Friday 30 March 2007
It's demo
city here, as Martyn Jaques has sent a
huge pile of songs for our forthcoming Monteverdi
tribute at the Edinburgh Festival, and I have to think about how to make
them sound a bit like Monteverdi. So next week I shall be immersing myself in
Monteverdi madrigals: not a bad thing to do anyway. I've been back in
demo-land myself, engaging with VST plugins and iterative quantization, to
render my newly-learnt guitar chords presentable to the public. Well,
presentable to my iPod at least - my MySpace page is probably as near to the
public as they'll get. Sushil helped me come up with a great potential album
title though: Deviant Porridge.
Alison
came over for lunch today on her way to plant
trees, and we picked a Schetky quartet to play in Orkney. And later on, en
route to the library, I dropped in on Greg who gave me a copy of the new Moishe's
Bagel CD - you can go here
and buy one now. Go on.
But today
I have been completely upstaged by Susie, who's won a national competition to
nominate the next Children's
Laureate, and will be taking me to the inauguration in London in June to
have her photograph taken with him/her. Although it's officially a secret, we
think we know who it's going to be.
Thursday 22 March 2007
I've taken
delivery of some very interesting demos for a project this summer, which I have
to keep quiet about for a few days yet.
Meanwhile,
the Scottish Parliament elections are coming up in a few weeks, and a party I'd
never heard of has got in early on the local lampposts..
Well,
either God's standing for First Minister, or he drives his 4x4 along a
cycle lane. You work it out. Still, you need divine help to negotiate
cycle tracks like these.
Monday 19 March
2007
back in Possilpark
library
Not having concerts to prepare for means that I can
tackle some long overdue paperwork. Yesterday's tasks, besides beginning to
clear an email and CD listening backlog, were the Concerto Caledonia company
accounts, and the PRS-MCPS registration of works for 2 albums, one of which was
two years overdue. And this
afternoon there are many errands to run on my bike while I'm in town at the
RSAMD giving Hedda Hansen Berg a harpsichord lesson.
Listening
back to our second Bach concert from a couple of weeks ago, it's encouraging how
little we get in the way of Bach. With music this rich, you have to learn how to
get out of the way and just play it as it is. It's not the same as being boring,
as you have to bring the music to life, which is a complicated business and
requires immense skill, but it's important not to draw attention to yourself in
the process. It's not like playing a 19th-century concerto where part of the
reason for it is to show off what you can do. There's a time and place for going
'look at me, I'm great', but a Bach cantata isn't it. Let's face it, Bach's got
more to say musically than I have, so it helps if I can get my ego out of the
process as much as possible. I think the music makes a far greater impact as a
result. As I've said before, I'm not interested in hearing 'my' Bach, or Glenn
Gould's Bach, or John Eliot Gardiner's Bach - I just want to hear Bach: he's the
interesting one. I was talking about this with Bill Drummond the other
night: the wonderful effect of Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach in 1968 wasn't
really in its kaleidoscopic repertoire of Moog synthesiser sounds, but in the
way that for the first time the musical textures were transparent enough for you
to actually hear Bach's notes.
Thursday 15 March 2007
There's lots of listening to catch up on back
at home: the second edit of Suzie's album 'Tout passe', and the BBC recordings
of our Bach concerts at Perth. And mail and accounts and phone calls to be
returned and everything else that I've been avoiding for a while. But no
concerts to prepare for, which just for now is very nice.
Wednesday
14 March 2007
on the train back from
Mallaig
Contentedly drowsy, coming back from an excellent visit to Skye with Bill
Drummond, where we enjoyed the wonderful hospitality and company of John and Bar
Purser. Much excellent food was eaten, much excellent conversation was shared,
and although the weather was too wet to skim peats, we did move some marble
rocks from the garden to earn our keep. To my shame this morning I didn't get
out of bed in time to feed the highland cattle.
The
Purser beasts atop the cliff
I don't have to play any
technically demanding music for at least 6 weeks now, so I look forward to
having a less frantic life for a while by not practising.
later
Crossing Rannoch Moor in the dark is a wonderful sensation. Floating over
the invisible landscape, you catch intermittent glimpses of a building and a blue light in the distance, and then suddenly you
realise it's Rannoch station. There were only 5 people on the train from Mallaig
to Fort William, and it doesn't feel like there are many more on this one, the
sleeper to
London. Great iconic journeys both,
and hardly any customers for them. Well, not at this time of year anyway. But
now, to the lounge car and a bottle of wine with Bill.
Tuesday 13 March
2007
on the train to Mallaig
I really enjoyed playing French music in Perth
yesterday. It's hard to feel stressed when
playing Rameau or Marais. In fact, if you feel under pressure then you're
probably playing it wrong. Svend Brown
, who directs the classical
music programme at Perth, said afterwards how difficult it is to sell tickets
for French music, even for Ravel. Perhaps we think that proper classical music
was made by German speakers: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and all the rest.
The train journey is as
breathtaking as ever: on the final leg west from Fort William, it's sometimes
hard to tell whether the landscape or the sheer engineering feat of the line is
more awe-inspiring. Crossing the Glenfinnan
viaduct (now to be for ever known as the Harry Potter viaduct I suppose) is
exciting in itself, then there are the spectacular views in both directions, and
the equally spectacular sight of a couple of rusty containers surrounded by junk
in someone's garden, just in line of sight of the Glenfinnan monument. I suppose
someone has to keep alive the tradition of the Highlands being full of rusting heaps.
And there's still the Armadale
ferry to look forward to.
Monday 5 March 2007
It's been
a lot of work preparing for our first concert with a medium-sized group for
nearly a year. Having the focus of a performance certainly keeps you busy, but always
still aware that we were making it all happen without Katherine being there. It's only when you can't
focus that sense of loss into activity
that it really hits you hard.
Sunday 4 March 2007
Yesterday's
concerts started spectacularly well with Alison's Bach cello suite, after which DG and
I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with a rather nervy and brittle
performance. Fortunately the Schetky quartet was fun. I hadn't slept much the
previous night for quite unrelated reasons, and also my left middle finger
seemed to have something lodged under its fingernail, so that every note I
played with it was rather painful. I don't remember jamming anything in it. Katy
volunteered one of her earrings to poke it with later in the day (and I was too
confused to refuse), so if either her ear or my finger now becomes horribly
infected, one of us can blame the other.
The
ever-inventive technical staff at Perth had rigged us up an internal radio
antenna and some cables, as the RF insulating properties of the hall's copper
roof meant that our performance of Cage's Radio Music was otherwise going to be
pretty much silent. Cage would no doubt have approved of such a quiet
performance, but we didn't think it was going against the spirit of the piece to
take some precautions to ensure that it could contain some sounds other than
static, so part of our our afternoon rehearsal was spent experimenting with
that. In the evening concert, lots of music seemed to happen - to my ears at any
rate. I particularly enjoyed the Piazzolla, possibly because I wasn't playing in
it much and could just sit and listen. Everyone on the stage did something exceptional at some
point in the gig, so let's hear it for (from left to right) Katy Bircher, DG,
Sarah Bevan-Baker, Carolyn Sparey (the other
founder of the group back in '92!), Alison, Cecelia Bruggemeyer (back again at
last) and Katharine Fuge. Heroes all.
Five of us
got the train back to Glasgow, and cruelly decided to administer some gentle
taunting to Andrew, who after setting everything in motion beautifully, had had
to leave earlier in the day to look after another of his clients at a gig in
Glasgow. We came up with 5 almost plausible imaginary
crises, and simultaneously texted him for advice on each, ranging from the
simple (DG: I got on the train to Aberdeen by mistake, what should I do?), to
the paradoxical (Katy: I've lost my mobile - call me). By the time Andrew had
switched his phone on and begun to deal with all of this, and then realised it
was nonsense, DG and I were standing on my front step watching the lunar eclipse
through binoculars, with bacon rolls and cups of tea.
This
afternoon I was back at the concert hall in Perth again with Robbie to see and
hear the London Sinfonietta play Benedict Mason's scores for three Chaplin
films. I think Chaplin has finally now been rescued from his recent reputation
as a sentimentalist, and Mason's scores were certainly inventive and fun, but to
be honest, I think Chaplin was easily enough of a genius for his work to be
worth watching with the music as he intended it, rather than trying to come up
with some post-modern smartarse reworking. Similarly I'd rather hear Bach than
Bach-Busoni, Bach-Liszt, or for that matter Bach-J.E.Gardiner.
On that
note, the rehearsals for yesterday's concerts were very useful in crystallising
in my head the idea that from now on we should always start rehearsing with a
clean set of parts, free from pencil annotations. It was a running joke that I
brought an eraser to rehearsals but not a pencil - it's standard orchestral
practice to always have a pencil with you and to write yourself reminders of
what and how to play into the part. But surviving 18th century parts rarely have
any pencil marks in. So why do we need them now? Once you've written something
in, it's a bit too easy just to follow your own written instructions, rather
than continuing to respond to the sounds around you and then to make a musical
decision, which might be the same one every time, and might not. I'd much rather
respond to what Bach wrote rather than to something that I wrote.
A less
philosophical problem arising from yesterday's concerts is that for three
concerts in a row now I have been playing
wrong notes. I thought I'd largely overcome this problem some years ago by
systematically acquiring some keyboard technique, but to be dropping clangers in
front of BBC microphones three times in a row isn't something I'm particularly
happy about.
Thursday 1 March 2007
DG arrived
yesterday, and his suitcase arrived a few hours later, and we had a preliminary
scout through most of the music for Saturday's concerts. The second concert in
particular is going to be one of our most difficult. The music itself requires
enormous concentration, and we'll have already played a lunchtime gig earlier in
the day: I might get the two-part inventions right in that one. Playing Bach's
Contrapunctus 11 from the Art of Fugue when we've just played John Cage's Radio
Music is going to be a big mental challenge, and there's the added pressure of
being recorded for broadcast.
But all of
the second concert is music that we played with Katherine: in my score, the
fugue subject in Contrapunctus 7 has the following lyric written in above it
'Katherine McGillivray plays the viola very well ... or so she says' and perhaps
we were being overly optimistic when we thought that we could cope with playing
'Ich habe genug'. So some tiring but worthwhile rehearsals in prospect I
think.
later,
on the train back from rehearsal at Noel's in Edinburgh
Alison
tries to sleep
DG
and the pills that keep him awake (allegedly)
Sunday 25
February 2007
on the Newcastle-Glasgow
train
I'm going home again, after the briefest of trips to the very excellent
venue of The Sage Gateshead for an
11am
concert this morning. It
was a Radio 3 recording, unusual in that the four of us (Alexei
Ogrintchouk, Sebastian
Comberti, Joanne
Lunn and me) hadn't been in a room together before
5pm
last night. So it was a good exercise in mutual co-operation.
But I wish I'd made a better job of the Bach two-part inventions I
played. Bob Deegan's tuning
meter didn't seem to have a convincing grasp of Vallotti so I tuned the
harpsichord myself, which before an 11am concert is pretty much a guarantee that
any difficult music will go horribly wrong. But it was great to share some cups
of tea with Bob and catch up a bit.
I had an excellent morning for food actually: smoked haddock and
parmesan risotto for breakfast at the Eslington
Villa Hotel (spectacularly helpful staff too), and then the roast beef in
the Sage's café looked so good it was irresistible for lunch before running
through the rain to the station ...
Friday 23 February 2007
flying home
It's pathetic. Flying air berlin, I'm 40 years old and I'm still amused that
the plane is a Fokker.
I'm on my way back from a very useful evening and morning spent
playing through the music for our 12 March concert with Lucy and Alison, at
Malcolm Greenhalgh's house. And we had a fantastic Sri Lankan curry in Priya in
Walthamstow: great dosas. In transit I'm alternately reading Kathleen Jamie
and listening to the Tout Passe 1st edit.
Now
that I'm home and uploading this, I was going to write something to assuage my
carbon-footprint-guilt about flying to London just for a rehearsal, by saying
that for the next couple of days I'll be travelling by train as penance. But
with the news of tonight's London-Glasgow train crash, it doesn't seem very
appropriate any more. That train was one of my alternatives.
Thursday 22 February 2007
From
yesterday's Guardian, this
wonderful piece by John Tusa about what it's like to run an arts organisation. I
think I agree with him on virtually everything, except that in my experience,
health and safety officers have been a fount of calm intelligence and common
sense: maybe I've been lucky.
I took a
couple of hours off yesterday to go back to the RSAMD to hear Karen McAulay give
a research paper on Scots tune accompaniments in the late 18th and early 19th
century. It was unusually refreshing to be in a room with some other people who
were interested in taking old Scottish music seriously.
later,
flying to
Luton
I'm
sitting here contentedly re-reading Bill Drummond's book of scores, when an
announcement comes over the PA. They are selling 'fun cards' on the plane. Fun
cards. OK, I think, that's got my attention, now what the hell is a fun card?
Oh. The chance to win up to £20 000. It costs a quid. It's a scratch card.
That's how much fun you get for a quid. I can think of better value fun
opportunities myself. I feel like going to an old-fashioned sweetie shop just to
show them what £1's worth of fun can look like. And now I'm lost in a reverie
about boiled sweets. Perhaps I should have had some lunch before boarding.
Tuesday 20 February 2007
Not much
time for diarising at the moment. Amongst other things, I have to prepare and
practise two concert programmes (Allan's been here doing harpsichord maintenance
for me tonight), prepare the notation for four concerts, and write my editing
notes for 'Tout passe' - but that last one's fun.
There's a
review of Friday's concert here,
but you might find this photographic record more comprehensible. At the end,
three different students came and asked me if I gave lessons. None of them even
knew the Academy had a fortepiano, after studying piano there for two and a half
years: incredible.
decorated
harpsichord - yes, it was my birthday
cellist
(reversed) and balloons
manager
(out of focus) and bottle of Ardbeg (also out of focus)
East
Lothian shoreline - this was taken on Saturday
Thursday 15 February 2007
This
morning started well and badly: well, with the arrival of some first edits from
Suzie's album 'Tout passe'; and badly, with a certain BBC news reporter (at
least that's who one of the witnesses said it was - it wasn't him after all) nearly knocking me off my
bike in his car, adding an unequivocally rude gesture for good measure. And just
as I was congratulating myself on my consideration for other road users, letting
a pedestrian cross in front of me rather than mowing her down. Oh well.
Anyway,
this afternoon Alison and I were rehearsing for tomorrow's concert in the rather
incongruous surroundings of the RSAMD Opera School foyer, which around exam time
was about the only place they could put a harpsichord and a fortepiano!
Peter Lissauer dropped in to sign some cheques so that we can all get paid for
the last two months, and we bumped into Barnaby
Brown on the way out.
Meanwhile,
the Lion CD is mastered and in its envelope, waiting for when I have time to go
to the post office, and I've been devouring Ross Duffin's wonderful book 'How
Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care)' which as popular
musicology goes, is about as good as it gets. Highly recommended to anyone who's
interested in playing or singing in tune. I met Ross once when he took the Chris
Norman Ensemble out for a Greek meal in Cleveland to celebrate Ronn
McFarlane's 50th birthday.
It may
well just be coincidence, but since Virgin's takeover of ntl this week, my
broadband connection has been falling off and requiring a modem reboot with
tiresome regularity.
Sunday 11 February 2007
Susie's
9th birthday party here meant that we had the loan of a PS2 and singstar,
which is too much fun to resist. Before the party invasion began, Susie and I
were engaged in mortal microphone combat and it's no surprise that I got a much
higher score on 'Somewhere Only We Know' than I did on 'Smells Like Teen
Spirit'. I'm not telling who won but it was very close.
Friday 9 February 2007
I'm
uncommonly tired today, after this week entailed an unexpectedly large amount of
reading: all of it worthwhile though. This afternoon I was in Edinburgh - I was
going to type "through in Edinburgh" but that seemed like
self-consciously local colour - to meet Jonathan Mills (and Alison and Matthew)
at the Festival, which was, like the best
meetings, swift, to the point and successful. The details can be revealed later,
but I think my diary is now full until September.
I've also
been reading for pleasure and personal if not financial profit Bob Katz's 'Mastering Audio: the art and the
science' and 'How to Stop
Acting' by Harold
Guskin, which, although it's written for actors, has much to teach musicians
about spontaneity and truthfulness in performance. Guskin's techniques also
chime well with my reluctance to pencil instructions into scores or parts in the
accepted orchestral manner, leaving the musician free and able to respond better
to the surrounding sounds - that's what being a musician is, after all.
Tuesday 6 February 2007
A nice
surprise in the
mail this morning from Bill
Drummond: a wee book of scores. You can see the scores at www.the17.org
under "members' scores". I particularly like this
one and this one.
And some
further movement towards the Schetky recording, probably in May. By the end of
next week I will have played in concert all of the harpsichord and fortepiano
solos that I want to record, at least once: useful preparation.
Monday 5 February 2007
A
beautiful clear sunny day: amazing colours in the sky and on the ground, on the
drive to and from Perth. Not that I was driving: Andrew kindly offered to be my
driver for the day, so that I could be a cosseted precious soloist, complete
with fresh fruit, shortbread and Belgian chocolate biscuits in the dressing
room. Special
thanks to the kind audient who supplied this joke: 'What's the difference
between an organist and a terrorist?' 'You can negotiate with a terrorist.'
Hooray, I
played a solo recital in another city after taking my kids to school, and got
back home about 10 minutes after they did. If there was more than one train an
hour, I could even have done it on public transport.
And
hooray, Charlie
Brooker's back on BBC4.
Sunday 4 February 2007
In
amongst catching up with email and other stuff, today's preparation for
tomorrow's recital consists of figuring out roughly what I might talk about
onstage, and playing all the music through slowly. This latter has two effects:
it shows up all the little technical problems that you've been ignoring in the
excitement of making it sound like music, and it also makes you realise that
you're probably playing everything too fast anyway.
I got our
new-look CD shop online last night. But I've been listening to Secrets
from the Clockhouse by Future Pilot AKA, in the shops tomorrow. Our
contribution to the album is as nothing compared to that of Alasdair Gray or
Karine Polwart, or Stuart and Sarah from Belle and Sebastian, or, well lots of
people actually, it's that kind of record. An opportunity to hear some of things
that go on in Sushil's head: as Alasdair Gray says 'very nice'.
the
harpsichord's pointy end and my study ceiling
That baseboard's a bit of a mess, isn't it? (sorry Bob)
Wednesday 31 January 2007
I don't
play solo harpsichord recitals very often, so today is dedicated practice day.
Allan Wright came round yesterday and did some much needed regulation work on my
harpsichord so it's actually very pleasurable just to sit and gradually get
better at playing music that I (should) know already.
two
pieces of advice
I managed
to fit in a haircut at lunchtime, and having cycled over there, it was
impossible to resist going into Mellis's
cheese shop a couple of doors down and emerging much lighter of wallet, but with
some great flour, bread, olives, some Reblochon, and some absolutely stunning
ewe's milk Berkswell. Yum.
A call
this afternoon inviting my participation in a concert and broadcast in a few
weeks' time: invitation accepted. And another about the possible collaboration
this summer.
Monday 29 January
2007
Uh. A welcome day off today after taking DG
to the airport this morning at 6.30 and getting caught in an amazingly
convoluted traffic diversion so that I spent 25 minutes getting back to the
airport again after leaving it forcibly in the wrong direction.
Last night's gig was a hoot. We started
by playing fiddle and melodica around the tables as the sellout audience came
in, which was just a little uncomfortably like a sleazy tour of the tables in a
restaurant, but most people grinned at us so I hope it didn't come across that
way. After a couple of tunes, we swapped with Iain Macinnes and his pipes which
seemed more appropriate.
Our short set seemed to go down fine,
although following the Dhol Foundation
on stage was a bit of a challenge in the dynamics department: "We're not as
loud as them, sorry. We're just a wee quiet band." It was fun
watching Celebrity Big Brother with them backstage though. My Estey got a
thorough workout in the course of the evening: we played our Invercald's Rant
set on it, Donald
Shaw played it for an Indian singer whose name I forget and for Michael
Marra, and in the Burns Unit set I ended up playing ska on it, which I hadn't
really bargained for. A sort of acoustic Jerry Dammers. What else? National
treasure Alasdair Gray's reading from Burns
was
brilliantly funny and effortlessly erudite as you'd expect, and Hariprasad
Chaurasia lent the evening a classical air as the entire hall stayed completely
hushed for his 25 minute raga.
The Burns Unit set was just the sort of very
entertaining happy shambles we expected. None of us knew how any of the songs
were going to end, or indeed progress, so we just all felt our way towards
musical comfort. It was great to have some of Sushil's legendary offbeat stage
announcements, my favourite of the night being "Newsflash for those on the stage: the next song's in G."
Me: "No it's not". S:
"Isn't it? Oh." Some of our efforts at creating empty space in
the dub sections were a bit too successful, as everyone just stopped playing,
leaving wonderful big empty holes that still had a groove lurking in them
somewhere: not bad when there are 10 people on stage. At one point, in attempt
to fill these in, Sushil shouted over to me for suggestions: I did a big 1, 2,
3, 4 count-in, and ... nobody came in! Fantastic! We were all still in dub mode.
Just before we went on, Karen Matheson
mentioned to me that she wasn't exactly used to such a free approach: "I need structure
in my life!" Raymond MacDonald, who is completely used to such a free
approach, at one point contributed an amazing soprano sax workout in just the
perfect place.
There
are some great photos of the whole thing here.
For
my 30 minutes of free time in Possil today, I was inspired by the weather to give the
library a miss this time and drive round to Ruchill Park, where a 5 minute amble
up the hill leads you to spectacular 360˚ views over
the city and beyond. Hard to believe you're in an area of Glasgow that the
tourist brochures prefer not to tell you about.
Saturday 27 January 2007
I can't
not mention last night's rehearsal with Future Pilot AKA The Burns Unit, where
the basic guitar/bass/drums foundation were joined by kora, highland bagpipes, 2
saxes, banjo, 3 dancers, 2 singers and us. I somehow ended up playing guitar in
two numbers - a big old Gibson acoustic with monster frets, so I now have very
tender fingertips ... I'm glad I'm not playing the fortepiano again for a couple
of weeks.
Here
David contemplates the possible after-effects of his first visit to the Western
Baths.
Friday 26 January 2007
A
peaceful sunny morning after a busy day yesterday. Glasgow University Concert
Hall is a strange place to play, largely because it has no raised stage, and
about 10 years ago (without the knowledge even of the music department) it was
carpeted, so it feels like someone's very opulent drawing room after a misguided
visit from a flooring salesman. I think the concert went well, and the audience
seemed to respond, but it's not a room that lends itself to interaction. It's
head down and get on with it, and get off.
Our big
new set of Marshall/Burns tunes (the publisher and the poet, not the amp and
guitar manufacturers) came together just in time. And I think I got away with my
experiment of playing ludicrously hard music on the fortepiano, preparing it
only on digital piano until the day of the concert. DG kindly gave me an hour to
myself in the morning just to get to know the instrument, so that in the concert
I was still trying out new sounds, phrasing, dynamics, and psychological
approaches to getting all the notes to come out, trying to work the knee
levers without getting tired toes, and attempting to make music as well. Keeps
the brain active. As Helen said later, 'bet you won't get Alzheimer's'.
Then off
we went with Alison to the RSAMD where instead of delivering my annual lecture
on how to run a group (ha!), DG and I played some tunes, talked about our
musical lives a bit, and took questions from a small but mentally active group
of students (and Mairi
Campbell who sat in at the back!). All off the cuff, but it felt like a
stronger connection with our audience than we'd got at the concert 3 hours
earlier.
This
morning, a phone enquiry that could lead to a very interesting collaboration
indeed.
Tuesday 23 January 2007
Still no
DG here: he omitted the vital "+1" from the day that his flight gets
in on his schedule ... so today I had a chance to catch up with CD business:
artwork and booklet copy, double-checking the odd licensing issue, and I got
another puncture on my bike (and mended it). I don't think I'm deliberately
riding through patches of broken glass ...
By email,
I got two offers of orchestral work today in different parts of Europe, followed
by a phone call from Berlin to ask 'are you really not free, or did you just
think we were a bit weird?' which was pretty funny. I really wasn't free for
that one, but the other, a fortepiano tour which I would have jumped at even a
couple of years ago, I decided to let pass. If it's music I really want to play,
with people I really want to play it with, then great, but otherwise I'm not
sure that touring as an orchestral musician, even in a good period instrument
band, is a suitable job for a grown-up. Not this one anyway. Although I could
use the time in hotel rooms to play my melodica and write tunes - hang on,
where's the phone? I wonder what they're paying ... No! Stop!
Yesterday
I had half an hour to kill in Possil (Glasgow readers will find this hilarious:
conventional wisdom says that the only thing to do with half an hour in Possil
is go somewhere else fast) so I went into Possilpark Library, a small but
wonderful Edwardian building built with funds from Andrew Carnegie. The airy,
comfortable reading room has 6 huge murals painted by students of the Glasgow
Art School in 1914, depicting Science, Astronomy, Geography, Poetry, Commerce
and Art. I sat and happily read a book off the shelf, educating myself as
instructed.
It's
great: I find the idea that even in Possil there is this beautiful temple
to self-motivated education really moving. The management of 'Leisure
Services' in Glasgow is about to change
radically, and I'm told it's not that likely that Possilpark will
remain as a library for much longer. So here are some
surreptitiously-taken photos of what it was like when it was still
fulfilling its original purpose. I'm going back next week ...
this
way to education
outside
looking up
and
looking round the corner
Monday 22
January 2007
I've atoned for two visits to the
supermarket over the weekend, by cycling to the greengrocers in the sunshine
this morning and returning with panniers full of vegetables. Supermarket veg are
rubbish anyway. I couldn't get Aberfeldy oatmeal in time for DG arriving
tomorrow though.
My myspace page now features a sneak preview
of a track from Lion. Not that it's representative of the album as a whole. I
don't think anything would be representative of the album as a whole to be
honest. There's also my AntiThriller which I really like and only about a dozen
people have ever heard. Can you spot what the two tracks have in common?
Saturday 20 January 2007
I
painted windows instead of practising today: work avoidance can take very
practical forms.
If
you're looking for some cheap entertainment, and I mean cheap, you can find the
home demos I made during the holidays at my exciting all-new myspace site (can
you tell I'm finding the idea underwhelming?). If you do that sort of thing,
please drop by and make me look like less of a Johnny-No-Mates. www.myspace.com/davidmcguinnessmusic
Friday 19 January 2007
Practising.
Long overdue. I've just realised that for the next two months I have to be able
to play some quite difficult music, properly. As you can see, I've been playing
around with the website too: also long overdue. Our dog needs a name, by
the way. Suggestions welcome.
Hooray.
Carolyn Sparey is free to play in our concerts in March and June. As well as
being the other founder member of the group with me way back in 1992, Carolyn
was also one of Katherine's baroque viola teachers back then: I have the
tape here on my desk of the three of us doing a BBC session in June 93.
I've
discovered that technical practice (or 'woodshedding' as DG calls it) is easier
and more fruitful if I listen to something else at the same time. I don't want
to be distracted or excited by the music when I'm still learning how to play the
right notes. Spoken word podcasts are very useful.
Tuesday 16 January 2007
Sunshine
today at last. I had a very necessary Alexander lesson from Evelyn, fixed my
puncture, rode my bike, went to primary 5a's Roman Museum, starting fiddling
around with a website redesign, and had an entertaining chat with Tommy Pearson
about Brian May's lightsabre technique (he's pretty good). Some personnel issues
with our March and June concerts are becoming resolved, and we may have some
more gigs in May and June. I should have done some practice really. Never mind.
Saturday
13 January 2007
on the road to Aberdeen, just passing the
NCR factory where the workforce got sacked the other day
It's
pouring rain, Alison Green's driving, and I'm catching up on emails in the
passenger seat. I've been gradually feeling less ill this week, although I
still had to try to suppress a coughing fit in a really quiet moment of last
night's concert. I'll take some water on stage tonight.
The
SCO is full of very nice people, so I've been weathering the shock of being in
an orchestra quite well. Sandrine Piau is a wonderful singer, bonkers in a very
intelligent way, and John
Butt
kindly sorted out by email a query we had about the rather
curious slurring in the opening of Bach's cantata no.42. Never again will I
trust the old Bach Gesellschaft edition without checking first - in this case
almost none of the copious articulation is original.
Thursday
was my least favourite day this week: it's as well that the music and the
company were good. A courier pickup and a courier delivery both failed for
different reasons, and my phone's SIM card spontaneously self-destructed, so any
text messages sent to me for the last couple of days haven't got to me yet. 
I
spent a lot of time trying to get through to so-called helplines on borrowed
phones. And I haven't fixed my puncture yet.
But
this morning (my only free time) was looking up. Emmanuelle gave me her recent
Handel recording with Natalie Dessay which is real music, unlike almost every
other Handel CD I've heard recently. Are all the good early music groups French
now? I've enthused here about Café Zimmermann before.
And Joe paid a visit bringing the
artwork for the Lion CD which includes his simple paintings of some of the
preliminary pencil sketches that were too good to waste. I think this one might
get adopted as our logo ...
1am
Home again, strangely relieved at having had a good experience in
classical/orchestral music. It doesn't happen to me very often.
Tuesday 9 January 2007
concerto caledonia