Music on Earth Productions Ltd.

General information

ABOUT US

Established in 1994 Music on Earth continues to re-invent itself.

Stephen Hawking said “intelligence is the ability to adapt to change”.

The world we live in is ever changing and the best we can hope to do is to joyfully and with honesty and integrity follow the advice of Walt Disney “… keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things … we are curious beings and curiosity will keep leading us down new paths”.

We invite you to travel with the Music on Earth team on the next stage of our journey and hope you enjoy what we have to offer.

The journey so far …

1994 Paul Balmer set up Music on Earth as a broadcast production company.

1995 Judy Caine joined him and they produced their first programme ‘Africa I Remember’ with Tunde Jegede and the London Sinfonietta (cond. Markus Stenz).

For the next 5 years we continued making programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, BBC radio, CBC Canada meeting some fabulous musicians and collecting nine awards along the way.

In 1999 we were lucky enough to work with the BBC on a joint project ‘The Musical Nomad’ – a 40 day live webcast from Central Asia – we’ll share some of these stories with you soon; they became a BBC top ten website.

In 2001 we launched our own Music on Earth DVD label and a simple web site in order to sell our first BAFTA nominated DVD ‘Stephane Grappelli – A life in the Jazz Century’.

Julian Bream came to the launch of this DVD and asked us to tell his story. This we did and that became the ‘GRAMOPHONE DVD of the year’.

A new direction …

Having written music and scripts Paul decided to try his hand at books and wrote the official biography of Grappelli followed by 10 Haynes ‘rock hardware’ Manuals on guitars, bass and drums.

Paul is currently the Number 1 guitar writer on Amazon and is regarded by his critics as a ‘world expert on the guitar’ – he’s a humble man and finds this a little odd.

Paul plays Lute, baroque guitar, classic guitar, electric guitar, sitar, 12-string, resonator guitar, banjo, bass, ‘world percussion’ and the drum-kit! His gig’s have included an African clearing, a Liverpool cellar club and a recent 1,000-seater stadium concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Where now …

HD video downloads and the freedom of ‘narrowcasting’

Our world is shrinking and at the touch of a keyboard or stroke of a tablet / smart phone we are offering at a very affordable price 69p (occasionally 99p) and in some cases completely FREE downloadable guitar set up tutorials.

Paul is the author of all the Haynes Guitar Manuals AMAZON’S NO 1 bestseller in this specialism.

‘Narrowcasting’ at its best; unfettered by pressures to sell soap or unrealistically to ‘appeal to everybody, all of the time’.

Over the next 12 months we hope to expand and also offer some musical adventures from around the world; offering insights into music, musicians and instruments from every area of our shrinking planet.

Also exclusive interviews with musical icons past and present.

Mini Biogs

Paul Balmer

Born in Liverpool 8, England in 1951 to a ‘Music Hall’ family, Paul took up guitar at the age of nine with ‘a little help from his friends’ he performed as part of the 'Merseybeat' scene from 1962 to 1974. His father, a dance-band drummer, encouraged him and became his first manager.

Paul studied classic guitar with the great Brendan McCormack a student of Emilio Pujol, steeped in the Spanish school of Francisco Tarrega.

He also studied drums with Ron Parry and percussion with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

In 1974 Paul joined the BBC at Pebble Mill studios initially as a sound engineer and then as a radio producer and television director. He presented many music programmes on BBC Radio 3 and worked on some ‘classic’ early Radio 1 sessions – his favourites being Kate Bush and ‘The Tourists’.

In 2002 Paul’s DVD film ‘Stephane Grappelli - A life in the Jazz Century’ was nominated for a British Academy Award and in 2007 his film 'Julian Bream - My Life In Music' became The ‘Gramophone DVD of the year’.

Paul plays Lute, baroque guitar, classic guitar, electric guitar, sitar, 12-string, resonator guitar, banjo, bass, ‘world percussion’ and the drum-kit!

His gig’s have included an African clearing, a Liverpool cellar club and a recent 1,000-seater stadium concert with the Royal Philharmonic orchestra.

Judy Caine

Born Worcester in 1962 Judy had a much less exciting childhood (not that Worcester is in anyway boring – you just can’t compare it with Liverpool of the 1960s!).

Judy took flute up age 11, sang in the county youth choir, played in the county youth orchestra and eventually went to Bretton Hall, Leeds University’s ‘Art’ College housed in a beautiful stately home/country park in West Yorkshire.

She studied a ‘Creative Arts’ degree, had a great time in the process and in 1983 was sent off to Pebble Mill on work experience. This is where she first met Paul Balmer!

Judy stayed in broadcasting for a while then went off and tried her had at several other things including rock band management and ordinary ‘office administration’ jobs. Didn’t really enjoy either of these so in 1994 Judy joined Paul graduating eventually to ‘producer’; getting crews and musicians in the right place, at the right time all within the given budget.

She prides herself in bringing all her project in on-time and on-budget and has won nine international awards.

She still plays flute and on her travels has collected a vast collection of flutes from all over the world.