Dad’s Melody

I can take no credit whatsoever for the music on this page. During the 1940s, my father, Harold Nicholas, wrote a short piece of swing music with a friend (whose name we do not know). It was never written down, but he knew it by heart and often played it to us.

Fast forward to 2016 when I met Emma Francis, a music student at University of Chichester, who so very kindly offered to write Dad’s melody as a score. She did this, through painstakingly listening to, and watching, a very old home video of him playing it.

On Saturday 21 October 2017, some 15 years after my father’s death, family and friends were invited to listen to Emma and her friend, Ollie March, play a few tunes to us, the main piece being Dad’s Melody.

Now you can hear it too, simply by pressing ‘play’, below:

And here is the score!

Via this website, Dad’s achievement can now live on. My family are all so very grateful to Emma for her hard work in transcribing, and to Ollie for playing it to us.

Since those early days at the University of Chichester where Emma achieved a First in her music degree, she has gone from strength to strength and is now performing and creating music with The Dark Moon Ensemble.

Follow them here.