Saturday 15 August 2009

I'm finally getting down to the nitty-gritty of musical preparation for next week. But before I started today, a moment's work avoidance on YouTube turned up this unexpected clip of me playing melodica and glockenspiel in Fred Frith's 'Screen' in a room at Aberdeen University: I can now see how inaccurate my attempts at repetition were. Then there's this one. And this great old clip of Fred showing an unusual solution to the problem of how to play variations on fiddle tunes. 

later
Oh well, so much for the budget balancing. Today's news is that the harpsichord which the festival hired for our concerts 'didn't turn up'. Thanks to Noel for rescuing us with his excellent Denzil Wraight instrument (which I played on Mungrel Stuff). Denzil also makes Cristofori pianos (sigh).

much later
My Mananan harpsichord recital was on Radio 3 today - I eventually listened to it while mowing the lawn later on. Hmm, I played pretty much everything too damn fast, and the Rameau Gavotte was a complete splash-fest as I was far too tired. But the Couperin Passacaille was pretty cool: made me wish I was French.