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David
McGuinness's diary Sunday 27 August 2006 I was at home yesterday while some of the family were at the enormously civilised Edinburgh Book Festival again, in the company of First Minister Jack McConnell no less, and with no apparent evidence of heightened security. It's hard to imagine Tony Blair showing up at an event to talk about childrens' literature, without an immense entourage and micro-management of his every word. You see, Scotland is quite a civilised place really. Meanwhile, I had a useful chat with Chris about possible future recording projects. Now is not the time to make any kind of plans, but we can wait for one of a number of possible futures to present itself. Friday 25 August 2006 An interesting conversation with David G last night. BAA, the airports authority here, has specifically banned violins and cellos from being carried onto planes. Related news stories are here, here and here. Chris somehow managed to carry his flutes on to a UK flight from San Diego last weekend, oddly enough. But DG is going to borrow a violin on this side of the Atlantic for his trip next week (thanks Ruth!). If we're to keep working together, he's going to have to have a violin on this side of the ocean. Now that's a serious bit of investment to have to make for an ludicrously draconian security rule. Is there any evidence that terrorists have ever been minded to conceal high explosive in valuable antiques? Is anyone with any influence from the music industry talking to government about this? Wednesday 23 August 2006 My Gator harmonium case had its first gig by rail, and it proved possible if difficult to cart it around trains and stations. It's very big. And I broke one of the wheels leaving the house on Monday. But there are two left, so it can still be dragged along station platforms: just as well. Sunday 20 August 2006 We went to hear Martin and Eliza Carthy playing in Milngavie last night, in the cozy (well, hot and sticky actually) confines of the Fraser Centre: just like being crammed into a tiny village hall. Great entertainment, and the first time I've seen Mr Carthy playing in the flesh. He played guitar all night and didn't play one single chord. And what a sense of rhythm. Opening the gig was Jo Mango, whose voice is alarmingly reminiscent of Stina Nordenstam with a slight Scots accent. She is that rare thing, a folk performer with real dynamic range: everything grows out of silence. Her opening number, accompanying herself virtuosically on kalimba, was a jaw-dropping start: absolutely entrancing. I wonder if she could do with some better songs though. Now packing to head off to Machynlleth. Chris, Alison and I are playing in the Music Festival in the Tabernacle on Tuesday night, so come and hear us if you're in mid-Wales. Of course I've no idea yet what we're actually going to play. News just in: it looks like Radio 3 will be recording Lisa and me doing our Janis Joplin thing in Orkney next summer. Friday 18 August 2006 But today, rather than hanging around the Book Festival waiting to see who came along, I had lunch in Valvona's with Glenys Hughes to talk about next year's St Magnus Festival, while I stuffed my face with sprats and rocket. Lisa called at just the right time to agree to a Bach cantata and to revisit Janis Joplin, so it's all systems go I think. Exhausted now. Tuesday
15 August 2006 Friday 11 August 2006 Another reluctant diary entry. But today was Katherine's funeral. I've been lying in the bath, listening to the Höökensemblen, and toasting Katherine with some very fine whisky from the cup that she bought me in Fife a few weeks ago, and that she never got the chance to present me with. It's been good to celebrate such a multi-faceted and purposeful life. But I can't help feeling profoundly sad for all the sounds I'll never hear, for the music and the friendship we might have made months and years down the line. I will relate just one incident from today, because I'm sure Katherine would have been very amused to hear that for one day only, my keyboard roadie, helping me lug flight cases and gear in and out of my car, was Mark Padmore. He did sing as well of course. Tuesday 1 August 2006 For some reason I feel compelled to write something here today, but nothing seems quite appropriate. It’s too early after the day’s events for the conventional types of writing in these circumstances. And it’s too early for anything to make sense. But here goes. -- About 10 years ago I was amazed that there didn’t seem to be a band called Lion. What a great name, I thought. It’s got strength without being too macho, it’s Scottish without being exclusively so, it’s short, easy to recognise. All I need is a band and I’ll call it Lion. It doesn’t seem to fit a baroque group, and I’ve got one of those with a dodgy name already. So when we were
recording Spring Any Day Now, and I had the idea of getting Katherine and Alison
together with me and DG, and it all seemed to work very well indeed, I thought,
maybe this is the group to call Lion. And gradually the idea grew up of our
quartet as a kind of touring subset of Concerto Caledonia – the defining core
of the group, and its R&D department. We felt like a real group from the
beginning: everyone developed a musical and personal connection with everyone
else, we all had our own musical backgrounds and skills, and we looked after one
another when things didn’t go as well as we would have liked.
We even have four little button badges with the lion/lamb on, one each.
From time to time people would ask me ‘What’s with the lion thing?’ and
I’d try and explain and say ‘It’ll all make sense when the Lion CD comes
out’: the one that’s been in production for three years (I finally got the
sample clearance forms out of Universal Music yesterday after a month’s wait,
incidentally – the planned release date of 1 September will probably slip a
bit). Last year, when the four of us were living in Well, maybe it was too good to last. As of today, and the news of Katherine’s death, Lion as a group is no more. We won’t be looking for another fourth member - no-one can replace her. -- Back home. The first person I met on leaving the airport was a minicab driver who whined and moaned angrily about how long he'd had to wait for me to get my luggage. Welcome to Scotland. I took my suitcase back from him and got on the bus. Saturday 27 July 2006 My experience of Canadian airport security staff as being thorough but entertaining continues. After finding every piece of metal about my person, they offered me a share of their watermelon and a napkin. That's a new one. Today started with another spectacular breakfast from Patty: blueberry pancakes (wild blueberries from a few miles down the road) with orange butter, raspberries melon and orange, thick plain yogurt and maple syrup. Olympic standard I think. By the next time I visit they'll have moved house, so it was a sad farewell to them and to my four bed ward and its history of sick sailors. The Wills family gave me a lift to Halifax, which was a chance to share our knowledge of British comedy, Radio 4 podcasts, Ivor Cutler and Daniel Johnston, and to play the word game which my daughter Susie and I have developed over the last few months. In its simplest form, it just involves two people improvising a sentence by saying alternate words, but it has now developed a series of arcane rules about how often you can incorporate key words such as 'explode' or 'doom' (following 'of'). As today progressed, the game became more and more baroque, drawing in most of the Greenberg family in their sunny back garden, and it also acquired rules about when you could say the word 'arse', and when you could get thrown out of the hammock for violations of game etiquette. Hours of hysterical laughter followed by an afternoon nap seemed like a good way to recover from last night's gig and a very late night. Once my teaching was finally completed yesterday, and I'd succeeded in buying presents to take home, I went along to rehearse a couple of tunes with Chris and the guys (DG, Andy and Nick in this case). I was pretty done in, but it was very nice indeed to be in their musical company. Nick beat me to the Casavant organ for once, so he provided celestes and bourdons and I played the United church's new Yamaha upright piano. We had the last spot in the gig after Rod Garnett, Paddy Keenan and Kevin Crawford, and Jean Michel Veillon. I've never been introduced to an audience as 'one of the UK's best ... legs' before. I was wearing my kilt and just wandered onto the stage in time to distract Chris. He continued with 'one of the UK's best ... arses' before I stopped him in his tracks. In the unholy jam session that ended the show, DG's contribution was for the two of us to break into his ragtime tune 'Dad's Day 87' which in the middle of an Irish Jig was pretty funny. And despite coming in on a set of jigs for the first time ever, Marten's face only radiated total comfort and relaxation. Similarly when on the melodica I made a point of smiling across at other members of the ensemble whenever I found myself in the wrong key or otherwise lost. A bit like Lisa Milne's strategy, which I hope she won't mind me repeating here, of 'When you forget the words, smile and point at someone in the audience'. It was back to the Lunenburg Fire Hall for the last time after the gig for a couple of beers, lots of conversation, and about an hour of saying goodbyes to people - I walked back through the town in the fog and made it to bed before 3. Well, here I am at the airport after a week of very hard pretty much non-stop work, rewarded by some perfect hospitality and a pretty constant stream of nice people telling me how great I am: one conversation last night actually included 'But David, you are a god', which isn't an possibility I'd ever considered before, or ever will again. I blame the beer. When I get off the plane in the morning, I'll be back to being a normal run-of-the-mill pleb with responsibilities and a complicated life. But I get to see my family again! Woo hoo! Thursday 27 July 2006 In the concert we ran Chiling o Guiry straight into Corrette's Les Voyages d'Ulysse, so Ulysses now begins his odyssey in Ireland, and as a result of some audience suggestions the middle movement which describes his time with Calypso has been retitled 'The Seven Year Itch' or 'Midlife Crisis'. DG prepares for audience reaction to the gig
OK, here goes with a potted version of the last few days with an addendum of random fragments. Friday: I arrived in Halifax to be met by DG holding a mug of Earl Grey, and with a Chinese carry out stashed in the car, which we could eat before I tuned the harpsichord at the Maritime Conservatory. And it's a rather splendid instrument by William Dowd. 'That's not a conservatory instrument,' I said, 'it's from 1982 and there's not a scratch on it'. But they only got it recently. Lucky them. Evening rehearsal with the Tempest folks was good way to start the week: a really nice bunch of people who were extremely patient with my jet lag and stiff fingers. Saturday: just time for a bit of interaction with most of family Greenberg before Kate drove us to Lunenburg and another two rehearsals in the church. Marten Root began to relax properly after we told him over lunch that the concert wasn't actually that night. Meanwhile, Chris was in the kitchen down at Lunenburg Fire Hall preparing a Lobster Boil for about 100 people. By the time I got there after checking in with Fred and Patty, the place was packed and I couldn't make out anyone I knew, so I got my melodica out and joined Andy and Nick in the jazz band for most of their first set, desperately reading chord symbols from fake books. The lobster was great too. This is how Chris prepares for a concerto broadcast - he'd just cooked steak and scallops for about 60 people while the rest of us rehearsed ...
Sunday was our big opening concert, which would have been a fairly straightforward baroque gig, were it not for the 'jolly boys' segment where I managed to play piano, harmonium and melodica - too many keyboards in one gig. I think I lose points for showing off. Chris introduced our trio as a 'parking lot band': we once stood in a parking lot and decided that the three of us would make a great band but we've never actually done anything about getting any work, we just do spots in other people's concerts. Marten accused me of being a typical Brit by telling the best gags (loosely about Balbastre) but he easily got the biggest laugh of the night himself, for immaculately timing his line about Frederick the Great being a 'bloodthirsty tyrant ... who played the flute'. There were at least 60 flute players in the audience. I can't remember what DG said to introduce the encore of the Muffat G major passacaglia - something about it being music of pure joy I think - but playing it certainly was joyous at the end of a gig like that, with a packed and hugely enthusiastic audience: a good way to start a festival. I don't think I've ever mentioned to DG that it's one of my favourite favourite pieces of music too ... just after the gig outside St John's Church, Lunenburg, NS
a few seconds later when I realise how wet DG's shirt is
Monday to Wednesday have now become a bit of a blur so here is a random list of things that occurred. - DG acquired from Aysha Wills (pictured in the hat to the left of Chris's beer above) a new nickname of 'Smaw'. This derives from Seb Hunter's succinct description of Red Priest as 'Four middle-aged weirdos'. DG was recently deputising for Julia Bishop when she was on maternity leave, so SMAW stands for Substitute Middle-Aged Weirdo. - I initiated Russ Ayres into the melodica brotherhood by taking him to Lunenburg's hardware store to buy a melodica maintenance kit: a philips screwdriver and a sawn-off chainsaw file. This gave me a profound sense of satisfaction for some reason.
(Russ's wife Kathy took me to ER in Pittsburgh
a few years ago when I had iritis ...) - We're based in Lunenburg Academy (pictured right), which although it is a functioning elementary school, is really also a museum. Waxed wooden floors everywhere, a 1950s picture of the Queen looking down on you in every room, countless old fittings still intact and in use. At night the whole place looks like a cake. DG and I had the place to ourselves on Tuesday evening for a hysterically tired rehearsal where we spent most of the time laughing at one another. - Somehow I don't seem to have any free time at all. I never made it out sailing despite several offers from people to take me, and I never even managed to cycle round the town. Next time I hope. - It's very good to have played in the opening concert, as pretty much everyone at the festival knows who I am as a result. I don't have to try to sum up my musical life in a couple of pithy sentences, a task that usually turns me into Mr Reticent. - I've been playing for and occasionally contributing to Marten's morning 415 classes, where I've learnt loads about attitude, research, 18th century practice, and how to entertain in a masterclass situation without resorting to cheap tricks. Really inspiring actually: I might stop using 'early music' as a term of abuse, even if only occasionally. - Have I mentioned the copious amounts of good food? We've been eating communally in Lunenburg's Fire Hall (at the back of the town fire station). I brought supplies with me from Scotland of fruit, seeds, chocolate, and various tea bags, expecting to have to keep myself fuelled up. Pretty much none of it was required. Chris got the oatcakes, and the Greenbergs got the chocolate and the apricots. - I wandered past the acoustically opulent gymnasium which was the harpsichord's lair today, stuck my head round the door to hear who was playing, and just had time to say 'that sounds nice' before Marie Marceau got up from the harpsichord to say 'Would you play for me in the Bach B minor sonata now?' 'OK.' 'I haven't played baroque flute for a few years.' 'No worries.' Then she started playing and I nearly fell off my chair at the abundance of music that came out. We only got a couple of pages in when someone else appeared with something more 'official' for me to do, so we never got to the end ... so many musical tendrils left hanging. - I bought some Crocs at the chiropractor's shop on Wednesday. Black ones (I couldn't get orange). I bought them for gardening in, but judging from the advice in the shop and the number of participants wearing them here, they may come to see a lot more action than that. Friday 21 July 2006 And I watched Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe on BBC4, just to see if his virtuoso misanthropy comes across as well in person as in print. Of course it does. He has a face (to misquote one of his more memorable phrases) that looks like someone just opened a packet of shitbiscuits under his nose. His concluding 5 minute rant about the insiduous nature of makeover TV was quite brilliant, and he invents compound swearwords better than most people too. The programme looks like it has a budget of 10p and is a bit hit-and-miss to be honest, but well worth it nonetheless. Given that I rarely watch more than an hour of television a week, why I enjoy programmes about television is a bit of a mystery. So far, today's travelling has been regulation miserable. No disasters, but no spirits-lifting moments of joy either. The check-in queue was non-existent in Glasgow, so having got up at 5.30am especially to stand in it, I sat and read the paper for an hour instead. Have I mentioned before how much I loathe and detest Heathrow airport? Ferried around on cattle trucks, broken escalators, stifling heat, and it's smelly. Ugh. And once on the plane we had to wait 45 minutes before the thing could actually take off. At least I made my connection with a few minutes to spare, and now I'm on a tatty old Air Canada 767: they clearly keep the nice shiny new planes for proper influential people who are going to big proper cities. We're stopping off in Newfoundland before heading for Halifax and my evening rehearsal with DG and Tempest. To pass the time I've relaxed my newfound puritanical attitude to alcohol by having a couple of glasses of (really foul) wine, and reading Seb Hunter's Rock Me Amadeus, which Tommy Pearson bullied me by text message into buying when I was on holiday. At least I phoned my local bookshop at home to order it and then picked it up on my bike rather than using Amazon. But it's very funny (on the whole), even if he spends a fair chunk of a chapter taking the piss out of my old pal Susanna Pell. To my shame, I have to admit that on my iPod is the DIY Songs compilation that Warners (I think) have put together. I saw it lying around in an editing room the other day and couldn't resist borrowing it. Yes, this is how the major record companies evaluate music: not 'is it any good?' but 'can you put up a shelf to it?' In its defence, it does have the Stranglers' Golden Brown on it, pretty much the only hit record I can think of that uses a harpsichord properly as an accompaniment instrument. So that's all right then. No it isn't. A lazy dad-rock compilation with the occasional hammering reference thrown in for 'humour' is not excused by the inclusion of genius like Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick either. I'll go back to listening to Music in Twelve Parts. Now that's what I call travelogue music. 12. Wednesday 19 July 2006 Today is forecasted to be the hottest day ever on record in the UK. Not ideal for getting all the things done I would like to, before heading to Canada: practising (had forgotten it's four years since I last played the Balbastre sonate en quatuor that's in Sunday's broadcast), packing, gardening, laundry, and various bits of business to tidy up. Strange for it to be too hot to go outdoors in Glasgow. At least the laundry will get dry. It looks like the dates won't work out for a possible gig in Moscow that came up for December - shame. Thursday 13 July The nearest thing I've got on my iPod here is the first solo album by Syd's friend Kevin Ayers, which shares with The Madcap Laughs a drummer in Robert Wyatt, and a dreamy drug-addled songwriter with a bass voice using his own accent. I used to listen to Ayers's album on holiday as a teenager. It's a great record, packing the kind of charm that Belle & Sebastian might achieve if they weren't allergic to musical competence. David Bedford's arrangements and piano playing strike a perfect balance between intelligence and wilful knowing stupidity. Tuesday 11 July I've only brushed with the nuclear industry once and it wasn't a nice experience. The theatre company I'd worked for in the late 80s had turned down offers of major investment and sponsorship from BNFL, as becoming the 'social conscience' of Sellafield wouldn't feel too good. In 1992 I was due to be guest directing a programme of Byrd that I'd put together, for another early music group. All was going fine until the season brochure was about to go to press, and someone casually mentioned that my concerts were to be sponsored by Scottish Nuclear, the company which at the time was the vehicle for government subsidy of the nuclear industry. We still had a Conservative government (largely unelected in Scotland), and the huge cost to the public purse of its embracing of nuclear power was becoming apparent. I withdrew from the concerts immediately, not wanting my name to be publicly associated with the promotion of an increasingly unsupportable policy. And I hadn't spent years of my life studying the music of Byrd and his colleagues only to have it used as PR for the nuclear industry. The following Sunday lunchtime I was relaxing at home, when I got a phone call from one John S Moreland, OBE, who was the group's chairman, and a director of Scottish Nuclear. He seemed determined to have an argument with me, and ended his attempted bullying with a desperate 'You are WRONG'. I don't think I was. Saturday 8 July This morning I saw the printed programme for Crear, which I have to say to my eyes radiates spectacularly inflated ideas of its own self-importance. Smug factor 10. (The website's not so bad.) Notwithstanding my previous paragraph and the experience of a couple of weeks ago, I've never really bought into the 'escape away from your life into the country to be creative' thing. I think real life fires creativity more effectively. You just need time to get the stuff out. But classical music seems to encourage that 'get away from it all' approach: is that because engaging with classical music is really a cultural escape (even if a welcome temporary one) from the contemporary world? On holiday I've had a chance to consider my ever-decreasing desire to make records. It now seems like such a convoluted way to disseminate music, when there are more direct means available. Not only is the process complicated and drawn-out, but the revenue generated for us is minuscule, unless we sell the things ourselves. By the time our 'Lion' CD comes out it will have been nearly three years since we started recording it. So I suspect that it will be our last, unless of course a record company actually commissions us with hard cash to make another, but that sort of thing doesn't happen much these days. Having product to sell at gigs is great, but limited edition short runs that we make ourselves would be just as much fun, and there is our back catalogue of course. What I think we must pursue instead of further CD releases is making our music available for purchase and download here on our website. Globally, issues of music copyright are continually in flux at the moment, and in any case we own most of our recordings already. But this clunky old site needs some investment. I remember years ago reading Bob Geldof say that one of the best things about being in a band was getting into other people's gigs for free. Well, one of the nice things about making records is that people tend to give you records. A while ago, someone handed me K. McCarty's album of Daniel Johnston songs
Dead Dog's Eyeball (Dan J had an early childhood encounter with the words to I am the Walrus as did I), and this week I've finally got around to listening to it. Over and over. What great songs. What sympathetic, beautifully judged arrangements and singing. I like it very much. Saturday 1 July Meanwhile, this is an ideal chance to write about not playing. Not 'not playing' as in not showing up for the gig like I am at the moment, but choosing not to play as an active musical decision 'in the moment' (and yes, I'm flagellating myself for using that dreadful piece of Californese). I think the first time I did it on stage was last November (although my diary entry says that I'd done it before, wonder when that was), at the end of a few days' rehearsal in which I'd tried and failed to imbue the music around me with some sense of vertical movement. By that I mean music that makes you want to move or dance, like almost all baroque music is supposed to. I'd managed to make a bit of a difference by making practical musical suggestions in rehearsal (it wasn't my rehearsal), but things had slipped back into needlessly turgid and I couldn't think of anything to play that would help, or that would make me feel like I was making listenable music. So in the concert, in front of hundreds of people, I stopped playing. As a continuo player, playing nothing is one of your musical options, so it wasn't going to get me the sack. More recently, when we were rehearsing the John Passion in March, I had real difficulty with one player in particular whose response when the music needed help was to play louder and more demonstratively in an attempt to move it in the desired direction. I found this very disturbing, although it took me a while to realise why. I felt musically bullied in my own group. It made me want to leave the room, but I settled for going out into the auditorium to listen. To stop playing can be a very positive thing to do. If no meaningful music is happening, stop playing and listen to what is going on. It's simple. It helps both you and the musicians around you to hear what is really going on, and nobody is put under pressure. It saves time in rehearsal, because you're not wasting valuable time playing nonsense. It saves your energy, and it minimises stress too. So, browbeaten professional musicians of the world, rise up and stop. © 2006 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
