Wednesday 7 February 2001

Good news - the Edinburgh Festival want us to do The Gentle Shepherd this summer.  Bad news (for me anyway) - they need a budget and all the copy for the festival brochure right away. So I have to agree on how to do it with the director, book the key members of the cast (this requires subtle negotiations in the case of singers' diaries, which are always full of pencil bookings which have to be cleared), and I have to work out how long it will take to rehearse. Right now.  And then I have to do the sums and make it affordable. But once the panic's over and I've got time to think about it, it will be great fun doing the show.  I just hope I can make the numbers add up in the meantime.

I'm typing this in an SCO rehearsal of Handel's Theodora, with Robin Blaze singing away at the other side of the Queen's Hall. He says he's a bit knackered today, as the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night where he was staying, but you'd never guess. He sounds fantastic - technically spot on, and with a simple and unfussy communication of what the songs are about. The whole cast is extremely good (Robin's duet with Claron McFadden is particularly memorable) so despite the fact that the rehearsal is a bit of a scramble, and personally I haven't got much to do, which is why I'm typing this rather than playing, it's kind of cheering to be here.  

In the tea break there was a McFalls meeting in the café, which I got to sit in on as their producer (I wonder if I count as an honorary member, given that I'm playing on the record).  They/We discussed whether the classical pieces should stay on the album, and whether the group should officially shorten its name from the unwieldy 'Mr McFall's Chamber'.  I was over at Calum Malcolm's place for a couple of days last week for  him to mix the tracks we recorded at Castlesound - I think it's going to be good. To be honest, given where we recorded it and who mixed it, if it didn't sound fantastic, I'd want to know why.

Yesterday I was in a more basic recording studio just up the road, recording my version of a soap opera theme for a Glasgow City Council video, complete with cheeky textural quotes from EastEnders. Greg Lawson came along in the afternoon and recorded 16 violin parts in an hour and half, to make a one-man chamber orchestra.  Shamelessly indulgent but good fun.  At one point I was shocked to see him whip out from his bag a packet of oatcakes and an apple.  For a year or two, oatcakes apples and water have pretty much formed my staple diet when I'm travelling around, and I thought it was a personal foible of mine.  If it continues to catch on, I'll have to publish it before someone else does, so look out for 'The McGuinness Diet Book' at a remaindered bookshop near you.  Eat yourself to musical nutrition with Stockan's Oatcakes, a Pink Lady and a bottle of Volvic.

Tomorrow morning I hope to sort out the music for our forthcoming ConCal Rome trip, and draw up a final version of the plans for our proposed concert series at St Andrews in the Square. Our annual application for funding to the Scotish Arts Council is due in a couple of weeks, and this will form a hefty chunk of it, all being well.

Last Friday I gave a lecture at the RSAMD, which was supposed to be on the subject of planning a concert or recording of early music, but mutated as it usually does into an illustrated ramble on the nature of the music business from my standpoint. Still, the students were great, asked intelligent questions, and gave interesting answers. My favourite was when I asked about a group's sources of income: 'If you're going to pay the players, where's the money going to come from?' From the back of the lecture theatre came a swift reply: 'The bank'.  I think she meant looking for sponsorship, but it got a huge laugh nonetheless. At the end, a soon-to-be-graduate came and offered to work for us for nothing in the summer: 'I'll do anything'. Quite disarming really - the concept of work experience isn't that unusual, but the first time someone you've never met comes up and offers their services to you for free, is rather flattering.