Sunday 30 March 2008
flying north from Luton. Route home from Purcell Room: walk along the Thames (unexpectedly beautiful), bus, train, bus, plane, taxi, c. 4 hours

view from the bus stop on Blackfriars Bridge

I'm sitting here with the satisfaction of a job done. I'll leave it to others to decide whether it was well done, but to have Shirley on stage with us while Kate and I performed the songs she sang with her sister Dolly was difficult, but satisfying indeed. Not an average gig in any way. When you know that the material means a great deal to certain people in the room, there's a very strong sense of responsibility to get it right, but then in performance you also have to be open to let music in.  Playing the work of someone as self-effacing as Dolly Collins is a good exercise: I was wary of smiling too much between the songs (did it look smug?). But then how could I not smile in the company of such people and such music?

The Purcell Room is a dingy hole, but once we got past security we were made very welcome, with tea and fresh fruit backstage beforehand, and good champagne and beer afterwards: we could have done with a few more glasses to share it with the happy crowd backstage though. And it was good to see Bill Drummond and Ronita Dutta too: Bill had seen Shirley and Dolly play live 'at least twice'.

Anyway, I'm going to doze a bit now, as I inevitably stayed up far too late last night with Kate and Stephen: it was the first time I'd visited them at home since they put me up during the Colin's Kisses sessions nearly 10 years ago ...

Saturday 29 March 2008

I'm very glad to have reached the weekend, even if I have to get on a plane later today. There are least two very nice things indeed to look forward to in the next couple of days: Catherine Bott singing me some great songs, and then the two of us performing them on stage with Shirley Collins for company. Now those are well worth getting on a plane for, especially as I've no intentions of going anywhere near Heathrow Terminal 5, or any other of its terminals for that matter - I decided some time ago that Heathrow airport was such a hideous experience that I would do my utmost never to encounter it at close quarters again.

Stephen Duffy spotted this sad sight in the BBC car park on Wednesday night: someone's iPod headphones had suffered a cruel death under a car tyre or two.

Pamela came over on Thursday afternoon (does coming from York count as 'over'? not really), and despite the fact that we were both a bit sleepy - I'd nodded off in my Alexander lesson that morning for the first time ever - we worked our way through a large pile of possible repertoire, including the accompanied pieces from Duphly's 3rd book of Pièces de clavecin, which I remembered I had in the attic. But first I had to pass my Stylophone Garage Band recording audition. Anyway, if you're still following this paragraph, one of the difficulties of programming obscure but beautiful chamber music is finding a way to include the pieces you want to play, and which you know the audience will love, while simultaneously giving the impression that the concert is really full of music by composers that people have heard of: music that they  will actually buy tickets to come and hear. A certain amount of gentle deception is required. 

Yesterday I dropped in on Barnaby Brown to eat and talk about some shared research interests, and one idea that popped out was something that Chris Wood had brought up at distil a couple of weeks ago. He was saying that when musical traditions become too dependent on collectivity (like the ubiquitous folk music sessions) the music starts to become uniform and sacrifices a lot of its individuality. So for example, Scottish fiddle tunes are now almost always in two parts, an A and a B, each 8 bars long. Where you have a tradition that still involves people developing things on their own, the results are more diverse, or to use the fiddle tune term, crooked. Barnaby was showing me evidence of the same in early pibroch and early harp music, and I was finding it very interesting indeed. Similarly, as I heard Martin Carthy say some time ago: 'All folk songs are in 1'. Dolly Collins's arrangements are beautifully asymmetrical. Discovering that even the most regimented of Scottish traditional music hasn't always been so foursquare is quite liberating. 

Sunday 23 March 2008

Some of this weekend's preparatory musical tasks:
- copying figures into the keyboard versions of Dieupart's suites from the chamber versions
- chopping up bits of the dance band showtape into four-bar chunks and timestretching them so that the result is halfway in time and can get a solid beat under it - this takes ages
- further detailed listening to Dolly Collins's organ accompaniments to get the transcriptions more accurate 

On Friday I was back in eye casualty of course, in the same building as the UK's first case of XDR-TB.

Thursday 20 March 2008

I'm fighting off iritis again, with a very sore eye indeed - it feels like a losing battle to be honest. It may only be a matter of time before I'm back at eye casualty for my increasingly regular dose of ocular steroids.

A couple of weeks ago I finally bought a decent microphone: an old 414 ULS. Alison was in town for a trust meeting last night, so she came over this morning and tested it for me, playing gamba in the sitting room (the best-sounding room in the house and the only one not disturbed by the howling gale outside) while I shouted encouragement from the study. It sounded rather good. Tonight I've been listening to the showtape of the dance band from 31 January with the judicious addition of some reverb and EQ, and it sounds pretty good too! That's a relief.

Last night I was delighted to witness Ari Hoenig and his trio of Gilad Hekselman and Euan Burton - generous musicianship allied with incredible technique. And they're really nice guys.  If you're anywhere near one of their gigs this week, go along, you won't regret it. For a few days yet you can hear what they played last night here, and in a week or so once the video's edited you should be able to watch it here. 

Also this week a wee recording project has taken shape with Mark O'Keeffe, for which the sessions will be in a church about 5 minutes' walk from here, very civilised. The music is by Johann Wilhelm Hertel and is only readily available in a really dodgy edition from the 1960s. Now, one thing I learnt from Marten Root at Boxwood a couple of years ago is that it's so easy and cheap to get libraries to send you copies of their original manuscripts, that there's no excuse for not doing it if you're learning a piece. Five minutes of my time sending an email to the Conservatoire Library in Brussels were rewarded with a bill for the princely sum of 10 Euros: once I've worked out how to send them a banker's draft, they'll send me a CD-R.

Monday 17 March 2008

Home again after four days of music making, listening and experiment at distil, somewhat exhausted. Supposedly I was a 'tutor' but as in any good teaching situation, I learnt at least as much as anyone else. I'd been warned that the group of eight participants might be a bit homogenous, as 'they're all trad musicians basically', but yesterday four duos played music of genuinely remarkable range and accomplishment, and all put together from scratch in bits of spare time from the previous 48 hours.

I didn't get my camera out till the last day, so all I have to show for four days of ear- and mind-expanding experiences in good company is this commemorative shot of myself with Donald Hay and Sarah-Jane Summers, celebrating the fact that we'd just played a piece of music where the rhythmic material had been determined by the random pattern of lightbulbs on the ceiling rail, and the structure by some staples and chewing gum stuck to a chair (see close-up).

ensemble, trying to look serious and arty

score

It didn't sound bad actually, but the piece they made without my interference was much better.

Talking of structures, the Orpheus-and-Eurydice-in-a-hall-of-mirrors that is this week's episode of Skins was written by my nephew Jamie Brittain. Go on, watch it when it's on Channel 4 on Thursday, you know you want to.

Sunday 9 March 2008

I'm recovering from a very nasty bug here: I'll spare you the worst of the details but for most of Friday I was unable to get up off the sofa except for necessary dashes to the bog. Lovely. This meant that the world was spared the sight and sound of me playing the ukelele while two of my siblings joined me in song, at a family do on Friday night. Perhaps that's just as well because if we'd done it, it might have been on youtube by now.  By yesterday afternoon I could just about face drinking a cup of tea, which was a very comforting experience.

Anyway, I don't think I can blame my illness on the oysters at the Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, where Alison and I repaired after trying out the pianos at Ardkinglas on Wednesday: the pianos included a remarkably clear-sounding square, and a beautiful little 1928 Steinway which sounds as different from a modern one as a lute does to a Telecaster. I think that the modern Steinway grand is responsible for some of the worst ills of modern classical music: in particular, singers and soloists whose dynamic never goes below huge. Even a really good 9-foot Steinway doesn't invite me to play it: it's too big and mechanical a beast to grapple with. It's been designed to do battle with a 70-piece orchestra; that people choose to use the same instrument to accompany a solitary singer, or to play chamber music, makes no sense at all.  Bring back smaller pianos, say I: then we might all learn to listen to one another instead of trying to drown each other out. 

I've made the most of my physical inertia today by getting lots of tiresome little jobs done, slowly, and writing Leo Baxendale a long-overdue fan letter. I have a nice stack of books awaiting my attention in the April holiday, but I couldn't resist making inroads into book 2 of American Elf - let's hear it for Skiz-Glotch.

Monday 3 March 2008

It's been a bit windy here recently: this was a road sign on our street until the wind got the better of it.

I've been reading some reviews of last week's concerts (and the new CDs with the SCO) expressing some surprise at Mackerras's decision to observe Mozart's repeats, complaining that they'd heard all the music twice by the time it was done. Yup, buddy, that's what Mr Mozart wrote. And as I say to students sometimes, if you're not interested enough to hear it all over again, then it wasn't interesting enough the first time, and you should play it better - or play something else. And why observe da capo repeats in minuets? For the simple reason that a minuet is a dance, and as anyone who's played for dancing will tell you, you don't just play the tunes once. You have to go round a few times to really inhabit the tune's character, so a da capo repeat is nothing really ... 

After the death of Teo Macero last week, I listened to Miles Davis's Big Fun for the first time: the first section of Go Ahead John is truly jaw-dropping. It could have been recorded next week. Quite astonishing production skills at work. If you haven't heard it, there's an attempt to describe what happens in this article. Listen with headphones on and your brain falls off.

Wednesday 27 February 2008
on the train to Edinburgh (being a professional musician for a bit)
I spent a few spare moments at the weekend starting to mix the tune that I've been recording, and spent a lot more time than I'd anticipated kicking individual beats and bass notes around in Cubase to try and get it to gel. It's alarming how sloppy my playing can be when put under the microscope; it's tempting to start again and make the whole thing quantized and metronomic, but I don't think it would be as good. It's called 'feel', honest.

On Monday morning I finally had an idea about how to connect the dance band stuff with my home-made recording projects. I'm not saying what it is yet, but I've got four months to see if I can get it to work before we play again ...

Bike maintenance has been a recurring theme here, with the back wheel rim on my Dahon causing four punctures even after I figured out where the problem was.

eBay brought me an eBow, which has been fun (on fretless bass it sounds like a lorry going past), but I was outbid on some Raymond Scott sheet music, which would also have been fun if unessential. And I chanced across this from an eccentric popstar from my youth: apparently a salvaged cassette mix from an unfinished album, a self-penned song that sounds like Andrew Gold meets Kate Bush. I wonder how much of the album got made, and who owns the tapes. I'd like to hear them.

After a relaxing and enlightening lunch in Tchaiovna with John Butt yesterday, I was heading for Edinburgh and a rehearsal with the SCO and Charles Mackerras. Just as I was about to set off, my phone went and it was someone from the SCO saying 'Um, we've forgotten to get the organ tuned for today, what can we do?' So I packed the Ahlborn fake into the car and set off. Somehow having a cellar half-full of flight cases makes me feel more like a real musician. And it sounded quite convincing, even in the organ solo in the Mozart vespers K321. Working with Mackerras is always a pleasure: he's still inquisitive as well as knowledgeable, and his stick technique (not that he's using a stick) is clear and unfussy. He politely invites you to make music with him: a winning rehearsal psychology.

Later, on the train home again
Relaxing after a fine pint of Red Cuillin and some Seabrook's crisps at the Halfway House.

Time flew by with Pamela T this morning, which bodes well I think: we'll meet again and play some more some time soon. I hadn't imagined that one of Bach's violin and harpsichord sonatas could possibly work with recorder, but with Pamela, and Noel's wonderful Italian harpsichord (as heard on Mungrel Stuff) it sounds really rather good. Pamela writes a mean tune too: we found a piano backstage at the Queen's Hall and busked our way through assorted bits and pieces while Mozart was going on through the wall.

Thursday 21 February 2008

Yesterday's news, after jamming with Barnaby in the kitchen: Sardinian triple pipes go really well with organ, Scottish smallpipes with harmonium. 

Today I've been preparing my RSAMD lecture for tomorrow morning, and then I started doing the homework for a London concert that's happening in a few weeks' time. Catherine Bott's asked me to accompany her at the Purcell Room in some of Dolly Collins's inspired song arrangements, as heard on the album Snapshots which I enthused about here back in September 2006. Shirley Collins will be on stage with us too. I don't think my writing about this is conveying just how excited I am. Anyway, taking advantage of the house being empty, I set the fake organ up in the kitchen again.

insert joke of your choice about flat notes here

Tuesday 19 February 2008

If you missed Vic playing 'what time is arse' on Radio 1 last week, it's still available as the first track on his podcast for another couple of days. The second section (with wahwah guitar) gives you a chance to hear exactly what happens when Radio 1's broadcast compressor gets to work on something that hasn't already been squashed to a pulp at the pre-mastering stage … it's not pretty. But that is John Purser saying 'shite 'n' onions' at the beginning. I suggested to the producer that they incorporate it into the Radio 1 jingle permanently but he said no.

All this playing with myself is all very well, but I do need to get out a bit and encounter other musicians too from time to time. The next two Wednesday mornings are looking up in that respect: Barnaby Brown's coming over tomorrow to play, and next week in Edinburgh I'm meeting Pamela Thorby, who said something oblique about improvisation ... 

There's a new tune on its way out too, but I'm trying to resist the temptation to record it until I've learnt how to play it properly. It's difficult to decide when to record something: is it better when it's fresh and exciting, or when it's secure and confident? Or somewhere between the two? All are possible. 

Sunday 17 February 2008

I've spent the whole of this afternoon in the garden tinkering with bikes, after a kind freecycler gave me his 1953 Humber (and a beautifully aged Brooks B83 saddle - wow). Yesterday was my birthday, and Susie made me a Nonagon cake. Watch the video here to see how uncannily accurate it is.

I was hungover for most of the day: not from alcohol, but from the sheer sensory bombardment of the Self-cancellation gig that kicked off the Instal festival at the arches on Friday night.

Instal usually attracts an art school crowd, and this was no exception, but in the audience Sushil and I also encountered improv-heads Raymond MacDonald and Bill Wells, and fresh from his radio show Vic Galloway, who congratulated me on being an XTC fan (I knew he had taste).  It was a very interesting evening, but probably more interesting to talk about than to experience - type 'instal08' into flickr to see some photos. There were plenty of ideas but not much stagecraft or projection, and pretty much no humour at all. Rhodri Davies was one exception, playing the charred remnants of a harp with a blowlamp to stunning effect (photo of the end result here - the piece had ended when the soundbox hit the floor). I really liked Sarah Washington's interpretation of self-cancellation: she put on earplugs and ear defenders so that she couldn't hear any of what she was doing, then played her various homemade radio-based devices for about three minutes, which was rather beautiful. We audience had to do the listening for her. But my hangover was probably due to Mark & John Bain's terrifying Archisonic piece, which took seismic readings from the building and then amplified the resonances until the whole building was resonating. Very very loudly. For about 20 minutes. Even when we escaped to another floor a long way away it was still incredibly loud. And I stupidly forgot to pack my earplugs. People were staggering out of the main performance space looking shocked and ill.  Because it was all low frequencies, you could still hold a normal conversation in it, if you managed to ignore the fact that your whole body was vibrating, and that you felt like you were living inside someone else's headache. I wonder if it did any structural damage to Central Station up above.

Sushil and I came back here for tea afterwards, and to watch some of Fred Frith's Step Across the Border, as a reminder that being avant-garde can be achieved with technique, skill, humour and entertainment.

Wednesday 13 February 2008

Apparently one of my home-made tunes is getting a play on Radio 1 tonight, in Vic Galloway's show. Does that make me officially cool? Look out for 'What time is arse' under my carefully-chosen pseudonym Willow and the Tearooms. It should turn up in his podcast too.

later
My aging green iPod mini's battery is not what it once was. Apple would no doubt like me to remedy this by shelling out a hundred quid on a lovely new iPod nano, and consign my tired but still functioning device into landfill somewhere. It certainly doesn't look like you can repair it without being an alien from the planet Jobs.

A tempting prospect, I suppose. The new nano is very nice. But no, for seven quid I got a new battery on eBay, and I fitted it myself in 15 minutes with the help of this helpful blogger. So Apple's smug marketing department can piss off. Hooray!

Sunday 3 February 2008

Garden report: a fat bullfinch keeps returning to eat the blossom off the plum tree, and a blackbird-robin-blue tit hierarchy is developing in the customer base for bird seed.

someone overshot the corner a bit on Clarence Drive last night 

The problem with writing a diary like this is that when all the really interesting stuff with the band is going on, I'm far too busy to write about it here. So here I am at the end of the week trying to work out which bits I can muster the energy to recall, digest and relate. 

Monday's concert included my first shot at some Purcell songs with Katharine Fuge, which was tremendous fun and bodes well for our next outing at Hatchlands Park in June, when I get to play the John Player 1664 virginal that probably comes from Charles II's court. It was restored by Darryl Martin the year after he was working on my harpsichord.

Then three days of dance band, where we managed to stay six strong despite Alan succumbing to a killer bug. On the first morning I said 'I have no idea what this is going to sound like' and we played circulating listening games for half an hour before attempting any music. With two people new to the group (Alan and Catriona) and Clare only having played with us once before, there was a lot of ground to cover, but after a couple of days' gentle exploration we had a show. It was also a good reminder that there's a lot of really stunning old Scottish music that needs to get out more. James Lauder's My Lord of Marche Paven gets better every time I hear it. Perhaps I had one too many all day breakfasts in our new friendly local café though - back to a sensible diet now.

I'd chickened out from putting any of my tunes in the repertoire, and then on Wednesday morning I came back from getting a cup of tea to hear Catriona playing 'delighted' and Clare joining in, and within five minutes we'd bolted it onto the beginning of the Arses set and it was in. So it's now a 'delighted with arses' set.

sick drummer

When we made it off stage on Thursday night I think I said something like 'well, I've never heard that before, and I think I want to hear it again' which sort of sums up why I make music in the first place. I want to hear something I haven't heard before, otherwise I'd just listen to someone else or put a record on, and I want it to be something worth hearing more than once, unless it's a one-off event. So I think we can agree that the project was broadly successful (how reticent is that?). Actually it was a blast, can't wait to do it again. But without Katherine, things do still feel fragile and uncertain.

Chris, Alison and I decided to stay on in Perth on Thursday night, as there were severe weather warnings in force and it seemed like a good idea to shorten our journey to Fort William the next day. Which would have been fine if four people hadn't come back to the room between mine and Alison's at 3.30am, and the walls hadn't been paper-thin. After about half an hour of mindless racket, I heard someone (it turned out to be Alison) go and ask them to shut up, and another half an hour later they eventually did. But I really could have done with a proper night's sleep: I think we need to find different accommodation in Perth next time.

Sure enough, on Friday the A9 was closed with snow, so we packed our hired Chrysler Voyager (tour bus of choice for three people and a load of instruments) and set off via Loch Earn and Crianlarich.

Chris and Alison contemplate the weather en route

[while I was typing this Catherine Bott emailed me some of Shirley and Dolly Collins's song arrangements as Sibelius files, so I stopped typing for quite a long time ... more on this later]

On the outside, Lochaber High School is one of the ugliest buildings in the world. You're surrounded by mountains and Loch Linnhe, but if you stand in the playground all you can see is what looks like an old East German prison. Hideous. And our dressing room was the medical office (cough). But the audience that awaited us was enthusiastic and warm, and we had a fantastic time. The acoustic of canteen no. 2 suited us pretty well too, the harpsichord sounded amazing, and the beaten-up upright piano we requested was just right. And I finally made sense of Duncan Burnett's Pavin, and made it sound like an exciting piece of music with a backbone. Hooray.  

from our dressing-room loo

Then it was back to the soothing log fire at the wonderful Lime Tree for beer and crisps, and a three-way interview for Chris's forthcoming radio show on CBC. 

More snow yesterday morning for the drive south made the journey a bit hairy in places (Chris was off on the early train to London to continue his European Grand Tour). But our two short rest stops were very picturesque.

Monarch of the Car Park above Bridge of Orchy 
(at the same spot where Chris was standing in the photo above)

Falls of Falloch in the snow

Sunday 27 January 2008

It was an excellent idea to go and hear Nordik Tree last night. If someone can explain to me why Finnish music has always touched me more deeply than Scottish music, please do. Arto Järvelä still looks about 17 when he plays, just as he did when we saw him playing in Tallari in the Swaledale Festival in 1987. And it was a real treat to hear Timo put my harmonium through its paces.

There was bad news by email waiting for me at the end of our productive rehearsal today: Rob Mackillop has inflamed tendons in his left arm and won't be able to play this week. Bum.

Saturday 26 January 2008

I just packed my harmonium off in a taxi for Timo A to play tonight. Did Radio 4 really play some Jandek this morning? And last night did Radio Scotland really play Tam Dean Burn's fantastic Robert Burns-meets-Iggy Pop version of the Twa Dogs (which starts with a mention of Old King Coil)? And is They Might Be Giants podcast for kids really turning out quite so well? Um, yes.

Am I a little stressed at the prospect of three unprepared-for concert programmes this week? Probably.

Thursday 24 January 2008

There's serious amounts of preparation going on here for next week's concerts. I'm excited about the dance band stuff - I've no idea what it will sound like, but I really want to find out.

I had an interesting chat with Hilary Hahn in Dundee last night - she was saying that one of the biggest adjustments she has to make when playing chamber music rather than concertos, is having to fit in with the equal temperament of the piano. One day someone's going to realise that equal temperament just isn't much use for tonal music.

I'd wondered why Burns included Old King Cole in the Scots Musical Museum - but some traditions have it that the Welsh king Coel Hen (or old Cole) died when defeated by the Scots and Picts in Ayrshire, and Kyle was named after him. So it makes perfect sense. 

Wednesday 16 January 2008

Loads of research- and media-related admin to do. But rather than try to think about music at the same time, I took the middle of the day off and went up here ... 

It was sunny, perfectly still and warm, and you'd never guess it was January, especially with snow forecast for tomorrow. If I hadn't been on my own, I'd have gone for a swim. I saw one other person in two hours, about a mile away.

And this is looking the other way, back to Glasgow.

Speaking of photos, if you've got a brochure for the Celtic Connections festival, look at the inside front cover and in the full page picture there, you'll see it's me and DG on the stage!

Special mention to the nice people at this bike shop in Wiltshire, who when I rang them this morning to ask about whether a bit of my handlepost had fallen off, dismantled a new one to find out, rang me back in half an hour, and put the relevant part in the post.

Monday 14 January 2008

Most of today I've been at my desk, battling with a grant application for a research project. Which shouldn't be a demoralising thing to do, but it is. So I've been peppering the day with other activities like learning a Purcell prelude, getting my notation folder in order for a fortnight's time, playing a few tunes, and preparing a demo CD to send out to a few key people in a particular line of work. And I learnt how to play the beginning of XTC's Complicated Game on the guitar (it's far from complicated), continued my efforts to get a stain out of the hall carpet with an iron, backing parchment, and kitchen roll, and listened more to this rather wonderful record.

Friday 11 January 2008

So the Westminster government has been banging on again about how necessary nuclear energy is, without actually making any hard assurances about anything. And the Scottish government has gone 'yah boo sucks, we're not having any'. But I was amazed when more than one Labour MP settled for shouting that the Scottish position was 'wrong', exactly what happened in my one conversation with the nuclear industry (see 11 July 2006). It's not exactly reasoned debate.

I quickly recorded a final guitar part for a tune last night - well, quickly once I got the kit to work. I was just thinking to myself, 'this is great, I can plug the guitar and headphones in, and be ready to record in a couple of minutes from scratch' when the E-MU Proteus refused to load and instead asked me to insert the original installation CD to verify itself.  Ho hum, OK, and I reached for the relevant shelf - just as well I had it to hand and wasn't out location recording or even worse, on stage. Oh wait a minute, it's not there. I then wasted 30 minutes rummaging around the study and attic, trying not to panic, until I eventually found it, fed it to the computer, and the software was satisfied that I was genuine. But really, it's a bit like buying a guitar, and then after a year it won't play unless you show it the original receipt. 

But the results of the quick session that ensued are now up on my myspace page, or will be soon. When Sushil heard last night's Leslie'd guitar overdub (on American Christmas), he said 'it's Dear Prudence'!

Thursday 10 January 2008

Well, our house survived Tuesday night's storm, but now it's raining. A lot. I was going to run lots of errands on my bike today, but sitting at my desk working seems like a better option right now. And I have the current accumulation of dance band music notation printed out and put in a folder, so I'll play through some of that too.

Here's something very interesting to read (and listen to - the conversation between Byrne and Eno is great). As I'd spent a bit of time in commercial music before this group got going, I knew enough about contracts for us to hang on to the copyrights in most of our recordings: the exceptions are the John Clerk of Penicuik CD, which was funded by means too bizarre to recount here, and Mungrel Stuff which was bankrolled in the old-fashioned way by Linn. But how to use these copyrights now that CDs don't sell much, except at gigs? This question is now receiving some serious consideration. 

Sunday 6 January 2008

I'm managing to resist watching the darts on the telly. Mostly. I've spent lots of time instead with Sibelius and Photoshop, preparing scores for the dance band. And some time preparing artwork with Robbie for our forthcoming 7" vinyl release ...

Yesterday, this article about Brian McMaster's report on arts funding in England was oddly encouraging. You can ignore all the New Renaissance BS which is just a way to make sure that the thing gets mentioned in the press; what's far more radical is the idea that funding decisions might in future be based on whether the work itself is any good. You'd think it was obvious really: the fact that it has to be suggested as a new guiding principle shows just how lunatic the system and its targets are at the moment. Why get involved in public funding when the public arts bodies aren't interested in whether your work is good or bad? I wonder when Scotland will take a similar initiative.

Ursula Leveaux rang last night to say that she was just about to go on stage with Timo Alakotila and Karen Tweed (gloating again ... only kidding), but also that Timo was looking for a harmonium for some gigs coming up, and he'd be in Glasgow today - could he come over and try mine? So he showed up on the doorstep this afternoon, the harmonium passed his test with flying colours, CDs, email addresses and plans for a possible wee collaboration in the summer were duly swapped, and I'll be his volunteer harmonium roadie when he's back here in a few weeks' time. I like Timo's piano playing very much indeed: that the Finnish Arts Council has given him a second 5-year grant shows that they certainly are interested in whether something is any good.

Thursday 3 January 2008

At long last I've started properly putting together the music for the dance band. Psychologically, having a folder full of scores is a good point to reach. There's a bit of a way to go yet, but I'm on the way: two pipe tunes arrived from Chris in Lunenburg yesterday.

Somehow while doing that today I also managed to record from scratch a faintly ridiculous version of Fred Frith's Some Clouds Do, after having an idea about it on the way back from the recycling centre this morning. Clare Salaman says the end result sounds like a chaotic commune of musicians playing together inside my mouth. 

Wednesday 2 January 2008

A Good New Year to everyone. Here's a present! 

©2008 David McGuinness
all opinions are those of the author - you don't have to share them