Performed in St Nicholas church on Thursday. It was great. I performed in Strings Group, choir, and the folk band. Strings group played John Rutter's Suite Antique. It is lovely music and went mostly fine. The choir was spectacular - Berlioz and Les Miserables.
The folk band went like the wind but went well. We played McKechnie's Farewell, Contrazz and Randy Miller's Reel - all tunes I offered. We played without the music and I had a lot to learn (tune and harmonies). The audience seemed to enjoy it and so did I.
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I was invited to a Creative Scotland celebratory event tonight the The Scottish Parliament in my role as Director of the Scots Music Group. Lau were entertaining us and there was also dance. I enjoyed it.
Pllayed hungarian fiddle last night, down at Out of Blue. Fitted in a rehearsal for Thursday as I am performing on Thursday afternoon. I have been recording a tune as a present for someone, with a wonderful musician who plays just about every folk instrument possible brilliantly. Its been a learning curve. I'll blog more about this after Xmas lest the surprise is ruined.
I have also bought myself a mixer. Looking forward to using this over Xmas. I m off to the Scottish Parliament next week as part of Creative Scotland's celebrations. I will be attending the event in my role as voluntary Director of the Scots Music Group - an inspirational organisation - and our related Inspire project. Lau will be performing. It will be odd to be there as a visitor rather than in my past life as civil servant. Looking forward to it.
I have been working hard on a jingle in Logic. Instrumentation is almost finished. Automation has been done for dynamics. I am now trying to sort out the score. I have taken it back to Sibelius which has worked fairly well for some instruments. But it does't work for Ultrabeat. Sibelius doesn't seem to know what it is and plays it as a piano line. I guess the answer might be just to copy and paste into a new drum set line. I will try to find out tomorrow.
I went to a workshop last night with Jani Lang in Out of the Blue. Lot of good folk musicians there. We learned about gypsy music from Transylvania and played two good tunes. It was very interesting. The style is heavily ornamented. There were also a lot of good musicians there. I enjoyed it. Here's a video of Jani Lang's band. I am currently working on one the major Strathspeys called the Marquis of Huntly. Its composed by William Marshall and is a difficult tune. The bowing is difficult - snaps, arrow bowing, loops and stops. The key is quite difficult (G minor). The runs are difficult - particularly one that has a turn at the end of it. I have listened to recordings of the tune and it sounds like people have changed the bowing to slurs and missed out the turn altogether. I don;t think I have found one yet that is played completely as notated. I suppose that might be an option. But at the moment I am bowing it close to the versions in Henderson's Flowers of Scottish Melodies and The Caledonian Companion. Still about five weeks to go until the recital.
I have also been working on reel to go with it, John Cheap the Chapman by Nathaniel Gow - also taken from Henderson's. It is full of leaps across two strings; string crossing requiring the fingering to straddle (difficult if you have small hands); and third position and back down at speed. Its a good tune. They are both a challenge. I have been practicing slowly. I have also been working on the two Shetland tunes I am going to play. I would like to play one slowly - possibly solo. The tune is so irregular that I am trying to decide if its easier for the listener to understand that way. Also planning to play it on my hardanger using scodatura. |
Fiona Harrison
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