G'day! Welcome to the home page of David McKay.

In this website I share some of my favourite jokes and quotes and links to some of the best stuff I've found on the net.
You will soon discover that I am nuts about my wife, children, my grandsons Jerome,Hamish and Reggie, music and above all, Jesus Christ. I think my piano and musicianship students are pretty good, too!

Jerome Philip, is our first grandchild, born on his Uncle Pops' birthday, 6th May, 2005. Jerome is the first son of our daughter, Cathy and her husband, Philip. His brother Hamish William, born on 4th May, 2007, began his life by being scurried off to hospital for an operation, two days after he was born, and we saw him for the first time 9 days later, on Sunday, 13th May, 2007.
Being married to Joan is a great joy. Joan and I celebrated our 35th anniversary on 24th November, 2008, at Abercrombie Caves, NSW. Cathy is only one of our four terrific children:

Daniel is 34 and lives in Melbourne, where he performs and teaches classical guitar. Daniel has recently released a guitar and violin CD with Zoe Black, which includes works by Elena Kats-Chernin, Tim Hansen, Piazzolla and others.
Daniel and Louise celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary on 31st August. He has his Master's degree in Musical Performance. Daniel is a member of Guitar Trek. In May, 2009, the ABC will release a cd of Spanish music which at last features Daniel's playing. This unique ensemble has performed in Europe, South East Asia, and many parts of Australia. Daniel himself has done solo gigs in Brisbane, Melbourne, Wollongong, Canberra, Perth, Esperance, Fremantle, and also in our little town of Bathurst.

Justin is 33 and is married to Deborah. They have been married for 9 years and live near Sacramento, capital city of California. Justin performs there on piano, organ and harpsichord in a variety of musical settings. He released the first CD of his compositions in 2003. We think it is terrific, but we would say that, wouldn't we? Justin recently completed an opera of Alice in wonderland, which you can check out in extracts he has posted on Youtube.
His current project has been conducting a performance of an opera he has written based around a hair dressing salon.
Cathy is 31 and is married to Philip. They live in Western Sydney. Philip is now a fair dinkum construction cost consultant, having graduated with first class honours. He works for Lend Lease. Cathy and Philip have been married for 10 years and enjoy serving God with other Christian folk at St Philips' Anglican Church, Kingswood.

David is 28 and lives in Western Sydney, too. He is a computer techie for CSC, I think. His website is NugIT David married his best friend, Heidi on 10th May, 2008.

I find this piece of music intriguing. I wonder if musicians who are reading this can work it out? Does anyone know its origin?

Musical Curiosity
Each note, except one, on a piano keyboard has 3 names. Which is the one note which only has 2 names? I would love to hear from you, if you work out the answer.

Wondering what this geezer does when he isn't tinkering with this website?
I am a musician and piano teacher. I teach piano and musicianship at Mitchell Conservatorium in Bathurst, and at Kinross-Wolaroi School in Orange. I have performed in 3 Australian states, and in India, Sri Lanka, Bangla Desh and Nepal in pubs, churches and on the concert platform.

In 2003, I began running a voluntary music program for our local branch of U3A, which is a worldwide association run by seniors for seniors, to promote lifelong learning. So far we have investigated J S Bach (2003), Mozart (2004), Mendelssohn, Chopin and Schumann, three early Nineteenth Century contemporaries (2005), the beginnings of the Russian Classical school, investigating Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov(2006), the great British Twentieth Century composers, including Britten, Vaughan Williams and Walton (2007), and George Frideric Handel, the great German-born, thoroughly British composer of the Baroque period (2008). This year, God-willing, we hope to tackle some Australian composers, including Percy Grainger, Elena Kats-Chernin, Frank Hutchens, Miriam Hyde, Peter Sculthorpe and Carl Vine.

David and Joan are Scrabble fans. Joan's best score is 550, which she achieved on 31st December, 2008, in a game in which she managed to get three bingos. My best score is 495, which I achieved on Sunday, 4th July, 2004, and my best single word score is 239. On Sunday, 10th February, 2002, I achieved my best score, with friezing. This word stretched over two triple word score squares, which allowed me to multiply my score by 9. I added 50 to the final score, because I also used all 7 of my tiles! Joan achieved the longest word, when she made scathingly on 4th August, 1995. Our best combined score is 876. On 9th July, 2000, I was able to get three "bingos" all tiles out in one game.

We enjoy being involved in Bathurst Evangelical Church, which is one of the newer churches in Bathurst. Our minister is Rodney Macready. He has previously taught in the Christian Leaders Training College in Papua New Guinea and some New South Wales Baptist churches.

David and Joan love listening to ABC Classic FM, which is located at 97.5 mhz on the FM dial in our region.

Practice Excuses
Joan and I would like to share our favourite excuses which students have given over the years for not doing their music practice. Have you heard any not listed here? Please send them to us! gontroppoATyahooDOTcom
Or, if you want to improve your practice, you could try The Practice Spot
This terrific Australian site includes hundreds of tips designed to help music students achieve their best.

Updated Friday, 24th April, 2009.
Guitar Trek
We think Guitar Trek is the bees knees, and not just because our son Daniel is a member.
Where It All Began

Music Resources
Fourth Grade Musicianship Resources
Fifth Grade Musicianship Resources
Ten Musical Commandments

The Library