"I made my first instrument,a whistle,at the age of nine by cutting a notch in a short piece of garden cane.I was surprised when it actually worked.I began piano lessons of my own volition at the age of eleven.
I experimented putting wax on the end of the hammers to produce a zither-like tone to play 'The Harry Lime Theme'-which was often played on the radio and I had seen the film.
After going through the piano grades while studying engineering,I won a free scholarship to study at The Royal Academy of Music.
Around this time I became interested in Indian classical music after hearing a series on the radio in 1960.I visited a North Indian singer in Walsall,Malti Jain, for advice and made a Veena from bamboo and a bamboo flute.
In 1961 I became interested in the Harpsichord and Clavichord.I bought a clavichord using some of my grant money and practised on the harpsichords in Fenton House Hampstead.
I left The Royal Academy after two years but continued living in London.
In the early part of 1963 I had the idea to make a pottery ocarina after seeing one in a second-hand shop.I took some advice from a local potter in Hampstead-Chris Maggarshak-who was a bit apprehensive about the shrinkage difficulties.I made six and they turned out alright.I discovered they would sell at Portobello Road.
From then on I found regular customers and made a wide variety of hand-made shapes of many sizes,including Birds,Dinosaurs and replicas of Museum pre-columbian pipes:-Aztec,Mixtec and Peruvian pan flutes and a Mochica Conch trumpet.
In mid 1963 I discovered the four-holed tuning by experimenting with unequal sized holes and cross-fingering to produce a small pendant with a full scale.
This system was later adopted by many makers-friends I had taught and people people in other countries who had come across such an instrument. Some of the people in the house I lived in in Camden Town made their living from making ocarinas at various times and visiting foreigners learned the craft and took it to their countries:sometimes they stayed in England and survived off ocarina sales.
Visiting American Jazz players were attracted to pottery instruments and commissioned some when I met them at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. Yusef Latif had a Peruvian Panpipe,Roland Kirk a wide-bore flute (fippled) and a small whistle (six-hole).Sonny Rollins a unique cluster (chord) whistle in the shape of a head. David Izenson ,who played bass with Ornette Coleman's Quartet ordered a set of variously tuned ocarinas for his improvisation group Alchemy Players in Canada.
In 1967 I bought a South Indian Veena (to replace the one I had borrowed from Jack Bruce) and continued to practice Carnatic Music.I had lessons with Andrha Pradesh.I used to play for the dance programmes put on by Surya Kumari ,the Bharatanatyam dancer and her pupils (who included some native English dancers).
Later I learned from Vemu Mukunda of Bangalore -a Veena player who had a very old Veena and having retired from a job in nuclear power at Harvey's was returning to his musical career.
In 1969 I recieved a free scholarship from John Levy to study the Veena with K.S.Narayanaswami in Trivandrum and spent six months in India. Since then I have visited India every few years-also Sumatra,Java,and Bali,especially to hear the music at festivals and ceremonies. Also Macedonia,Greece,Spain and Turkey.
In 1994 I invented the Confluent pipe-a double chambered ocarina with a single sound which overblows a second range and reaches two octaves.In 1996 I invented the Torus-shaped ocarina both fippled and embouchure type with a range of an octave and a fourth.During one year I perfected the design and made a set of plaster moulds for nine sizes in five keys plus three very large ones.
Also lately invented Confluent Toric ocarina (fippled or embouchure) by combining earlier confluent double chamber and torus-shape -which overblows at the eleventh and produces two octaves plus 'lipping down" a tone on the embouchure type."