Artist tips

Novels, for me, have come from somewhere I wasn’t looking. In my twenties I was carrying an idea about a woman wandering around Ireland on a quest she didn’t understand and I sat in the Reading Room o

Improvisation. For many pianists, the very word can feel intimidating. We see a jazz player fly across the keys and assume they are simply making it up. But improvisation is not a random act. It is ro

Music cannot work a magic spell. It can, however, do wonderful things. In recent issues of BBC Music Magazine, we have explored the benefits to mental health of listening and playing music, not least

WHETHER YOU’RE A PROFESSIONAL OR AN AMATEUR – or someone who’s picking up a paint brush for the first time – there are some obvious steps you can take to improve what you do. You can practise every da

As the days get shorter and the pace of life gently shifts, winter offers the perfect invitation to reset. Now’s the time to embrace a steadier rhythm — replacing unstructured weeks of juggling holida

Screen break Tanya Combrinck finds out that creative talent alone won’t open doors to the movie industry