Friday 3 June 2005

I spent this afternoon improvising with Raymond MacDonald: well, we played for about half an hour and sat with some peppermint tea and chocolate the rest of the time. It's the first time I've tried free improv on harpsichord, which actually sounds rather good; I think harmonium and soprano sax was the best combination though. It's probably 20 years since I did free improv with anyone else, and it was great to have long-unexplored avenues of my brain working in front of an audience (of one). All those keyboard-player background processes have to kick in, like 'how am I choosing my harmonic language?' and 'what attitude will I have towards regular rhythms or groove?'. But what actually happens is that these questions are over-ridden by the general attitude that you elect to adopt, or that you find yourself adopting by virtue of the kind of person you are. It's very satisfying when it works. Next time we'll record some of it to find out what it sounds like from the outside. 

I nearly didn't get there though. As the taxi arrived to pick me up, I noticed that the driver clearly had things buzzing in the forefront of his mind that weren't necessarily related to driving a taxi. Sure enough, about three minutes into the journey, we were heading at some speed towards the obviously stationary traffic directly in front of us. He braked sharply just in time, we skidded spectacularly to a halt, and my harmonium skidded spectacularly across the floor of the cab. Whew - no collisions. Then crunch, the minicab behind us didn't stop in time. Nobody was hurt, but I had a frustrating 15 minutes sat in the back of the cab while Mr Unfocused sorted out insurance details and displayed his detailed knowledge of the internal workings of taxi bumpers to Mr Driving-too-close. But hey, I got a free cab ride.

ConCal dates for 2005/6 are gradually coming together now: I've been dealing with fixing and contracts a bit this week.

And last night Alison got the first proof of the CD booklet design for the Geminiani. No-one likes it much. Hmm: a rethink required ...

You can see Alison and Katherine playing in Beethoven Uncovered tonight and the next two Fridays on BBC4.