About Gorse & Quill.
A notebook and an app for songwriters
i.About Gorse & Quill
Gorse & Quill is a small independent business, designed and run from Scotland, with no big budget and no marketing team. It grows by word of mouth, from one songwriter telling another, and I’m grateful for every one of them.
It’s also a family effort. My wife and our two children help with everything from packing orders to keeping me honest, and every notebook leaves the house with a bit of us in it.
The Songwriter’s Ledger is printed in the UK, and I tested a lot of notebooks before settling on this one. I wanted it built to last, with a Smyth sewn binding so the pages lie flat and a hardback cover that survives a guitar case, but still affordable. Above all, I wanted it to be a joy to write in. Some notebooks are so beautiful you’re afraid to mark them. This one isn’t. Scribble, cross out, spill tea on it. It’s meant to be used.
Every page is built for the craft, with space for lyrics, structure and notes, and every song carries a unique QR code. Scan a page with the companion app and you can record a take in the moment it strikes. Months later, flicking back through your old ideas, scan the same code to rediscover the recording exactly where you left it.
I develop the companion app myself, which means I can make it work exactly the way I want. It’s free, it’s iOS only, and there are no accounts, no analytics, no tracking and no subscriptions. Your recordings stay on your device (and in your own secure iCloud backup, if you have iCloud Backup enabled); they belong entirely to you.
Everything is designed to be accessible, whether you’re a beginner musician or you’ve been writing for years.
The name comes from the yellow gorse that covers the Scottish landscape, and the quill, one of the oldest writing tools there is.
ii.About me
Hello, I’m Keith. I’m a singer-songwriter from East Lothian, on the Scottish coast, and Gorse & Quill grew out of my own songwriting.
I didn’t start out writing songs. I began by recording acoustic covers of popular songs, each one reworked into something of my own, and they found an audience I never expected, passing 50 million streams on Spotify. That gave me the confidence to move beyond other people’s songs and write my own.
Then I joined the North Berwick Songwriters group. There are about twenty of us in one small town, which still surprises me. Songwriters are everywhere, and most of them aren’t professionals. They’re teachers, tradespeople, retirees and students who write because they love it. I’ve been blown away by the talent in that room, and by how many of the best songs started as a few scribbled lines on a page.
That stayed with me. The most honest songs I’ve heard were written with pen and paper, where you can cross things out, circle a line you love and watch the song change shape. So I made the notebook I wished I’d had: prompts to get you started, room to be messy, and a companion app to catch a melody before it slips away.
It’s made for anyone who writes their own songs, whether you’ve played a hundred gigs or never shared a song with anyone.
These days I’m enjoying family life by the sea with two young children, while working on an EP and playing more local gigs and festivals, which is pushing me well out of my comfort zone. If you’d like to follow along, you’ll find me on Instagram at @keithmcinallymusic.
Here’s to the songs still waiting to be written.
Keith
iii.Say hello
I’d love to know what you think, and to hear any ideas for making the notebook or the app better. Get in touch any time at hello@gorseandquill.com.
Thank you for supporting a small business.