Wednesday 3 November 2004

It's been an eventful week and a bit since my last diary entry. Last week I was writing some music for a radio project and one morning I found myself writing down the instruction to myself 'stop making music for musicians'. I'd sketched a couple of ideas which I liked, but I was also thinking that by certain critical criteria it was facile, simplistic, a bit naïve. But I liked it and it did its job in the programme perfectly well. It's very nice to have the approval of your peers, but it can make your work sound a bit pleased with itself, so I vowed to banish thoughts of 'what would my colleagues make of this?' from my mind. As a result I also had a purge of my CD and vinyl collection and after an hour or two had thrown out a large pile of music that I wouldn't want to listen to again, but was hanging onto for reasons now revealed to be spurious. Quite cathartic. As for the music I was writing, just to make the point I restricted myself to the white notes of the piano, and Greg to playing on the lower two strings of the violin. It worked fine. I'll let you know when the broadcast is.

My harmonium is now tuned to a'=441Hz in Young temperament. Sounds pretty good but I hope it gets easier to pump with time, it's quite a workout at the moment. Mike told me the leather valves will take a bit of playing in, as it probably sat in someone's attic in Georgia unplayed for at least a couple of decades.

I've been going over session tapes in readiness to start editing 'SADN II' and some of the Kellie CD. The Kellie is still scheduled for February release, so time is short, but I had a meeting with Caroline at Linn on Monday and it all looks possible. I'm delighted that they're as keen as I am to have Joe Davie do the cover again. Caroline also suggested the possibility of me making a solo harpsichord recording on an instrument in the Russell Collection, so I've been cooking up a repertoire scheme for that one - we'll see what happens.

I went to look at Glasgow City Hall earlier this week - a hard hat visit as it's a building site at the moment. Looks very promising though, with the addition of a great little high-ceilinged recital room above the foyer. We might be one of the first groups to play there when it opens.

If you need any convincing that XTC are pop genuises, then listen to this wonderful bossa nova version of Making Plans for Nigel by Nouvelle Vague.  Took my breath away.

But the CD that keeps finding its way back into the player at the moment is Maria Kalaniemi's live album with Timo Alakotila and Olli Varis. I don't really know why Finnish music connects with me the way it does, but I'm happy to let it happen. And this is great playing too.