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David
McGuinness's diary Friday 30 July 2004 But I still can't relax enough to sleep properly on the outward leg. So it's a chance to prove my theory that other people's newspapers are always more interesting to read than your own, even when it's the same paper, and that sampling a selection of feature films silently and simultaneously is usually far preferable to putting the airline headphones on and subjecting yourself wholeheartedly to whatever pap is on offer, divested of its bass frequencies. On offer around me at the moment is a variety of glossy pain-free and consequence-free violence (bad guys in bad haircuts getting hit with big things a lot), softened only by the few screens showing The Cat in the Hat. Give me the 5000 Fingers of Dr T anytime - I missed my golden chance to take my kids to see that one at our local cinema a couple of weeks ago, as we were on holiday at the time. So the nearest I've got to sleeping is to have a moderate amount of alcohol (including some of the 1990 Ardbeg I brought with me for the purpose) and listen to Muse's 'Absolution' album which is very effective at obliterating all other sonic intrusions, i.e. it's very loud. It's also quite brilliant. Most guitar bands bore me rigid but these guys work hard. And yes I know they're not technically a guitar band as the guitarist in question also plays a neat Liberace piano ... but it's refreshing to hear unashamed use of classical 19th century harmony played at ear-bleeding volume. later I was rewarded for my sprint with an early evening view of Central Park and the Met Museum as we flew out. Sunday 25 July 2004 It's been holiday time, although I did manage to fit in trawling through a lot of the session tapes for SADN II which was great fun, and buying another melodica and tuning it to a'=442Hz. I've figured out how to make one at A=415 now but it requires a friend with a computer controlled lathe. I have a deluge of email to deal with, much of it about my forthcoming trip to Nova Scotia and Ottawa, playing individually and collectively with DG, Chris and Suzie leB. So I have four different concert programmes to remember and a recording session in Halifax to fit in as well. And I'll come back straight into sessions for Geminiani. So it's not a time for thoughtful diary entries really. The release of The Red Red Rose has been delayed a bit. I'm not sure by how much yet ... Tuesday 6 July 2004 Well, I would have hoped that by now I'd have recorded all my contributions to Chris's new album, but it didn't work out that way. I've recorded nothing. On Sunday night my PC refused to play the backing tracks without the very occasional and tiny skip - just enough to make syncing the thing up afterwards a complete nightmare - so the piano parts are now postponed until I can do them on a real piano in Nova Scotia next month (if the studio there is free). And then last night I showed up at my local studio to record the harmonium and melodica, and the receptionist had used the wrong colour pen and booked me into the rehearsal room by mistake. So no joy there either. At least I've learnt the music now. But I was left with Paul Moore's harmonium in the back of the car and no easy way to get it out ... . Add to that a fruitless 20 minutes spent on the phone to various people at Caledonian Macbrayne trying to find out what they do when tickets get lost in the post (so far, nothing!) and it wasn't the most productive of days. On top of this, mid-afternoon my phone did that Nokia trick of losing the signal for no apparent reason for half an hour, and then my Psion diary mysteriously started to run very slowly indeed. Chaos breeds chaos I think, technologically speaking. Entropy gathers entropy or something. But I did manage some Geminiani practice, and two successful wrapping-up/evaluation meetings: one with Ben Twist about our March tour, and one with our genial contact from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts, Eugene Magill. Maybe today will work out better. Sunday 4 July 2004 On Thursday I had a whole day at home - the last proper one until about September - so I spent it practising Geminiani solos while reconfiguring a computer in the kitchen. Really serious practice is often best done whilst doing something else, so that you don't get too closed in on yourself mentally and physically. At the end of the day I recorded myself playing all the pieces so that when I eventually listen back to it I'll know what details to work on next. Listening to yourself when not actually engaged in playing, you hear all kinds of things that you would miss when a large chunk of your brain is still involved in the actual moving of the digits. My other job on Thursday was to make the company accounts look presentable to share with the ConCal board on Friday night. We had two new directors, and one retiring; lots of support and useful advice were dispensed. Very worthwhile. I also got my copy of Cubasis to work so that I can record my piano overdubs for Chris's Christmas album at home. I haven't used Cubase for about ten years, but I can remember some of the keyboard commands and I don't have to do any complicated editing, just comp some takes. There's something satisfying about being able to record at home, but I've booked into to a cheap local studio on Monday night to record the harmonium and melodica. On the subject of overdubs, I got a message from Lisa Milne today that she's up for appearing on SADN II - so 'Lisa sings the Buzzcocks' could become a reality after all. I've spent some of my train journey listening carefully to the rough mixes of Chris's tracks and writing down all the chords that Andy plays on the guitar, so that I don't obliterate all his harmony. Because I live close to the airport, it's years since I took a long train journey like this (apart from the occaisonal overnight sleeper) and it's a very civilised way to travel. I used to do it all the time. I was in York yesterday to produce a session for Ricordo's next CD of Schmelzer for Linn: they're doing most of it in the autumn, but this was the only day the wind players were free to do their bits. So after their live appearance on Radio 3's Early Music Show (with Alison playing violone) we waited for the BBC to clear out and then set up our gear. Being around York during the Early Music Festival inevitably means bumping into all kinds of people: Kate Bott was presenting the radio show, and Mhairi, Gary Cooper, Paula Chateauneuf, and various others were around later on - a chance to swap stories and have the inevitable 'we really must do some stuff together sometime' conversations. I might have wangled another trip to the Met Museum in NYC next April too. Driving south with sound engineer Matt Parkin yesterday, we listened to the new demo from Greg's klezmer/Balkan band Moishe's Bagel. Utterly brilliant (and pianist Phil Alexander plays the melodica, what more could you want). Greg gave me a copy after I bumped into him for the first time in months, in the garage at the bottom of our road at 11.30pm on Thursday. A couple of times they've asked me to produce sessions for them, but they don't need a producer, just someone to push them into the room and say 'go'. As Alison said when I played it to her yesterday, 'there's always at least one more thing going on than needs to be there', so it's tremendous fun to listen to. I must take a copy to Canada in a few weeks for Mr Greenberg, in his role as connoisseur of Jewish fiddle players. Sunday 27 June 2004 The voluminous post-concert/recording correspondence has taken some entertaining turns. Names have been removed from the following excerpts from today's mailbox ...
Saturday 26 June 2004 Well, the harmonium nearly made it back in one piece - two panels came apart in transit, but this morning a friendly joiner has glued and clamped one of them and taken the other one away. Once I've got myself a reed puller (a bit like a screwdriver but subtly different) I can set about tuning it, in some of the spare time I haven't got. Earlier tonight I was drilling holes in the study floor to run speaker cables: it's only taken me four and a half years to get around to that job. There's been a veritable email flood of mutual congratulation from Suzie and everyone in the band after last week: we all seem to have enjoyed it rather a lot. And now the discussions turn to running orders, cover images, translations of the texts, and first edits appearing soon on a website which I'm not going to tell you about. I've also been starting to work out what I'm going to play in my overdubs for the Chris Norman Ensemble Christmas record (it's not cheesy at all, honest!). Once I've taken some musical decisions, we can get to the logistical and technical ones, because I might be recording it in Glasgow in the next fortnight, in Halifax NS at the beginning of August, or some of each. But I feel some gratuitous gospel piano coming on. Monday 21 June 2004
Somehow, in between throwing a frisbee around the car park, eating lots of great food, and going to the park in Terrebonne when there was a mass going on in the church, we finished all the recording on Friday. Given that with some songs we
scrapped most of our arrangements and re-worked them from scratch in the session, that's pretty good going. We ended at about midnight with
Joli And then on Saturday I was so tired that I couldn't move, so I hung around the coach house, did everyone's laundry and eventually made it out to the Frénésie de la Main, a street market on Boulevard Saint-Laurent that stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. Glorious sunshine, countless thousands of people and a fun atmosphere. David G and I failed to buy anything apart from dinner, but that didn't matter. People-watching was entertainment enough. The three of us provided at least one course each for a substantial meal, and I crawled off to bed early in the hope that the builders across the alley would keep the Sabbath and let me sleep in (and they did). On Saturday morning DG had his masterclasses and successfully completed his 'word of the day' challenge (as Chris witnessed) by including the phrase 'musicians grow dumb'. You have to say it quite fast. Yes, we can be very childish. Speaking of childish, Chris sat at the kitchen table in the afternoon and I recorded his playing the guitar solo for the Buzzcocks' song Boredom on the baroque flute. Unfortunately my unscreened mic cable picked up a variety of Francophone and Anglophone radio stations as well, but the random effect is quite amusing. We also started to figure out how on earth I'm going to record my overdubs for his Christmas album - probably in Halifax, NS in August ... Yesterday was our open-air gig in the Place des Vestiges at the old port, with people out on the water in pedalos and lots of bikes too. Inevitably the sound guys weren't ready for our soundcheck at 1, so what with being in a park, Chris's frisbee dominated the proceedings again. It was particularly wonderful so see someone as physically expert and agile as our dancing master Pierre making a complete arse of throwing a frisbee. But then I was throwing like a girl myself until I got some practice in on Thursday. Soundcheck completed (and what joy to play amplified harpsichord and melodica to a park full of people on a sunny Sunday afternoon), we went down to the harbour for a brief video shoot. Chris has decided that the three of us should be henceforth known as Joli Bois, or was it Les Garçons du Joli Bois or The Jolly Boys, I've forgotten. Plenty of excuses for lame puns about wood ... I won't reproduce here the photo I have of Chris at the harbour with a renaissance flute in an unusual playing position. [The kid in front of me on the plane is watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on a portable DVD player, so a young Tim Brooke-Taylor keeps appearing in my peripheral vision. And now we're treated to a great view of the Manhattan skyline as we come into Newark, I'll continue this on the flight home]
The gig itself was great fun, we had Daniel Tonnon on vielle (in an unusual twist, his vielle's carved head is of Mickey Mouse) and a piper as a warm-up act, followed by a juggler with improvised accompaniment by DG; then we took to the stage as it began to grow dark. The occasional gust of wind aside (felling Betsy's music stand at one point), it was a lot of fun and the audience were vocal and enthusiastic. Suzie sang great as always - I haven't mentioned this yet, have I? My melodica solos were OK rather than stunning (nerves I suppose) and I managed to dislodge the Estey Cottage Organ's pedal rod from its slot just before its big number - of course I then made the mistake of saying 'hey David I've just broken the harmonium' right into the mic. We fixed it again in a matter of seconds. And before the night was out, Chris had bought it from Daniel and loaded it into his beloved old Mercedes station wagon. Now if I'd had a way of getting it home, I'd have got there first. But taking two harmoniums home from a trip to Canada is a bit extreme even for me. What must have looked a bit strange is that when Chris played his enormous G flute (more wood gags) he was facing away from the rest of us, and eventually lurked at the back of the stage. He was just trying to make sure that the wind he blew across the soundhole wasn't cancelled out by the wind coming in the opposite direction, but it must have looked like he'd had enough of the rest of us and was sulking in the corner. After the gig, Pierre called some dances, occasionally stepping as well, while Chris and David played tunes. I watched from the stage for a bit, and then I was getting itchy feet myself. At that point, Catherine Motuz (the festival co-ordinator, about to go to Basle to study sackbut) appeared, to make arrangements for the all-important post-concert beer. 'Want to dance?' 'Well, I'm supposed to be organising this whole thing.' 'Wouldn't it be great to dance though?' 'Yeah, OK.' So we joined the throng and I tried to make sense of contredanses and square dances called with great style in French. My dancing was inept but the band were fantastic. Square dances are a bit predatory though, with the four blokes walking around the girls checking them over and then trying them out one at a time. Still, all good clean fun really. Hey, I was in a park on a Sunday night in Montréal, why not re-enact some primitive courting ritual with a bunch of Francophone strangers while my mates play some tunes? The festival club was in the Café á propos, and when we arrived, Martin from McGill, who'd been one of my masterclass victims and is playing in the Bruges competition this year, was playing Susie Napper's harpsichord on the little stage. After a while, a band materialised with a bunch of fiddle players, and
it was announced to the assembled drinkers that anyone was welcome to come and join in, but that they were playing at 415 - if there was enough demand, though, they would consider hiking up a semitone to 440.
After all this, the Jolly Boys sat up late listening to the second edit of The Red Red Rose, and DG ended the evening sufficiently drunk to be singing Beatles songs from next door as I went to bed at about 3.15am. This morning I was wasted again of course, and it took me all my time and energy to tidy up a bit, to pack, and to buy and apply some bubble wrap to protect the harmonium on its flight home. I hope it survives intact. Friday 18 June 2004
I'm a bit tired this morning after last night's recording session finished just after midnight with a wild set of tunes complete with Pierre's stepdancing. I wanted to record the Cape Breton-y stuff at the end of the day when the harpsichord was really out of tune, for an authentic homely kind of party feel, but I think I'd like to listen back to it this morning just to see whether that was rather foolish. later, Terrebonne photo: Chris has a cottage organ epiphany Wednesday 16 June 2004 Chris, David G and I are staying in the 'coach house' at the back of Susie Napper's house, so for the last couple of days we've only had to walk across the courtyard to get to rehearsals, stopping only to pick up wonderful home baking on the way through the kitchen. How does Susie have the energy to run a festival, play in several of its concerts, and still get up early to bake? Incredible. The three of us lads have never actually been in the same place together before, so staying in the same house is an added bonus and camaraderie is in abundance. Unfortunately the building site across the alley starts work at 7am, but as I'm in 'just crossed the Atlantic westward' mode I'm waking up early anyway. Our house has just had a heart-shaped 2-person bath put in, and I spent some time yesterday morning trying to get some hot water, until I realised that the revenge of the Anglophone plumbers had struck, and the 'chaud' and 'froid' taps were on the wrong way round. Chris and I were teaching masterclasses at McGill University last night, and he got his revenge for my 'word of the day' triumph in Alabama last year, working his chosen (unrepeatable) phrase seamlessly into one of his classes, while I in my jet-lag completely failed to get the words 'jack' and 'off' in the right order in mine. It's a legitimate phrase to use when discussing harpsichords, honest. Once woken by the builders this morning, I headed for a very cool internet cafe this morning to try to co-ordinate a ConCal board meeting - for some reason BT had flagged all my previous messages about this as spam. In the back of the car right now is my newly-acquired Estey folding harmonium. It needs a bit of TLC and maintenance, and it's a few beats sharp of 440Hz, but I think it could prove very useful. Despite its being out of tune and there being a few notes missing at the moment, we're planning to use it on this record. Until a better option comes along ... Speaking of which, it's going rather well: the three of us and Suzie leBlanc are joined by Betsy Macmillan on gamba and Sylvain Bergeron on acoustic and baroque guitars, and it's gradually refining itself from a raucous jam session into something approaching music. Great songs too. And Pierre Chartrand will be doing some spectacular step-dancing on a few tracks. Today we're moving into the church where we'll be recording, 3 days of sessions to follow, then open-air concert on Sunday night. And the plateau of Montréal is a very cool place indeed. Sunday 13 June 2004 It's been a weekend of frantic domestic work-outs, and bits of advance planning: booking flights, hotels, tidying up email that's about to hit the 'more than urgent' list. And tonight: packing. Perhaps the 3am finish last night was a bit ill-advised. An excellent text message from Alison mid-morning to say that Ivor Cutler had just introduced himself to her on the tube. Thursday 10 June 2004 I'm back from a few days in Kent and London as part of Alison's backing band playing the Geminiani cello sonatas, and I'm left with a curious quandry, choosing a harpsichord for the recording in August. We rehearsed with a fabulous Ruckers copy by Andreas Kilström: a rich, opulent, varied Bentley of an instrument that's absolutely perfect for the solo pieces, but is so loud and resonant that's it's not always sympathetic to a couple of cellos: it's very easy to get in the way, and also pretty easy just to drown out everyone else. We borrowed an excellent small Italian for the concert, which balanced much better, and left me able to relax more and play more notes, but it didn't quite have the balls for the big stuff. I'll listen back to the recording of the concert and think on. Eligio Quintiero is playing an alto guitar, keeping well out of the cellos' range, which works beautifully. It's great fun to be playing with him again - musical ideas just flow out of him, and everything stays in a constant state of flux, a kind of never-ending musical pragmatism reacting to the sonic surroundings, which is a very social way to work. I think we hardly said a word about the music in two days, but we laughed at each other's playing a lot. And before dashing for the plane home, an interesting meeting about September 05 and a possible partner for future ConCal projects. But now to booking flights to Canada for August. And the joy of a large cheque to Concerto Caledonia from the Inland Revenue - I do like dealing with them when the money flows in this direction. Wednesday 2 June 2004 The sleeve design for The Red Red Rose arrived the other day (see CDs page). And I use the word 'sleeve' advisedly, as the front cover photo is a shot of the sleeve of my red jacket which I took by accident when I dropped my camera. And then this morning I got in the mail from Delphian the first version of the finished mastered article, and I listened to it in spare moments today. Very pleasing indeed on the whole, there a a few tiny little technical things still to tidy up, and then I might just be quite happy with it. Which as records go, is a nice thing to be able to say. Meanwhile, I've set aside tomorrow to practise Geminiani for Alison's record and draft out arrangements of a couple of Acadian folk songs for Suzie Leblanc's. © 2004 David
McGuinness |
concerto caledonia
Bois, in which I drummed on various surfaces of the harpsichord and didn't play a note. Chris played his big frame drum, and David and Betsy made
col legno noises while Suzie grooved over the top. A really fun way to end.
The CD should be out 1 August on 
The second soundcheck of the day brought the unusual sight of sound
supremo François replacing the batteries in Suzie's wireless mic pack. Seeing someone
take a screwdriver to the back of a soprano is really pretty odd.
The last time I heard a bar band play at 415 was after the La Serenissima Vivaldi sessions last year, and that was in the bar itself rather than on the stage. Anyway, DG, Sylvain and I couldn't resist
getting up. How often do you get jam along with a band on a harpsichord in a bar? I even put my beer on the jack rail, but not for long in case it fell off into the instrument ... wish I'd photographed it. It was a bleary-eyed but still characteristically cool-looking Sylvain's fourth gig of the day, after playing the Dowland Lachrymae at 7am (!), and baroque Beatles arrangements mid-afternoon. Back in my seat, Chris and I reflected on how healthy this was, that a large proportion of the early music students at McGill were perfectly comfortable having a pub session on mostly baroque instruments. It would have been wonderful to hang around McGill for longer.
There are election posters everywhere here, almost all adorned with smiling photos of the candidates. If they did that in Britain nobody would vote.
The cottage organ has two pedals, one for pumping the bellows and one to open the mute, so after the final chorus (complete with Chris on pipes) I let go of both of them for a satisfying multiple clatter and clunk to finish the piece. It sounds like nothing else on earth: I hope producer Anne-Marie picks the best one for the CD.