Posts (page 2)

I'm currently on tour in Germany and I have been thinking of the way ahead for me as a musician. We went to perform an outdoor gig in Jena on a Sunday afternoon (my hopes weren't raised at this point) and found that the act preceeding us were a group of young gymnasts playing loud music. As soon as seen this I said to myself this is not a gig that I want to do. I might have considered it 20 years ago when I was starting out but not now. It was a humiliating thought standing there waiting to go on thinking 'is this where I'm at?' The previous night we had played to 5 people in a small club in Chemnitz and I was already questioning things.

I have now decided that I am worth more than this. 

After playing concertina for 25 years and having reached a high standard of perfomance I'm not going to play any old gigs for for no reason no matter what country I'm in. This situation is not the fault of promotors/agents as I agree to the terms at the outset. I need to decide what my terms are and stick to them. 

I'm not a bread head and money is not a motive for me but I'm not going to play crap gigs for no reason. The way ahead is when I go out, I'm going to work out what I want from the tour (should have been doing this long ago) and if this is a problem I'm will not take the engagement. I'm too busy with all my other work to deal with the fallout from this kind of thing. This might sound big headed and obnoxious but I don't mean to be - I just can't do it any longer. 

A quick diary piece: Most of the Scots Trad Music Awards are now sponsored. We're looking for sponsors for Venue of the Year and the Hall of Fame. The dates for entering your nominations for the trad awards are between 1 - 19th October 2007. The voting (for the 4 top nominations) will happen from 29th October - 23rd November. Our events are running from the 29th November til the 1st December (Award Ceremony) this year.

We're now looking for events for the St Andrew's Celebrations. This is a umberella project where try to gather as many trad music ceilidhs, gigs etc from around Scotland and market this as one. With this publicity we hope that members of the public will see the event in their area and go a long and take part and love traditional music.

We announced the semi-finalists of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award last week. They are Steven Blake (Pipes), Gillian Fleetwood (Clarsach), David Garner (Fiddle), Adam Holmes (Guitar, song), Amy Lord (Scots song), Lorne MacDougall (Pipes, whistle), James Duncan MacKenzie (Pipes, smallpipes), Iain Angus MacLeod (Accordion), Robert Menzies (Accordion, piano), Ewan Robertson (Guitar, song), Ailie Robertson (Clarsach), Fraya Thomsen (Clarsach). The event weekend runs from the 5th - 7th October 2007 with the concert in Coulter Hall, Coulter, South Lanarkshire on the the 6th October, 7.30pm, tickets £8 (conc £6).

More on all these events at www.handsupfortrad.co.uk

I'm away to Italy at the weekend with Keep It Up. We don't really gig at all nowadays so this will be fun. Even more fun will be remembering the sets! Next week I'm off to Germany with Dave Milligan. We're there for about 10 days. The tour is: 

Sept.

8, Chemnitz, club Arthur

9, Bad Langensalza, church concert

10, off

11, Ilmenau, Alte Försterei

12, Schmalkalden, Kunsthaus (art gallery)

13, Hildburghausen, Rathaus

14, Oberotterbach, Musikantebuckl

15, Weilerbach, Bürgerkeller, club Dreschflegel

Fiddle Concerto is coming along. I've moved to the computer and am currently inputing my ideas for moulding...

This question has arisen as I write my fiddle concerto. In doing this I have written a march in F as my opening theme but it has no scotch snaps in it, it's not a strathspey nor does it utililise the bagpipe scale (A mixolydian starting on G). These are the common things that if asked I would describe as the Scottish sound. When I play my tune I think it sounds Scottish and when played by fiddler Gordon Gunn  complete with ornamention it will sound right. It makes me wonder if the above description is a lot baloney and infact the 'Scottish sound' is actually bourne out of ornamentation and phrasing.

When I go abroad and pick up a book of say Breton tunes and play them I don't feel like I've cracked the culture and I sound like their musicians - the tunes instantly become quite Scottish. Same when you look at Brahms' Hungarian Dances or Bulgarian traditional music - they all look very simple on the page but when the local musicians play them they transform into something that is not on the page, not even near. It's the ornamentation and phrasing that makes these tunes sound Breton or Bulgarian not the notes on the page.

So when I (or any other Scottish musician) play a tune the first thing we do is to not think about it. We don't worry about inserting scotch snaps or g naturals, we just phrase it in a way that feels right and use ornaments that seem to work.

I wonder if Scotland has a set of 'phrases' and 'ornaments' and each region of the country dips into these, makes them their own but never deviates far enough away from the originals to become their own national style - subsets of something bigger. Shetland music does sound different to other parts of Scotland but you can still here the Scottish links.

This is something to mull over for a while although I better not take too long as I feel the deadline for the concerto is fast approaching alongside everything else including the Trad Music Awards.

The strange thing that has happened to me in the last week is our first born child Charlie has started school. I was the most worried about it as I couldn't believe 5 years has passed so quickly and my wee boy has grown up! Anyway as my wife said Charlie is loving it and from the first day he hides when I go to pick him up rather than come home with me! I'll take that as a positive!

It occurs to me that everybody is struggling for time to do things. In traditional music a small amount of people do many things and I wonder if we've all reached saturation point. Many of us are in the industry because we play/sing the music and often trying to bring admin and performance/creativity together can be difficult and of course admin is what pays the bills in most cases. In classical music there are many administrators - the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has 4 administrators to every musician.

Is it maybe time for to start employing more people who are not directly interested in traditional music? I always worry that an employee doesn't know enough to do the work. Maybe also the wages are not fantastic (due to funding) so you are wanting 'a love of the music' to compensate for some of the wages.

On another note I had a great meeting with the Scottish Exec about their St Andrew's Celebrations. Hopefully The Scots Trad Music Awards will be able to be part of this in 2007.

I'm back after a bit of a break. The completion of my bagpipe concerto took longer than I thought... I finally finished it on Tuesday morning at 3am! The writing was finshed at 4pm but when I reconvened at 10.30pm - after starting the new Harry Potter book - to write in the piano chord names it took me about 3 hours and then a further 90 minutes to input them to the computer. I'm very happy with the end product.

The rehearsal went very well yesterday (another one today). I spent time on the dynamics, tempo markings etc to make the individual instrument parts readable and playable quickly with not too much complication. Simon McKerrell did very well at his first reading ofthe parts. He is playing a D chanter but I have written in C, Cminor, D, C#minor which is very testing. We'll have to think about the tuning of the chanter to keep it consistent throughout the performance.

The perfomance is on the 9th August at 5pm in the National Piping Centre, Glasgow.

Anyway here are some facts I compiled about the piece:

• World Premiere on 9th August, 2007 (5pm), National Piping Centre, Piping Live Festival, Glasgow

• First ever Scottish Smallpipe concerto (probably even bagpipe but I can't substantiate this)

• Commissioned by Garvie Bagpipes

• Utilises Garvie Bagpipe’s unique fully chromatic chanter

• Written for a traditional music ensemble where the instrument is most at home

• Written to show off the virtuostic capabilities of the instrument and to expand the Scottish Smallpipe repertoire.

On another note, we've notified the Hall of Fame inductees and they're all very happy to join the Hall. I'll talk more of this in my next blog. I've now got to get back to work and concentrate on everything else including starting my fiddle concerto...

I been thinking about the question of how important is technique in traditional music and is 'feel' mutually exclusive or can this and technique work together? Both are important and work well together although technique on its own doesn't work in trad music. Maybe feel is the most important part of our music?

Technique though, is becoming more prevalent - probably through the music colleges and also with the influx of young people performing. Is this a positive thing or is it stripping the identity from the music? Already many regional styles are disappearing because of breakup of communities, central belt drift etc and I wonder if more concentration should be made on 'feel'.

How do you teach 'feel'? In my opinion it is all about listening to old recordings, older musicians and performing with peers not just contemporaries. You have to be prepared to live and breath the music. Of course this can take quite bit of work sourcing records from at least pre 1990s(!) Many of the young musicians I talk to do not really listen to much trad music outside what is being released now.

There are some great resources out there (including our own www.footstompin.com) but one with lots of info on musicians, bands and recordings that is worth checking out is Nigel Gatherer's website http://www.nigelgatherer.com/. It lists all the old Scottish bands and their unavailable LPs with background information. All of this should also be incorporated in the new trad music grade exams that are being tested throughout Scotland at the moment.

If I'm honest I'm a fan of technique (combined with 'feel'). Technique comes with working hard at your instrument and enables you to do new things or makes complicated old things sound easy. My bug bear is that alot of musicians do not work hard enough at their instrument and end up in middle ground - being good enough to do most things but not of sufficient practice to try anything new. I would like to hear many more trad musicians capable of being soloists. They do not have to go down this road - as playing in a group can be the best fun - but they should be practised enough to step up to the mark if called apon.

Here's an interesting discussion on this subject http://www.footstompin.com/forum?threadid=87179

We've had a great week at Tinto Summer School. The weather has been up and down but the young people don't seem to worry about it. We're very lucky to have such great young ones involved in the week - they're all up for learning tunes, playing tunes, dancing, football, rounders, fancy dress, teaching others tunes and sessions. In the organising of this event (done mostly by Paul Murray this year) I feel quite jaded at times and often question carrying on with it but as soon as I arrive it is amazing. There's so much talent in our young folk. We should have no worries for the future. It's great being at the coal face, witnessing what's going on. The concert tonight will be fun and heart warming at the same time. It starts at 7.30 and is scheduled (on my fancy spreadsheet) to finish at 9.53pm! We'll all come back to Wiston Lodge and have a big party.

My bagpipe concerto is finally happening on the 9th August in the Piping Centre. I've have to finish it quickly! I visited the soloist Simon McKerrell on Wednesday to introduce him to some of the music which was a positive experience. I need to do a pile of writing tomorrow - just the third movement to go and then I have to orchestrate for the ensemble.

Our Cascade trip went very well last week. We had nice hotels where I managed to get lots of writing done and great gigs both well supported by the public. A few years back on a German Folk Festival tour I introduced the concept of the 'wooden CD', a prize to the band/artist that sold the least product. I wasn't in last place at that point (Tony McManus was) however I did manage to make a late run and pick up the wooden CD for myself. At the Cascade gigs it is something similar although I haven't left last place yet and it isn't looking good! (I've yet to sell one!!)

I don't mind this too much as I believe that in music you should not be catering for anybody else. You should make music you like and if someone else likes it that's great (but secondary). I don't think you can go out to please people - this hinders the creative process. You have to please yourself. You have to believe in yourself. If you're not making music for you then what is the point. This is not going to make you money (unless you hit the jackpot) but real creativity is not about financial gain more fulfillment of your inner being. When I'm writing I feel at my best because I'm creating something. I will always make recordings and perform in a manner that suits me and if an audience chooses to come along then I'll be happy.

We visited the opening of the Scottish parliament on Saturday. It was great to see so many Scottish trad acts on the bill. I say see as we arrived late and it was sadly pouring of rain and we couldn't hang around because it was too wet for the baby. Maybe we are starting to see a sea change and the Goverment are recognising our traditional culture and the benefits it brings to our identity - not the pop trash that could be from anywhere which the many commercial radio stations persist in playing non-stop. By the way good to see the Spice Girls are reforming, just what we need - more trash.

We're at Tinto Summer School this week. I can happily say that we've got 56 young people attending many for the umpteenth time. It's amazing to watch them grow and learn. It will be a fun week even if the rain doesn't stop!

I'm just checking in here before I head down to Dorset with the Cascade project I'm involved in. It will be interesting to see how it goes - our last two gigs seemed to click but it has been a couple of months...

We made a decision on the Scottish Traditional Music: Hall of Fame the other day. I'll post the details when I've spoken to the inductees but it's a good list with a combined amazing amount of experience.

As said before I've finally got back to writing my Garvie Bagpipe Concerto. I heard last Friday that the Scottish Arts Council are going to back Garvie Bagpipes' application and give money to the project. This is great news although it has added a certain stress level to the project as it is due to be performed on the 6th August (doh!).

It's interesting when I listen back to what I've written. It has not gone the same way as my fiddle solos as I've not started with an established traditional tune. I'm hoping that when I add the bagpipe notation it changes the feel a bit. It is sounding more like a Borders tune rather than the west coast melodies I've been using before hand. This is ok though (I think) as it is for the Border pipes. The opening movement is in C major and C minor which should transfer to the chromatic chanter alright but I need to hear it played.

Before I get back to writing - Maeve Mackinnon's album launch was a big success last night. There were loads of people there and the band played 5 numbers to an exhuberent crowd. I really think this is a great record and hopefully promotors etc will pick up on it and book the band.

Finally finally I can heartily recommend Chris Stout's new album 'Devil's Advocate'. It good mixture of traditional and contemporary material with a dose of experimentalism thrown in. You can buy it at footstompin.com

We had a wee holiday at the start of this week just outside Pitlochry in a caravan overlooking Loch Tummel. There is no more beautiful place in my mind ( I've been going to the same place for 35 years so I might be biased). When we were there we saw posters for the Vale of Atholl Pipe Band Highland Evening which was on the Monday night. 'The Vale' are one of Scotland's best and most innovative pipe bands and this looked like an opportunity not to be missed.

Unfortunately when we got there - slightly late, the pipe band had already played their first number and it was the turn of a 'Scottish' singer, a highland dance troup, Royal Scottish Country Dance group, another Scottish singer then the Youth Pipe Band. Apart from the pipe band it was all pretty dreadful, dated and we left at half time. All the acts looked slugish and from another era.

There were visitors from all over the world at the concert and this was the picture of Scotland we were giving. Surely we can do better than this. It can't be hard to round up a few energetic great local musicians and feature a more modern sound and look. Vale of Atholl are famous for their experimental arrangements and this should show through in these concerts. One problem is that (I think) the audiences would enjoy whatever 'Scottish' show is put on as they don't know any better as long as it has tartan in it. A more progressive concert takes more organisation but surely worth if we are to showcase today's Scotland.

I have to aks the question - what is the point of Highland Dancing? When you compare it to the Irish hard shoe (Riverdance) style it's a wet blanket. I'll take stepdance any day. We Scots seem to keep pushing it but what's the point?

Moving on we have Maeve MacKinnon's CD launch on Monday night (25th June) at the Universal, Glasgow - 8pm. I sent out some press releases and was very happy to hear back from the Evening Times, the perfect paper to advertise the launch. The band are playing for 20 minutes and anyone is welcome to come along.

I've finally got back on track with my Garvie Bagpipe Concerto. I took the computer to the caravan and put some time in. I also heard today that the Scottish Arts Council have given me money to write it which is great but adds to the pressure. I'm going to need to do at least 2 hours aday to finish it...

I attended Scottish Opera's Lucia Di Lammermoor by Donizetti tonight. It's based on Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor which is based on a true incident that took place in the Scottish Lowlands in 1669, concerning a feud between two families, the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods. The opera is often acclaimed as Donizetti’s finest work and is widely considered to be one of the most exhilarating operas of the 19th century. (sorry, I lifted this from SO's website!). I wanted to go and see it as I heard a great interview on Radio Scotland with the director John Doyle - quite an amazing guy. I still don't really get it though. Lots of very good performances although I can't make out what the basses are singing - tunes or lyrics and at times the orchestra drowned out the leads.

Scottish Opera are a strange concept for me. They are one of Scotland's 'national' companies but tonight they were singing in Italian and their other shows have no Scottish links whatsoever. Why do we need a national opera company? There's nothing Scottish about Opera. I'm not saying they should be dumped but it's not a national thing and should be funded accordingly.