Sunday 12 June 2005

Back home again after the last Geminiani gig of the season, in Warwickshire. It went very well indeed, although I ran out of music near the end with general tiredness, and had that feeling which all musicians know of being on stage thinking 'What am I doing here?' 'Why am I playing this strange music?'

The Lion CD, or SADN II or whatever it's going to be called, is back on my agenda properly again: I got some bits of editing done this week, and also some noise reduction/cleaning up on the field recordings that are in 'Road to Sanaig'. Vocal overdubs with Mary Ann Kennedy and Lisa Milne (who got an MBE yesterday!) are plotted for July, so we should be able to master it in the autumn. I also cut another track from the running order this week, so by the time it's finished there should be (as with SADN) a nice stack of discarded tracks to appear on the inevitable 20th anniversary re-issue ...

This morning I checked my trusty Psion and found that a couple of years ago I'd had the good sense to transcribe the words of Psalm 12 from the Aberdeen Psalter of 1625, so that we can include the tune Bon Accord on the CD with the right words. That's a trip to the library saved.

And the past week has brought a few light brushes with technology, quite apart from my rebuilding our lawnmower yesterday. On Thursday, after several failed attempts over the last few months, I finally acquired an old Hohner 36 melodica on eBay, complete with its original table stand. I wonder if it will sit comfortably on top of my Estey harmonium.

My trusty PX 100 headphones gave up the ghost this week, but those nice Sennheiser people are going to send me a new pair under warranty. I still have the classic HD 410s that I bought 22 years ago, having replaced the ear pads a couple of times: my kids use them on the computer.  I prefer listening on the PX 100s to pretty much everything else now: they don't have the definition or brightness of the Grados that I use for critical monitoring, but the bass is deep and warm, incredible for something so small, and perfect for listening in the city. The new white ones look quite cool with the iPod mini too, but I think they've stopped making them in black and yellow to look like the old 414s.