About Mike Haysom

Musical Background

Mike fell in love with the Classical Guitar on beginning high school, tutored by Gareth Rees-Roberts. By the time he finished school he could play the guitar up to about grade 7 and won the School Prize for Music for five years of outstanding work. At college Mike became more interested in the recording side of music and took Music Technology at A-Level.

Mike continued his focus on audio engineering and gained a BA(Hons) degree in Creative Music Technology. His compositional skills grew and gained top grades whilst also developing an interest in scoring films.

After graduation, Mike continued to work on his music collaborating with independent filmmakers on a number of film scores. He also performed Classical Guitar regularly at craft fairs and produced an album called The Cloud of Unknowing.

Influences

Having been brought up on Progressive Rock, that’s where a lot of inspiration for his own music comes from, particularly guitarists such as Steve Hackett, Dave Gilmour and Steve Rothery as well as Gordon Giltrap. Mike will listen to just about anything though and is always experimenting with new styles. He has a fondness for World and Classical Music too.

Discovering the Uke

He discovered the ukulele after the end of a long relationship found him isolated in a new area – “the uplifting sound of the instrument and the embracing warmth of the ukulele community helped me out of a rut and performing live has helped me build confidence by pushing me outside of my comfort zone.”

Next Stages

In 2018 Mike released his debut ukulele album ‘The Natural Place’, featuring instrumental music inspired by the Galloway countryside where he lives. He coincided the release of the album with a performance at the Ukulele Festival of Scotland, where he won a prize in the Rising Stars Competition. He has since appeared in UKE Magazine, been played on the UnplugTheWood podcast and been featured on Ukulele Hunt.

2019 saw Mike successfully releasing a ukulele tablature book of his own pieces, one of which was printed as a taster in UKE Magazine. He returned to the Ukulele Festival of Scotland (this time as a main act!) performing alongside Astraluna and Zoe Bestel in the atmospheric candlelit concert that opened the event. He has also performed locally and is due to play at the World of Ukes Christmas Party in December.

Although the pandemic has been disastrous for live music, Mike has managed to play several online livestreamed events including the Wireless Ukulele Festival, the Brooklyn Ukulele Festival and the Gaithersburg UkeFest. He released a new album of multi-ukulele cover songs called “Covered With My Uke” and started writing a series of music theory articles for UKE Magazine.

Mike has a popular YouTube Channel featuring innovative multitracked videos of himself (and his clones!) playing ukulele arrangements of cover songs, as well as his own solo compositions. His channel is funded by patrons (‘SomBuddies’) through Mike’s Patreon page.