Music

Composing, sound design, and fun acoustics

I compose for theatre and performance. I do podcast themes, short scoring projects, full theatre sound design, and write the occasional musical-theatre inspired song. My degree was in Acoustics and Music Technology, which I ended with a dissertation on emulating the sound of stalactites when you hit them with a mallet.

Projects in this area

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Mick playing guitar to a row of toy monkeys propped against a tree, Bella listening

The Bard Unplugged

Join us for a one night only night of acoustic music featuring only the finest lyrics the bard has to offer, set to original music

Guitar

Theatre Music

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Composing

Themes and scores for podcasts, theatre, and other narrative art

Reaper MuseScore

Music

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Dissertation on Stalactites

What do stalactites sound like when you hit them with a mallet? Physical simulation, cave field recordings, and a playable virtual instrument

MATLAB C++ JUCE

Acoustics Sound

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The Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company presents “An infinite monkey attempts to write the complete works of Shakespeare: a variety show” who also presents:

The Bard Unplugged

“If music be the food of love, play on.” - Twelfth Night Act 1, Scene 1

Mick playing acoustic guitar leaning against a tree in the Meadows while Bella sits in the grass below

Music composed and performed on guitar by Mick Zijdel (“Hilariously Clever”, ★★★★★ - The Student), sung by Bella Burgess (“Marvellous singing voice, resonates with emotion” ★★★★ - the Broad Online).

Featuring songs from The Tempest, Cymbeline, Henry VIII, Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and other original songs by Mick Zijdel.

Book tickets on the Fringe website

This show is only performed on 15 August. Please make sure you book your tickets for this date.

A toy orangutan sitting at a typewriter in the grass, a blank sheet of paper in the roller

About The Show

“The Bard Unplugged” started three years ago, when I put the songs in The Tempest to music for a performance at the Bedlam Theatre. I still absolutely love the music I wrote for that, and I am glad we get to play it again. When James, the monkey-in-chief, first mentioned this Shakespeare variety show, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to write some more songs based on the bard’s lyrics. I was mostly right.

Despite having worked on a couple of Shakespeare productions, I’ve always disliked Shakespeare. It’s dense, hard to get through, and has many jokes that don’t make sense to a modern audience. Working on this project has not changed that opinion. It was a real challenge to work with Shakespeare’s lyrics, especially since there’s only so much iambic pentameter a man can take, but a few in particular made the struggle worth it. Shakespeare’s words managed to elicit chord progressions and riffs from me that modern lyrics couldn’t have. Rehearsing the songs with Bella and properly hearing them come to life was always a delight.

I hope you enjoy these songs of love, death, joy, and many birds and trees.

Mick

Credits

Bella Burgess: Vocals
Mick Zijdel: Guitar and Composer
Audrey Nicholls: Lyrics for “Somewhere Out There”
Violet Studdert-Kennedy: Photographer

and the Infinite Monkey team:
James Harvey: Monkey-in-Chief
Alex Kerr: Technical Manager
Isla Duffy: Production Manager
Lou Limpenny: Producer
Nina Ceretti: Producer

Gallery

Mick playing guitar between while Bella and the monkey face off wielding bananas

Mick, with a toy orangutan perched on one shoulder, squaring off across the grass against Bella, who has a guitar raised overhead

Mick and Bella running across the Meadows under a blue sky, guitar in hand

Mick and Bella standing back to back, Bella singing into a banana

Bella holding the monkey's skull like in Hamlet

Artwork from “Ethics Town” podcast

I compose music for theatre and other performance and narrative art.

Podcasts

Themes for audio fiction podcasts.

Short Scoring Projects

Sketches

Short pieces I made for university assignments but did not develop into a full piece.

Theatre Composing

Theatre Sound Design

Other

I wrote my dissertation on “Ancient Rock Music”: the sound stalactites make when hit by a rubber mallet. The project was inspired by a visit to Luray Caverns, Virginia, home of the “Great Stalacpipe Organ”: an instrument that plays the cave itself.

The work had three parts: a physical simulation of struck stalactites using finite-difference and modal methods (approximating them as cantilever bars of variable diameter, in MATLAB), a field trip to record real stalactites, and a virtual instrument built in C++ with JUCE so anyone can play a cave from their Digital Audio Workstation.