I’m still recovering from 5 days spent with Mr McFall’s Chamber, producing their next record.  It had its stressful moments, but a fun time was had on the third day at the wonderful Castlesound Studio in East Lothian.  After we’d added some overdubs of various silly noise-making toys borrowed from Brian’s and my kids, the day ended with us turning the studio into a virtual café.  The idea was to add some extra atmosphere to their version of ‘La Vie en Rose’, as if it needed any extra atmosphere, what with Su-a playing the musical saw accompanied by three-part whistling in the final verse.  With the help of some cutlery from the kitchen, and a plastic bucket full of crockery that Robert bought from a charity shop that morning, we re-created the inauthentic sound of Paris at 3am, complete with plate smashing, and an ensuing argument in cod French.  When the record comes out, the person you hear briefly impersonating the Swedish chef from the Muppet Show, is me.  The ‘Queen’s Own Band of the Massed Kazoos’ section on Raymond Scott’s ‘Powerhouse’ was pretty funny too.

Yesterday featured a ConCal board meeting – mostly procedural things, but also keeping the board up to date on our activities, future plans, and the state of our finances.  We’re planning to rehearse for our Rome programme when we get there, so Marie now has the unenviable task of finding us a rehearsal space with a harpsichord from Glasgow.

And then today I was playing the harmonium in the SCO.  I thought this was going to be fairly simple, but the huge two-manual Mustel instrument they hired in took some taming.  A beautiful old instrument it undoubtedly is, but keeping it under control is a tricky business, even with all its gadgets.  Bits of it were out of tune, and other bits didn’t always do quite what I’d expected, which is an occupational hazard of harmonium playing I suppose.  It’s got two knee swells, a Metaphone, Expression, Percussion, two Prolongements with foot cancelling, a Forte Fixe, and a plein jeu that you operate between your feet.  Does this mean anything to the non-harmonium player?  Of course not.  But could I make it sound remotely musical?  Erm, no actually.  I made a complete arse of it throughout the rehearsal, and decided to stay on to practise for 90 minutes afterwards.  All very embarrassing.  I think I’ll go in early tomorrow and practise some more.