Thursday 13 November 2003

Most of this week is going past in an exhaustion-fuelled daze. On Tuesday I dropped in on the Kellie quartet rehearsal in the morning, and then called Fiona Talkington to check whether she was going to play bits of SADN on Late Junction in a couple of weeks - she answered the phone with 'I'm holding your CD in my hand'. So I wrote a quick email shot detailing the upcoming gigs with David G, and the broadcasts, and had that sent out by the end of the day.

There are generally two ways to make a record. The first and preferable one is that you get some good music to happen in the room (or studio). You record this, using the technology to present it in its best possible light, and then with some judicious retakes you fix any distracting imperfections that would annoy the listener on repeated hearings. Terrific. The second way, when the music in the room is less good, is to painstakingly amass a collection of acceptable bits, with the intention of editing them together afterwards to make a complete but rather fake performance. This happens more often than you might think. And, my friends, I'm sorry to admit that this second procedure held sway yesterday at Crichton when we were recording the Kellie chamber music. There were some really wonderful moments and some great playing, but sadly the imperfect 'human element' tended to dominate. So in a sense I'm quite relieved that after this CD is completed, I have no more plans to organise recordings or performances of baroque chamber music. But given my recent musings on how good things have sounded afterwards when I've been miserable in the sessions, perhaps this is all pointless carping.

I'm working up the courage to reinstall Windows on my PC. Managed to put it off for another week or so.

[the next section of diary was written for the BBC's Celtic Roots website at www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/musicscotland/celticroots/on_the_road/]