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David
McGuinness's diary Sunday 29 February 2004 One of the most useful pieces of advice at melodicas.com is to use a shot glass to keep the screws in when you take the thing apart: the perfect screw receptacle. The problem is that all the way through the rather tiresome process, you're gazing at the glass wishing that there was something more gratifying in it. I've just spent some time with a chainsaw file, a screwdriver and a tuning meter (and a whisky glass), and having got the melodica what seemed like in tune, I tried playing it along with the CD of re-edited Dowland and it was still stinkingly out. Aargh. There's probably some obscure temperament at play that I haven't figured out, but I think if I tune the track up by 7 or 8 cents it might be a bit easier to get to the bottom of what's going on. Another unexpected job. The rest of today was taken up with scheduling, looking over the company accounts for 02/03, printing out Kellie scores for the session producer along with a few parts that were missing, testing a few microphones with the cheap minidisc recorder I bought a couple of weeks ago, and far more importantly than all of this, building a great big fire in the back garden and warming myself at it for an hour or so on a beautiful sunny winter's day. Friday 27 February 2004 That rare thing today, a day with few distractions. So, I spent an hour or so on musical matters this morning - yes, practising - before diving headlong into the administrative cesspool, sending out one of our mercifully infrequent emails to the mailing list. Sorry to clog up your inboxes again: can you spot the error in my HTML this time? There are still loads of things to be done from my morning's list, but I did make it into town to talk about audience programmes, cash and snail mailing with Margaret F, and to have my hair cut (and spend too much money in Mellis's cheesemongers as usual), so the day has a sense of achievement. I am now ready to face the public again. Halfway to bed last night I had an idea for the content of an oblique audio documentary for which I could gather material during the tour, so I ran back downstairs to scribble down the emerging details before I forgot them. Wednesday 25 February 2004 I had some time this morning to think about music for once, and the prospects for some interesting things to happen in a couple of weeks' time are very good indeed. I'll need to do some practice though, my limbering up with Hanon exercises was pretty hard going. And having to play my melodica at A=415 shows up how wildly out of tune a lot of the sharps are, so the chainsaw file is going to pressed into action soon tuning those reeds. The publicity material for the concerts is delayed at the printers, which is a bit perplexing with 14 days to go till the first gig, but "let's see" (a useful phrase much used for procrastination when dealing with small children). Tonight I wrote a draft funding application for another project, which led me to muse on the difference between commission and support. When a work is commissioned (by a patron or another body) the agreement is generally that the work will be paid for. When a work is 'supported', usually by some public arts funding body, the agreement is that only some of it will be paid for - so that by granting support, a burden is granted too, that of raising the remaining funds. The artist is still not free to do the work, but has been given yet another job to be accomplished first. What can happen is that an initial creative idea becomes an administrative nightmare, and the 'creative' process never comes to fruition. When I worked in the theatre or in television, my job was simple: people gave me money to write music, and record (or play) it for them. As a result I spent a lot of time realising ideas. Now I spend a lot of time sitting at my computer and making phone calls. The official priorities of the fund that I was applying to contain lots about promoting collaboration between agencies and organisations; it's not until you get to the very bottom of the list that it mentions the possibility of an audience getting a worthwhile experience. Anyway, once the next three weeks are past, I'm looking forward to a sabbatical from organising music. For 10 months at least, I'm just going to make it. Now let's see how long that resolution lasts. To paraphrase Robert Fripp, I'll wait for the future to present itself. I've been listening to Peter Blegvad and Andy Partridge's newly-released Orpheus the Lowdown. Blegvad said in an interview that it's not a record you can listen to while doing the dishes, but I'm not so sure. It repays concentration, hard work as it is, but it's also very effective if you just let the well-chosen sounds wash over you and allow a bit of meaning through from time to time. Having Blegvad tell you that 'what the dead lack is substance', and about the power of noun-verbs in a whisper (and occasionally with great sternness, as when he tells of their 'doing double duty') is real entertainment when you don't think about it too much. Sunday 22 February 2004 A sunny bright day at home, tweaking and printing out parts, and that all-important psychological step of assembling music in a folder for our tour. The print publicity material should arrive in the next day or two if it hasn't already: I look forward to the sight of myriad spray-painted lambs displayed in pubs and venues as I go about Glasgow. But now I'm going to examine the joists under our kitchen, excuse me. Monday 16 February 2004 An active week has passed. Much editing of arrangements, editing of audio, editing of schedules, editing of publicity material, chasing of money (interminably), hiring of vehicles: very occasionally some music breaks into the picture and is herded out again by marauding 'stuff'. The box office details for our March tour are now on our events page. I'm listening to a borrowed CD of Ryuichi Sakamoto at the moment: it's all beautifully recorded, but there's an amazing Alva Noto remix of 'Insensatez' at the end, that bristles with digital glitches: all those irritating noises that mastering engineers spend hours and hours removing, or that tell you that your CD player's about to pack up. In the context of such a calm piece of music, it's great (once you've realised that your CD player's not about to pack up). Last night I was introducing a different kind of digital snash into the edit of our Dowland remix piece, by slowing down the track at the end, so that it succumbs to lots of time-modding distortion: intriguingly ugly when it happens to a beautiful tune. Meanwhile I've been asked by Mychael Danna to play some more fortepiano and some BBP (big black piano) on the soundtrack for Mira Nair's movie of Vanity Fair, and have hatched a plan to finally complete the editing of our CD The Red Red Rose for Delphian Records. Whoopee. I would have written more diary entries about all this activity, but my Psion is only now en route home from its repair shop. The last time its screen packed up, the repair centre turned it round in a couple of days, and I was hoping for the same service this time. But I checked the UPS waybill this morning, and found that it's in Marseille. Oh well. I bought a PDA magazine and spent the idle time in Court No. 6 this afternoon (I'm doing jury service in amongst everything else) choosing a new gadget to buy with money I haven't been paid yet. The prospect of wi-fi web and email while lying in the bath beckons, I think. But right now I'm going to turn off my phone and go out with my wife for a meal: it's my birthday and everyone and everything else can just sod off for a while. It's nothing personal ... Monday 9 February 2004 We passed a civilised morning at Norman Towers, Chris working on his computer, and me at the kitchen table writing arrangements for March. My hoped-for visit to the American Visionary Art Museum was stymied by a 'closed Mondays' sign, so we had a curry and threw around ideas for future projects instead. As we drove to the airport, Belle and Sebastian were playing (and talking) live on public radio in their usual charmingly shambolic fashion: another unexpected taste of home. Sunday 8 February 2004 A beautiful sunny snowy morning in Baltimore. On our arrival last night, we just had time for a relaxing beer before an unusual gig at Memorial Episcopal, the highlight of which was Chris kneeling in front of his amp to get Hendrix-style feedback while playing ... Scottish smallpipes. Sometimes these things just happen. later We were playing this afternoon at Central Presbyterian church in Baltimore. No harpsichord this time, but instead they have a truly fantastic 3 manual neo-baroque organ by Casavant. Unfortunately there was no time to rehearse, and what's more, a communications failure somewhere down then line meant that our PA guy was about to leave the building (he changed his mind and stayed once he'd heard us). So we had only a 5 minute soundcheck, with most of the audience already in place, and I was playing this huge beast (and transposing Oswald's The Thistle into F sharp major into the bargain). I tried a few sounds out, sketched a possible registration scheme into my copy of the Muffat Ciacona, and got on with miking up the melodica, anticipating a scary ride. BUT ... the audience (standing room only) were very much on our side from the first note, responding with total hush or impromptu dancing where appropriate, laughing at our jokes, and generally being very enthusiastic indeed. The sound was great, I could hear all the instruments for once (I was playing organ, harmonium, Steinway B piano and melodica), and how often do you get to jam like crazy on the piano in a set of clogs, and follow it up with a chaconne from 1690 on a perfectly voiced and historically appropriate organ? To a wide age-ranging audience that appreciates it all? Not often. So we played rather well. And several Scots and 2nd/3rd generation emigrés engaged me in conversation afterwards, mostly about football. I ended up in Baltimore's James Joyce 'Irish pub' with Chris and Jody before heading back to Chris's place for the 'nectar of the gods', his bottle of 1977 Ardbeg. A good day. Saturday 7 February 2004 Well Columbus, Ohio was fun: Simeon and I were
staying with the wonderful Sabrina Bobrow, who kept us entertained and well fed,
so much that we now require cake at 4 hour intervals to keep functioning, and
I'm going to have to buy some tea from The
Perfect Cup when the packet she's given me finally runs out. For reasons to
complex to go into here, her harpsichord had disappeared from her house by the
time we got back from the airport, but singing Beatles songs round the piano was
more fun than practising anyway. Last night we were playing in the Early Music in Columbus series, where the audience warmed up eventually and gave us a rousing ovation at the end. Looking around the Mees Concert Hall, it was nice to notice that Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington were among the pantheon of composers whose names were outlined in gold on the walls. Lots of CDs to sign afterwards, and special thanks to the lady who came backstage just to ask me to say the word 'crisps'. When we came out into the snow afterwards, Andy couldn't get the back of his truck to open. Now this was serious: we were tired, we had a 7 hour drive ahead of us today, and we hadn't packed the gear, had a beer, or even sat down since being on stage. Somehow, after Andy threatened the truck with a "locksmith!", it magically opened, and then we also found a bag full of excellent Wisconsin IPA beers that Chris's manager Ann had left us. So within 30 seconds things went from awful to really rather good. I opened everyone's beer bottles on a nearby brick wall (wearing gloves) and off we went to the post-concert party. Earlier in the day, Sabrina took Simeon and me to the Franklin Park conservatory, where we wandered around the glasshouses populated with Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures. Not sure if the installation really worked for me, but his glass baskets on their own are truly spectacular. Fortunately I don't have a few thousand to spare for one, or anywhere to put something so fragile. And now we're on our way southeast through West Virginia in the snow. Wednesday 4 February 2004 on the tarmac at Glasgow Airport later, en route to Columbus, OH Monday 2 February 2004 I'm working very late trying to tie up as many loose administrative ends as possible before leaving for the US later this week. My flight west is the same one that was grounded on suspicion of terrorist activity at the weekend, so I'm prepared for security procedures to be considerable ... Early Music Review dropped through the letterbox this morning, I've posted the review of SADN on our press page. Saturday 31 January 2004 At home nursing a head cold - it's tempting to blame the guy sitting opposite me on the train the other day, who repeatedly coughed in my direction while still holding his newspaper in both hands. Last night's gig in St Andrews was mostly memorable for the walk Greg and I took along the pier - before a concert there, I usually walk by the sea with some fish and chips, as the moonlight on the water can be spectacular. But last night it was overcast and raining, so treading gingerly along the top of the slippy narrow harbour wall was like taking step after step into a murky oblivion - no sea was to be seen. A little later, while playing lots of notes very fast in the concert, I thought about how the two activities (walking into oblivion and playing lots of notes) were quite an interesting pair of things to do in an evening, and then I was so distracted by this thought, that for a split second I wasn't doing the second of them any more. I hope not too many people noticed. I'd found the sound levels in the Queen's Hall a bit oppressive the night before (probably a result of the head cold, hidden by the accompanying adrenaline), so wunder-roadie Dave provided me with my own acoustic screening at head height. I figured this would look less disconcerting to the audience than my wearing earplugs in the concert. In an acoustic situation, it does seem a bit rude to expect the audience to listen to something that you're not prepared to put up with yourself. This morning my breath was momentarily taken away
by Cherie Blair's remark
in the press that her children (whom she rightly protects from media attention,
on the whole)
are sleeping much better, now that the Hutton report has been published. Meanwhile here's a sneak preview of what the publicity for our March tour might look like. Thursday 29 January 2004 These diary entries might be few and far between for a while, as the screen on my obsolete but efficient Psion 5mx crashed yesterday. Psions (no longer made) are great machines, but the screens always pack up after a couple of years. Fortunately I managed to back up the data and retrieve my other diary before packing it off for repair. "This week I are been mostly" playing Bach with the SCO. I just about stayed awake for the rehearsals (frantically sketching arrangements for our March tour in quiet corners in every idle moment), and then in tonight's performance, had quite a good time, particularly in the middle of cantata 170 for the long duet with Michael Chance, who is on stunning form. The last movement turned into a bit of an organ concerto, at breakneck speed. St Andrews tomorrow. I'm unusually depressed by this week's news: first, the UK government's survival by the skin of its teeth in the vote on the introduction of variable university tuition fees south of the border, and then today the resignation of the BBC's director-general after the Hutton report. Some loose words by a journalist on the radio at 6am have been escalated into a huge row that will change the culture of broadcasting and journalism in this country; meanwhile, from the bigger story that we were bombing thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq, the government has come out squeaky clean. Allow me to register my disgust. Sunday 25 January 2004 I'm sure it's not just in music that it's getting more difficult to get paid on time. I'm in the frustrating position of waiting for money to come in from various avenues, before I can confirm bookings of venues, or for that matter pay people for recording sessions from over two months ago. It adds considerably to the stress of making things happen when money that should be available isn't - I've vowed to be less polite about financial matters from now on. A long outstanding fee that I was owed by a certain Scottish orchestra was settled and paid within a matter of hours last week, as soon as I threatened them with a higher power. So if you're reading this and you owe either me or the company money, be prepared for me to stop being my usual genial self until you cough up. I should have been learning Bach today, a task which a few years ago I would have attacked with gusto and enthusiasm. But now it's just a chore, and I'm much more excited by the discovery that Stina Nordenstam's I see you again fits perfectly with a Swedish polska that Kate Dunlay sent me in 2002 and I never found a home for. Yay. Saturday 24 January 2004 I'm back at my desk after an unusual afternoon spent packing people's shopping at the Toryglen Asda, to raise money for the Strathclyde Autistic Society. I was unexpectedly nervous about this, but it was great fun and we emerged with bucketfuls of cash ... It's been a busy week. On Tuesday, Catherine Murtagh (marketing supremo), Margaret Friday (marketing helpmeet) and I had a meeting in The Lighthouse with Stephen Cappello, our perpetually hat-wearing designer, and Al Bell at Bell Graphic. After only one cup of coffee, Stephen had come up with the idea of spray-painting a lamb with the word 'LION', which we all liked a lot. In fact, the café threw us out for laughing too much. Then we spent a further hour musing on the possibilities of making stand-up cardboard cut-out versions, T shirts, inflatables ... so the morning passed rather quickly and there were still a lot of things waiting to be done. Kellie's music, a computer and a pencil have occupied me a lot: on Tuesday I printed out all the remaining parts for March's recording, and then on Wednesday night I sat on the train and began to mark them up. I was going through to Edinburgh to hear Moishe's Bagel, a kind of klezmer/Balkan/jazz combo with our very own Greg Lawson on fiddle and mandolin. And, joys of joys, Phil Alexander started the show with a melodica solo. I sat in the genial company of a bunch of musicians (various members of the SCO), and the excellent tabla player Guy Nicholson with his even more excellent moustache gave me a lift home in his van. Yesterday I fitted in an interview for WDR with Tom Daun (which we recorded in the Orchid House at the Botanic Gardens), and then I listened to his great Christmas harp album while sitting up in bed marking up more Kellie parts ... and then today, while driving back from Toryglen I considered the idea of arranging Stina Nordenstam's I See You Again for Lisa Milne and the quartet. Too difficult an atmosphere to try and re-fashion perhaps. But in the meantime I've realised just a bit too late that there's a big organ solo part Bach's cantata 170 Vergnügte Ruh, that I'm playing with the SCO next week. What's more, it's marked by Bach 'a 2 Clav.' and the SCO organ only has one manual, so there's a bit of finger-twisting to be done to get all the notes. I'd better go and learn it. Sunday 18 January 2004 A real day off, to spend drinking tea, mending punctures on my children's vehicles of recreation, that sort of thing. After I spent Thursday evening feverishly printing out parts, I went to London on Friday to work with Lucy on the Kellie music. The man sitting behind me on the southbound plane made a special point of coughing over all me whenever I straightened my back, so that I now have his cold: a very special thank you to him. Anyway, we had a very enjoyable afternoon working on bowings, dynamics, tempi - the outward pencilled manifestations of more instinctive musical decisions - and generally deciding that the music should go completely differently from the way it went last time we played some of it. This is usually a good sign and shows that our musicianship hasn't deserted us yet, and also that pencil markings are always to be ignored after the event in favour of a more interesting life. Alison joined us with her new cello later in the day (between concertos with the AAM) - she's kindly agreed to be the orchestral librarian for the project, which involves a lot of pencilling and sticky tape - and then we all went off to Bill Carter's place for a very fine feed involving a large chunk of dead bovine with splendid accompaniments (thanks Bill). Alison and I just stayed sober enough to phone Chris Norman and suggest dates for the Barsanti recording before turning in. It looks like I'll be making or contributing substantially to seven CDs in the coming year, how did that happen? And just when I've decided to embrace amateur status ... As it happens, I'm now listening to Chris's Flower of Port Williams CD, which gives me a chance to find out how some of the tunes I was playing in New York last weekend should really have gone: 'oh, so that's what that chord was' etc. Stuart Eydmann sent me this wonderful picture of old Scottish variety act Billy Crocket and Alec Finlay - halfway down the page on the left, check out the left hand sporran. It's such a relief to know that the melodica has an echt place in the Scots tradition. Monday 12 January 2004 While I was away this review of SADN appeared in The Guardian. Thanks to Iain McGillivray for spotting it. Sunday 11 January 2004 Yesterday morning I made a preliminary shopping expedition in the direction of Times Square at a temperature of -19°C, then took the subway over to Sim's uncle's apartment on the Upper East Side for our rehearsal, although we probably spent more time eating the leftovers from Sim's engagement party the night before than actually rehearsing. The expression stop on Chris's harmonium had packed up, so Chris got handy with a saw fashioning pieces of wood to jam the mechanism with. I'd left the melodica behind at Paul and Barbara's, so I had to take a detour in a cab to pick it up on the way to Merkin Hall. And what a bizarre concert: it was great fun, I was delighted that the audience laughed most of the way through Domenico Corri's Duncan Gray, but the management of the Kaufman Center had decreed that we leave the stage by 10pm or pay $150 extra per minute. So Chris had a clock on the floor onstage, and as we got towards the end of the set, tempi got faster, repeats magically disappeared, we all talked less and less, and sure enough we left the stage at exactly 10.00pm. We were just getting warmed up really, and Jamie was a bit freaked at playing in his home town to a clock. I played piano in two or three sets for the first time which was a lot of fun. And today I've just had a great time in New York. Over and after breakfast, Paul and I talked music (and he went off to the computer to buy a melodica online) and Barbara and I had a 'show and tell' where she showed me the video of her excellent schools theatre and literacy program 'Making Books Sing', and I played her my radio 'anti-thriller'. Soon it was time to get down to the serious business of buying presents to take home for the family, and then I was off to the Met Museum again, where Renee Barrick was primed to let me get my hands on the various keyboard instruments on display. Which is quite nerve-wracking, as crowds gather to hear you make a complete fool of yourself negotiating delicate art treasures for the first time, and trying to get some nice noises out of them. The big Appleton 1830 organ in the gallery (if you've been there you'll know the one) was lovely to play, the John Challis pedal harpsichord complete with aluminium soundboard was utterly bizarre to play, but the real gem was the 1720 Cristofori piano, the oldest surviving piano in the world, which just sang in its own quiet but beautiful way. I'd expected it to sound mechanical and awkward, but it was a real instrument with a life of its own. Next time I'll come prepared with something appropriate to play on it rather than just improvising vaguely. As I walked out into the street and Museum Mile I thought of how I'd read about this piano when I was about 8, and wondered then what it sounded like. And I've just got to play it and find out, and magical it was too. As I said to Renee, if Bach had known these rather than Silbermann's, he might just have taken to them earlier. Now I'm in dismal airport-land, but frankly I couldn't give a toss as I've had such a good time. I've got a window seat, I might sleep. Friday 9 January 2004 An uneventful flight here yesterday (also lacking in sleep unfortunately). When I was changing flights at Heathrow, Katherine was in another terminal waiting to fly to Los Angeles - we nearly managed to meet. At this end, I did as the song says and took the A train through Brooklyn from JFK, and I emerged into the invigorating cold near Jody and Chris's apartment in Greenwich Village. Chris and I had time to play each other bits of our respective unreleased CDs, and we hatched a plan to record the Barsanti flute sonatas with Alison, then we all had dinner with Jamie and headed over here to Paul and Barbara Krieger's place
There's something invigorating about staying 50 floors up in Manhattan, especially when you have a rooftop balcony that allows you views in 3 directions. Despite the fact that it's about -9ºC during the day, I found it irresistible to go out there this morning and just drink in the sight of the world's greatest city going about its business. Mobile phone reception is a bit erratic this high up though. I was the first to get to Merkin Concert Hall, so I used the time for some valuable practice, and then gradually everyone else (apart from Andy, who's not here yet) showed up and we worked on the stage layout and the transitions from one number to the next. As usual, I don't really know what instruments or notes I'm going to be playing yet, but I've stopped worrying about such things: onstage panic is just a symptom of playing in the CNE - or is it just me? After a seriously substantial meal (I'd forgotten how well and cheaply you can eat on the street in NYC: it's one of the things I like most about the place) Chris Jamie and I headed to the Met Museum for our trio concert there, playing for a private gathering of museum patrons, a well-educated audience who got Chris's jokes about Oliver Goldsmith while I smiled in almost blissful ignorance. On the way out Ken Moore accompanied me to the museum shop so that I could buy my longed-for mugs with the Museum's 'M' logo at a staff discount (!) - in the 18 months since I was last here I've been wishing I'd bought more of them, as they're the perfect tea receptacles, and when I'm working at home I get through gallons of the stuff. I think I could have bought them online but that wouldn't have been quite the same. Paul and Barbara then hosted a very enjoyable meal across the street in the Stanhope Hotel, and now I'm back in bed looking at the flowers by the window, the recipient of an open invitation to go and explore the museum's instrument collection. I fully intend to take this up before going home ... Monday 5 January 2004 Over the so-called 'holiday' season, I prepared the editions of the Kellie symphonies for March. Besides the printed sources, there's at least one contemporary keyboard arrangement of each piece - of the C major overture, there are two - so besides the usual process of establishing a musical text, there have also been some decisions to make about whether to adopt any of the decorations and embellishments from Pasquini's or Corri's versions. Do they reflect orchestral performance practice, or are they just funked-up versions made more keyboard-friendly? The dynamics in Corri's version are just as incoherent as those in his Duncan Gray, which I'm currently working back up to speed for concerts in New York on Friday and Saturday with the Chris Norman Ensemble. Friday is a private event in the Metropolitan Museum, but Saturday's gig is in the improbably-named Merkin Concert Hall. I'm assuming that it was named after someone, rather than to commemorate a particular object. As well as the usual tedious procedure of entering the US, I look forward to the added attraction this time of being treated like a criminal by having my fingerprints and photograph taken (announced in the news today). The gigs will be fun though. I got a bit further with the music for the March tour too: already there's more repertoire than there is time in the concerts. I should have the venues fixed in the next day or two, as it's much easier to talk to people on the phone now that the holidays are over: in the pre-Christmas rush no-one wants to do anything that's not urgent. Tonight I had the idea of reviving a theatre piece I wrote over a decade ago, whose basis is a Dowland galliard chopped up into samples and re-assembled like a mutant Lego model. Meanwhile, my walkman is still fuelling my opinion that Super Trouper is one of the great pop albums, a sort of Miserable Songs for Swinging Divorcees dressed up as pop music for 10 year olds. Happy New Year is on it of course: a beautiful tune, and a last verse that begins 'Seems to me know that the dreams we had before are all dead'. Not exactly Auld Lang Syne, is it? I'm beginning to see Garry Mulholland's point that Abba and Joy Division had a lot in common. On a more technical note, Rutger Gunnarsson and Mike Watson's bass playing passed me by completely when I first listened, even as a 13 year old connoisseur of basslines. Now I'm entranced by their ability to nail a groove solidly and play around it at the same time. If I'm not careful I might end up getting my fretless bass down from the attic. © 2004 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
On Thursday I was playing with the 
I'm
sure their collective relief is genuine, but I can't summon up any sympathy, I'm
afraid. In politics as in music, sincerity is a touching human attribute,
but it's not enough.
to rehearse. We
ended the evening with Paul joining us in some Philidor. 