divert my mind.” His surprising answer was to learn how to play the piano from scratch.

In his house was a baby grand once used by his grown-up daughter, and that same night he sat down to teach himself. No teacher, no book tutor, no music training, just Jephcott playing the keyboard.

Now 11 years later, at 58, his first CD as a classical composer has been released with his compositions played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Plain Sailing – the Music of David Jephcott, contains nine compositions, some just three minutes long, others, including an orchestral suite, running to about 20 minutes.

“At first, playing the piano was purely an exercise to rest my mind, I wasn’t planning to do anything with it,” he said.

But as his interest grew, he began composing melodies and, not knowing what the notes were, placed stickers on his piano keys. “I began creating chords, just the sounds, and I taped what I had done.”

Tony Hindley, a former London orchestra player, met Jephcott over a business deal and conversation got round to Jephcott’s hobby.

Hindley asked to hear some of his work and, impressed, put Jephcott in touch with other musicians.

Using the latest music technology, Jephcott was able to transfer his piano meanderings into a written score and soon, with other technical aids, was creating an entire orchestral sound.

He eventually sold his business, and in 2002 had his first choral work performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic..

Plain Sailing, which had been anything but, involved him hiring the Royal Liverpool Phil, setting up his own record label, and recording his works.

Among the compositions was The Prairie Whistler. “I knew I needed a whistler rather than an instrument like a flute. I had a demo made by one of Cliff Richard’s backing singers, but eventually found whistler David Morris to record it.”

He is selling the recording on www.plainsailingcd.com and “testing” its sales potential in garden centres.

Meanwhile, he has decided to take a course in musical composition.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk