Saturday 3 October 2009

Hampstead,London
At about 3pm this afternoon I was standing in Air Studio 1, coaching the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in some backing vocals. And thinking ‘this is an unusual way to spend a Saturday afternoon’.

But first some revision. Thursday was a very busy day indeed. We had a lunchtime concert at Glasgow University, with my future colleagues and my mum and dad in the audience, and then as Alison headed south leaving only the triple Vortex behind, I returned to that troublesome funding application and got it into the mail in all its paper glory.  At this point it seemed appropriate to take Chris and DG out for a world class meal in the unprepossessing environment of The Banana Leaf. This was partly to get them in a good mood to come back to my study and make stupid noises on their instruments for the benefit of my microphone (and eventually, sampler). Chris’s newly-refurbished smallpipes made a particularly comic collection of farts which we tried not to drown out with giggling.

Then yesterday, once I’d done my transcription and arranging homework for today’s session with the ukes, we loaded up the van for a trip down the M74 to the very welcoming home of Dumfries Music Club. It was only when we unloaded all the gear into St John’s Church that we realised that I hadn’t packed all of the harpsichord stand – oops. But we found a rather handsome oak table which did the job well, and I revived the historical practice of playing standing up, just like the girl in Vermeer’s painting. Well, not much like her really. It’s very satisfying being able to engage all of your body when playing, but if you don’t get the height exactly right it’s probably a recipe for tendonitis.

Driving north afterwards in wild wind and rain was very tiring: if I’d known I was going to be in London today, I don’t think I’d have been quite so keen to volunteer to tune the harpsichord and drive the van.  But hey …

This morning I was up again at 6 to get here in time to have lunch with George and Richie from the uke orchestra, where we formed an immediate bond between a harpsichord player whose instrument can only go pling, and a group whose chosen instrument basically goes plong. But at least they can do dynamics. An afternoon of precision ridiculousness followed in the studio: I even got to sing on the end result.