I wrote the Rondo theme in this for a pupil who was quite hard to please and never practised unless she had something intoxicatingly fun and jolly to play. When I'd written it, I realised I was going to be eternally grateful to her, because I love this piece.

Despite being very lively, a lot of it is really quite easy, and it's certainly possible

I wrote the Rondo theme in this for a pupil who was quite hard to please and never practised unless she had something intoxicatingly fun and jolly to play. When I'd written it, I realised I was going to be eternally grateful to her, because I love this piece.

Despite being very lively, a lot of it is really quite easy, and it's certainly possible for players with relatively little experience to join in with it.

I've presented it as a duet, but I have performed it with various groups of different sizes and mixed abilities. Anyone who doesn't feel they can manage everything can just join in with the Rondo Theme whenever it appears and play the harmony in the Interludes, or take the harmony throughout. Players with less experience can stick to a simplified harmony line, which comes with the parts.

The slightly enigmatic title of this piece has Middle Earth associations – read on for elucidation. It has four continuous sections, all based on the same original material but each with a very different feel: a jaunty stroll, a fast waltz (c.1' 06"), an F minor lament (c.1' 57"), and finally an upbeat jazzy finale (c.3' 14"). Don't forget to swing

The slightly enigmatic title of this piece has Middle Earth associations – read on for elucidation. It has four continuous sections, all based on the same original material but each with a very different feel: a jaunty stroll, a fast waltz (c.1' 06"), an F minor lament (c.1' 57"), and finally an upbeat jazzy finale (c.3' 14"). Don't forget to swing the quavers in this last section.

I think I must have been in a Let’s-go-out-for-a-walk-in-the-sunshine kind of mood when I started writing the piece, as it opens in a very carefree, contented sort of way. I may also have been fantasising about strolling through the landscape where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films were shot, because I found myself writing a bar that was somewhat reminiscent of a fragment of Howard Shore’s score for the films. Bearing that in mind, you can see how I arrived at the title of this piece: North Island Ramble is a reference to the fact that the films were shot on New Zealand’s North Island. You just have to imagine that you are out for a healthy stroll in that landscape, when you notice a diminutive person with hairy feet...

The hobbit bar appears in appropriately different guises in each section, but I’m sure you’ll spot it each time (unless of course you’ve never seen the films or heard the music, in which case you need to get out more).

The piece is probably best suited to pedal harpists, but I never fail to be amazed by the dexterity of some lever harp players, so if you're exclusively a lever harpist, please feel free to give it a go!

The piece is also available as a piano duet.

This duet is for a pair of evenly matched harpists who can interact well with each other, or a balanced 2-part ensemble.

A glance at the score might make you think it's more difficult than it actually is, because of all the semiquaver arpeggios. But they all fall under the fingers really easily, and are based solely on four chords: Fm7, Gm7, A flat

This duet is for a pair of evenly matched harpists who can interact well with each other, or a balanced 2-part ensemble.

A glance at the score might make you think it's more difficult than it actually is, because of all the semiquaver arpeggios. But they all fall under the fingers really easily, and are based solely on four chords: Fm7, Gm7, A flat major 7, and Cm7. Even so, this is obviously not for beginners.

Those four chords underpin the entire piece, with the exception of the very last two bars when we finally hear a tonic chord: E flat major (though even then it's E flat major 7).