Waltham Forest Serenade
'The Leafman' is a millennium statue placed in Grove Road, Leytonstone. Just out of photo shot, to the right of the picture is the house where I was born.
Leytonstone, famous in the past as the residence of poet John Drinkwater, the birthplace of the director Alfred Hitchcock, the footballer David Beckham, Jonathan Ross (TV presenter) and Fanny Cradock (Pioneering TV cook) is a town in the London borough of Waltham Forest. Perhaps in time the name of Shane Ward may be added to this list.
Shane presented the head of the Arts Council of Waltham Forest with two demo CDs, the Magic Symphony and Planet Suite: 3rd Millennium, on the very day that The Leafman statue was officially unveiled. Nothing was ever heard.
Perhaps nothing was heard because the music was 'too big', in that to play his music live it would take an entire symphony orchestra at an enormous cost . With this in mind, Shane decided to write something a little smaller - a string quartet.
'Waltham Forest Serenade' has never been played live - not even in Waltham Forest. Why? Who knows. Probably because there is very little money to waste on home grown composers. Shane hopes to live long enough to see his music played live.
Finding a melody, a place to start, is often the hardest part in writing music. ou have to start somewhere right? The Waltham Forest Serenade melody was discovered using a method often employed by children - and possibly numerolgists. Each letter of the alphabet is given a number designation according to its position; A=1, B=2 etc. Using the same principle but applying the letters of the alphabet to a piano keyboard, Shane played out the resulting notes in correspondence to the letters in 'Waltham Forest'. Once he had the notes he then set about narrowing the leaps into one single octave ...and this is the melody you will hear in the first 12 notes.
Members of string quartets are welcome to email Shane Ward in regards to obtaining sheet music.