Steve Pretty
Steve Pretty
I do music and production and performance and stuff

Hello. I am Steve Pretty.

This is my website, on which I attempt to explain my confusing career to you.

I do mostly performance, music composition, music production, podcasting and mixing. I also enjoy photography (especially underwater photography) and writing, both of which I’ve been able to occasionally monetise as part of my, er, ‘portfolio career’.

If you're confused, think how I feel.

Drop me a line if you’d like me to do A Thing for you.

Here are my Instagram and Twitter feeds so you can see what I’ve been up to.

Don’t forget to also check out Hackney Colliery Band’s feeds for all the latest on that front.

Had a phenomenal time at my first ever @bluedotfestival After I had to cancel last year due to commitments @nationaltheatre I was worried they wouldn’t have me back, but they not only had me back, they let me and @lintottchris do our Universe
Had a phenomenal time at my first ever @bluedotfestival After I had to cancel last year due to commitments @nationaltheatre I was worried they wouldn’t have me back, but they not only had me back, they let me and @lintottchris do our Universe of Music thing for TWO HOURS at prime time on Saturday night. The show was an absolute blast - much conching (including an audience member valiantly cutting a shell live during the show), trumpeting, enthusing about the origins of music and human abstract expression, space, astronomy, laughs, brilliant guests, and joined by my old friend @jeff.miller.33483 for some fun musical hijinks. There were lots of challenges due to the catastrophically bad weather, combined with the decision to bring a) my rackmount @eventideaudio H9000 rig, which performed beautifully, but was HEAVY to carry through 10 inch deep mud for about a mile to the stage, and b) my two young kids, but a lot of fun was had by all between the challenges, including Chris finding his dancing match in the shape of my 4 year old son, doing their thing to the brilliant set by @young_fathers A truly brilliant festival program, especially on the science/literary side, and bumped into various brilliant folk including having an ace catch up with both @chrishawkinsdj and @robinince1969 Also, huge thanks to @ashtrayagram and the @snappedankles fellas for helping out with logistics j a big way! Can’t wait to return. Thanks for having me, Jodrell Bank! #festival #livemusic #spaceistheplace
Long overdue service that’s turned into a full overhaul for my beloved main horn, courtesy of @eclipsetrumpetsuk Always a bit terrifying seeing the thing you spend half your life coaxing noises out of taken apart, but very necessary. Can&rs
Long overdue service that’s turned into a full overhaul for my beloved main horn, courtesy of @eclipsetrumpetsuk Always a bit terrifying seeing the thing you spend half your life coaxing noises out of taken apart, but very necessary. Can’t wait to get it back in a couple of weeks’ and for it not to be at risk of falling apart in my hands! #trumpet #trumpetplayer
New headshots! Pretty rare that I do any acting these days, but I do still dabble sometimes, and my headshots were ancient, and not showing all the new lines I’ve developed all over my face since having 2 kids… So time for some fresh one
New headshots! Pretty rare that I do any acting these days, but I do still dabble sometimes, and my headshots were ancient, and not showing all the new lines I’ve developed all over my face since having 2 kids… So time for some fresh ones. And here we are. @clairegroganpix has done a great job #Repost @clairegroganpix with @use.repost ・・・ Great work from fab actor/musician @Steve pretty Working his edge with ease (and normally such a smiley chap!) Rep’d Royce Management #actor #headshots #musician #trumpeter #headshotphotographer # #londonheadshots #profoto #canon #thebipp #aop #clairegroganphotography #tvactor #filmactor #theatreactor #drama #theaphp #newheadshots #londonheadshots #talent #newheadshots #casting #bluegreeneyes
Disappointed not to be able to make my solo set @alsofestival tonight due to Factors (car-based 🥴), but so excited to play for the first time ever as @soundbox.ensemble tomorrow at noon (managed to borrow a car for that bit). Harp, trumpet, percussion and a lot of intricate live electronics. Here we are (minus electronics) in rehearsal this week. Really looking forward to getting this project out there as @valeriaclarke.music and I think it’s something pretty special and unusual #harp #harpist #trumpet #electronicmusic #neoclassicalmusic #improvisedmusic
Fantastic couple of days working with the astronomically powerful setup ahead of some forthcoming festival performances over the next couple of weeks. First up is @alsofestival this weekend, performing with my incredibly brilliant @soundbox.ensembl
Fantastic couple of days working with the astronomically powerful setup ahead of some forthcoming festival performances over the next couple of weeks. First up is @alsofestival this weekend, performing with my incredibly brilliant @soundbox.ensemble partner @valeriaclarke.music and then next weekend at @bluedotfestival with @lintottchris Can’t wait! #livemusic #trumpet #conchshell #eventide #akaiforce #electroacoustic #composersofinstagram
Only my second gig with this bunch of crazies, and it was a CORKER. Looking forward to lots more over the summer! #Repost @molotovjukeboxofficial with @use.repost ・・・ WHAT A NIGHT! Thank you to all of you for coming and dancing your tropical toes of
Only my second gig with this bunch of crazies, and it was a CORKER. Looking forward to lots more over the summer! #Repost @molotovjukeboxofficial with @use.repost ・・・ WHAT A NIGHT! Thank you to all of you for coming and dancing your tropical toes off with us. Such an amazing audience and such a lovely crew @hootanannybrixton that helped us pull it off. Flower head explosion created by the one and only @pearlsandswine
Player ALL this lot on a great attended session yesterday for a lovely kids’ music project. Super fun! #trumpet #sessionmusician #brassmusician #brassmusic
Player ALL this lot on a great attended session yesterday for a lovely kids’ music project. Super fun! #trumpet #sessionmusician #brassmusician #brassmusic
Great fun playing for the Pride parade on Sat with some @hackneycolliery buddies. Such a joyful event, and an honour to be there as an ally for my #lgbtq buddies. Think we were the only live musicians there on the day (at least I didn’t see a
Great fun playing for the Pride parade on Sat with some @hackneycolliery buddies. Such a joyful event, and an honour to be there as an ally for my #lgbtq buddies. Think we were the only live musicians there on the day (at least I didn’t see any others), and, sandwiched between 2 massive sound systems, we realise why 🤣 But had a lot of fun!
What an amazing weekend of live music and culture. An absolute treat to play at @firstlightlowestoft with @bollywoodbrassband right on the beach in Lowestoft/Pakefield. I’ve spent a lot of time over past few years in and around that bit of
What an amazing weekend of live music and culture. An absolute treat to play at @firstlightlowestoft with @bollywoodbrassband right on the beach in Lowestoft/Pakefield. I’ve spent a lot of time over past few years in and around that bit of the Suffolk coast, and it’s my happy place. Stunning nature, lovely people, wonderful food and drink. All the things I love, except that it’s not always as well served as it could be for culture (albeit with some notable exceptions), so it’s so great to see this incredible festival happening with such brilliant involvement from both the local community and broader arts world. After my set and various family commitments, I saw good buddy @robinince1969 fantastic new show Weapons of Empathy, which I can’t recommend enough. Then we caught up over a couple of pints of local beer, which was a treat. THEN I bedded down on the beach for a couple of hours before seeing in the dawn with a brilliant programme of cultural events, and even a free smoked mackerel and samphire sandwich! More family fun for Father’s Day including some excellent frolicking in the sea with the kids, watching avocets, seals and thrushes before a rather too long drive back to London to play a gig with one of my favourite projects to play with - the amazing John Bennett band at the tiny but fantastic Eleanor Arms. Predictably exhausted today, but WORTH IT. #firstlightfestival #livemusic #dawn #solstice #lowestoft #suffolkcoast
Back at the old stomping ground of @the_globe almost 4 years to the day since we opened Midsummer Night’s Dream to see their new production of…Midsummer Night’s Dream! And it is indeed dreamy. Fantastic cast, wonderful band led b
Back at the old stomping ground of @the_globe almost 4 years to the day since we opened Midsummer Night’s Dream to see their new production of…Midsummer Night’s Dream! And it is indeed dreamy. Fantastic cast, wonderful band led by @zacgvi (felt a weird kinship with him handing over the MD baton for MSD at the Globe having done it here in 2019 and 2021), and stunning music by @jamesmaloneymusic Fascinating to see such a different production so soon after doing it myself, but, as so often with Shakespeare, just casts a whole new light on the play in a brilliant way. Man, this place is special. And Billy Shakes knows how to write a proper mad banger #barding #billyshakes #shakespeare #globe #shakespearesglobe #theatre #livemusic
Went to update my website (long overdue), and ended up doing a full redesign😮 Head to stevepretty.com (link in bio obvs) for all the latest, and let me know what you think!
Went to update my website (long overdue), and ended up doing a full redesign😮 Head to stevepretty.com (link in bio obvs) for all the latest, and let me know what you think!
A rare live recording gig last night, recording sound for a concert recording of a new musical by the phenomenally talented @sampianistimproviser at the brilliant @shoreditchtreehouse I find it really inspiring and interesting to work on the other
A rare live recording gig last night, recording sound for a concert recording of a new musical by the phenomenally talented @sampianistimproviser at the brilliant @shoreditchtreehouse I find it really inspiring and interesting to work on the other side of the sound desk like this sometimes; I find it really informs my own work as a performer and musician, which is partly why I’ve got so into mixing over the past few years. Looking forward to getting this mixed and sorted for Sam, and to seeing where he’s able to take this project next! #soundengineer #mixingengineer #liverecording #musicaltheatre
Loved seeing the brilliant videos from the session we did @mammothsoundstudio in Spain a couple of weeks’ back, and we’ve been back in the studio here in London this week for NEW THINGS. An awesome couple of days laying down some incredi
Loved seeing the brilliant videos from the session we did @mammothsoundstudio in Spain a couple of weeks’ back, and we’ve been back in the studio here in London this week for NEW THINGS. An awesome couple of days laying down some incredibly exciting, challenging, beautiful and fun new music at the always brilliant @livingston_studios Thanks to all the incredible musicians involved, and also a great chance to hang with some of the @ezracollective who were in Studio 2. NEW THINGS COMING #brass #brassband #livemusic #trumpet #trombone #saxophone #sousaphone #tuba #drums #hackneycolliery #jazz
Working on some new things and got the tenor horn out for a toot into all manner of amazing @eventideaudio processing. Really interesting and unusual combo which I’ll post a snippet of up here when it’s done. Meanwhile here’s a little taste of RAW HORN. #raw #horn #tenorhornmassive #tenorhorn #tenorhornplayer #eventide
Another brilliant day in the studio with @valeria.kurbatova yesterday, working on material for our forthcoming EP as @soundbox.ensemble The more I learn about writing for harp, especially when it comes to extended techniques, the more excited I get. Slow mo makes it clear just how much air is being moved by these bass strings - astonishing! Harp doesn’t always need to be angelic, it turns out… #harp #composersofinstagram #recordingstudio
Super excited to be back in Spain to close out the amazing @womad_caceres_oficial tonight to an estimated crowd of nearly 40,000!! One of our last gigs before lockdown was at @clamoreslivemusic in Madrid, and it’s such a joy to be back in this
Super excited to be back in Spain to close out the amazing @womad_caceres_oficial tonight to an estimated crowd of nearly 40,000!! One of our last gigs before lockdown was at @clamoreslivemusic in Madrid, and it’s such a joy to be back in this incredible country. Can’t wait for tonight!
Nice relaxing, simple mix to work on today 😵‍💫
A great day’s work in the studio today working with my @hackneycolliery writing partners Olly and Luke and a very special guest for our new record. It was a squeeze, but maybe being crammed into my chocka studio somehow accelerated our process
A great day’s work in the studio today working with my @hackneycolliery writing partners Olly and Luke and a very special guest for our new record. It was a squeeze, but maybe being crammed into my chocka studio somehow accelerated our process as we’ve got the backbone of a brand new song written already! #musicproducer #songwriter #composer #musicstudio
Finally coming down from an absolutely amazing and bananas few days. I had the enormous privilege of being one of the guest artists at last weekend’s incredible Singing with Nightingales event, alongside the extraordinary talents of @malinmak
Finally coming down from an absolutely amazing and bananas few days. I had the enormous privilege of being one of the guest artists at last weekend’s incredible Singing with Nightingales event, alongside the extraordinary talents of @malinmakesmusic @fredyclue and of course head honcho, the heroic @samleesong Two nights of absolute magic, living in the forest, sleeping on the forest floor, learning about ecology, rewilding, the birds and the bees, meeting extraordinary people and making extraordinary music with some of those people and, of course, the midnight jam with the eponymous nightingales. I played trumpet, shells and (entirely battery-powered) electronics, and even made a playable shell live on stage on the second night (well, almost playable - was too dark to finish safely, though I did in time for the jam with the birds). A true honour and privilege, and one I won’t forget. Thank you to Sam and the whole amazing @nestfolk team for making me so welcome, indulging my creative whimsy and producing such an incredible event. Also lovely to bump into old buddy @guyprattofficial on the first night. I think it’s fair to say that improvising a live conch shell/electronics/trumpet set, then jamming with incredible musicians on pipes and nickelharpa with a pair of nightingales in front of a member of actual Pink Floyd is quite a memorable experience! Then, after the second night of bird-bothering, I drove straight from blissful field to less-than-blissful Stansted to fly to Prague for my first show with the excellent @molotovjukeboxofficial Off the plane just in time for soundcheck after precisely 0 hrs sleep (and a night in a bivvi bag on the forest floor the night before that), then a great gig for @mladiladijazz that evening, followed by a late evening and an extra day of exploring the wonders of that astonishing city. I’ve not had a weekend quite that mad since before the pandemic (or maybe ever), and it was such a joy to return to the madness of juggling very different projects and crazy schedules. What a lucky boy I am. #trumpet #trumpetplayer #nightingales #singingwithnightingales #improvisedmusic #collaboration #luckyboy
Cooking up some new music in the studio today. Having a lot of fun writing a nature-inspired ambient track with shells, breathy trumpet, percussion and electronics. What a treat! #composersofinstagram #composer #conchshell #conch #trumpet #ambientmu
Cooking up some new music in the studio today. Having a lot of fun writing a nature-inspired ambient track with shells, breathy trumpet, percussion and electronics. What a treat! #composersofinstagram #composer #conchshell #conch #trumpet #ambientmusic #ambient
Had a phenomenal time at my first ever @bluedotfestival After I had to cancel last year due to commitments @nationaltheatre I was worried they wouldn’t have me back, but they not only had me back, they let me and @lintottchris do our Universe Long overdue service that’s turned into a full overhaul for my beloved main horn, courtesy of @eclipsetrumpetsuk Always a bit terrifying seeing the thing you spend half your life coaxing noises out of taken apart, but very necessary. Can&rs New headshots! Pretty rare that I do any acting these days, but I do still dabble sometimes, and my headshots were ancient, and not showing all the new lines I’ve developed all over my face since having 2 kids… So time for some fresh one
Disappointed not to be able to make my solo set @alsofestival tonight due to Factors (car-based 🥴), but so excited to play for the first time ever as @soundbox.ensemble tomorrow at noon (managed to borrow a car for that bit). Harp, trumpet, percussi
Fantastic couple of days working with the astronomically powerful setup ahead of some forthcoming festival performances over the next couple of weeks. First up is @alsofestival this weekend, performing with my incredibly brilliant @soundbox.ensembl Only my second gig with this bunch of crazies, and it was a CORKER. Looking forward to lots more over the summer! #Repost @molotovjukeboxofficial with @use.repost ・・・ WHAT A NIGHT! Thank you to all of you for coming and dancing your tropical toes of Player ALL this lot on a great attended session yesterday for a lovely kids’ music project. Super fun! #trumpet #sessionmusician #brassmusician #brassmusic Great fun playing for the Pride parade on Sat with some @hackneycolliery buddies. Such a joyful event, and an honour to be there as an ally for my #lgbtq buddies. Think we were the only live musicians there on the day (at least I didn’t see a What an amazing weekend of live music and culture. An absolute treat to play at @firstlightlowestoft with @bollywoodbrassband right on the beach in Lowestoft/Pakefield. I’ve spent a lot of time over past few years in and around that bit of Back at the old stomping ground of @the_globe almost 4 years to the day since we opened Midsummer Night’s Dream to see their new production of…Midsummer Night’s Dream! And it is indeed dreamy. Fantastic cast, wonderful band led b Went to update my website (long overdue), and ended up doing a full redesign😮 Head to stevepretty.com (link in bio obvs) for all the latest, and let me know what you think! A rare live recording gig last night, recording sound for a concert recording of a new musical by the phenomenally talented @sampianistimproviser at the brilliant @shoreditchtreehouse I find it really inspiring and interesting to work on the other Loved seeing the brilliant videos from the session we did @mammothsoundstudio in Spain a couple of weeks’ back, and we’ve been back in the studio here in London this week for NEW THINGS. An awesome couple of days laying down some incredi
Working on some new things and got the tenor horn out for a toot into all manner of amazing @eventideaudio processing. Really interesting and unusual combo which I’ll post a snippet of up here when it’s done. Meanwhile here’s a litt
Another brilliant day in the studio with @valeria.kurbatova yesterday, working on material for our forthcoming EP as @soundbox.ensemble The more I learn about writing for harp, especially when it comes to extended techniques, the more excited I get.
Super excited to be back in Spain to close out the amazing @womad_caceres_oficial tonight to an estimated crowd of nearly 40,000!! One of our last gigs before lockdown was at @clamoreslivemusic in Madrid, and it’s such a joy to be back in this
Nice relaxing, simple mix to work on today 😵‍💫
A great day’s work in the studio today working with my @hackneycolliery writing partners Olly and Luke and a very special guest for our new record. It was a squeeze, but maybe being crammed into my chocka studio somehow accelerated our process Finally coming down from an absolutely amazing and bananas few days. I had the enormous privilege of being one of the guest artists at last weekend’s incredible Singing with Nightingales event, alongside the extraordinary talents of @malinmak Cooking up some new music in the studio today. Having a lot of fun writing a nature-inspired ambient track with shells, breathy trumpet, percussion and electronics. What a treat! #composersofinstagram #composer #conchshell #conch #trumpet #ambientmu

 

Koko B&W Steve Pretty.jpeg