Tuesday 9 January 2007

Last night's percussion rehearsal was hysterical, as Alan Emslie, surrounded by all kinds of noise-making kit (drums, cymbals, chains, and not this kind of kit for once) tried ever harder to get close to the very specific sounds in Mmle Haïm's head for the two Rameau suites, while I looked on, occasionally giggling. Then while he packed his gear up, we played keyboard duet versions of the week's repertoire for over an hour, sightreading ineptly in my case, and trying things out rather than making too many definite decisions. I like very much the sense of music as an ongoing process, where you inch closer to an ideal which may itself keep changing. You may think this doesn't square with my tendency to impatiently make decisions, but you've got to have some way of inching closer to whatever it is that's in your head. Some decisions can be unmade later.

It's very good to do some long-overdue catching up with lots of friends in the orchestral breaks, but even then I don't think an orchestra is necessarily a safe place for me to be at the moment. I haven't sat in one for over six months, and I'm not sure that I'm quite ready yet for the experience of even small scale industrial music-making. By the end of a second 3 hour rehearsal I could barely hold any sort of rhythm together: in fact my playing's been pretty erratic all day, only occasionally coming together when a buzz of adrenalin bites hard through my cold.

But ... home demos have been progressing nicely, and Joe has delivered a wonderful cover image for the Lion CD, at which all who see it marvel. It even features Crichton Kirk on the horizon.

My attempts to stay healthy were dealt another blow last night when rather than escape from the pouring rain in a taxi home from the station, I decided to return to my bike, left covered and locked in the BBC bikeshed. I got there, retrieved my helmet and lights, I rode out of the shed ... and crashed straight into the kerb, as I had a flat front tyre. But that will have to wait for a few days.