Sunday 6 October 2002

We've had much humming and hawing this week over recording venues for the end of the month, and we've settled on the stone-vaulted Crichton Collegiate Church in Midlothian (where I nearly got married, before we settled for the 19th century church down the road instead).  It's loud, cold and damp, and if we can manage not to squeak too much it will sound great.  Thanks to a kind offer of babysitting yesterday, we visited the late 15th century Alloa Tower, and I was amazed to find a minstrel's gallery above the main room on the first floor (photo).  It's set into the curved wall above a sweeping staircase, and the acoustic is far bigger and more open than you'd expect to hear in a domestic setting, even such a grand one as this, home to another branch of the family of the Earls of Kellie. It all seemed a bit improbable, and after a bit of questioning of the guides, I found out that it had been added after 1800, possibly for musicians to play for the church services held in the tower.  So the quest for an authentic 18th century Scots acoustic that will sound good on a record remains unfinished.

The room on the floor above is hung with the usual assortment of family portraits of various earls and such, painted by David Allan (of Gentle Shepherd engravings fame), Raeburn and co., and very nice too.  But my attention was caught by two small naive paintings half-hidden behind the door: of a woman standing by a concert harp, and of a man standing by a table.  Tradition has it that they were painted in the early 19th century by the butler (or possibly the gardener) and they're breathtakingly charming and beautifully detailed, but they break several basic laws of draughtsmanship.  The pattern on the carpet has no perspective, going vertically straight down, feet are far too small, and arms are about twice the expected length, but the thin, drawn, faces are fascinating.  I could have stared at them for hours.  The chair that's featured in one of the pictures now rests on the floor below it.

I've just got the concert dates from Chris for my guest appearances with the Chris Norman Ensemble next month, so if you're near Cleveland, Baltimore, or Pittsburgh, come and cheer us on.  I'm playing harpsichord, harmonium and melodica, an excellent combination.  Watching James Taylor's band playing a number on TV last night, his keyboard player had about 5 keyboards, and on the top of one stack was, yes, a melodica, complete with extended breath tube, which he played at the beginning and end of the song.  He didn't pick it up and wave it around though, which was a bit of a disappointment.

A cassette arrived in the mail from David G of some tunes for our duo record for Marquis Classics, so I'll be applying some imagination, and hopefully melodica, to those over the next couple of weeks. 

There's been an explosion of junk mail hitting my inboxes recently.  I used to get about 10 a day, but overnight last night to one of my addresses I got 71 unsolicited mails, of no interest to me whatsoever.  And that's not counting the garbage that's been generated by the Bugbear virus over the last week.