Bumps

So, this is a guest entry again.  My second of the year.  I should first explain why I'm standing in for Benjamin today.
He is somewhere on the M11, I suspect, driving back home from Cambridge with studio producer, Julian, after another exhausting day recording the Motet.
He started the day in Limehouse, the usual home of the recording sessions, indeed the home of most recording sessions of Benjamin's music over the past five or six years.
I was there myself, only yesterday, with the rest of the musical theatre choir, laying down our sections of the piece.  I had high hopes for us.  Having sat through many of the other sessions over the past few days, and seen how many people have seemed to think that they can just wing it when they get to the mic, then watching them fall apart, as they realise that that is just not feasible (not by any means everyone, but enough to send Benjamin to the brink of a nervous breakdown as hour by hour, time trickles past), and having myself done a lot of homework, and knowing the standard of the singers we had in our group, I thought it would be a breeze.  Sadly, it was not to be, and we worked for a full extra hour after we were due to have finished, and I'm ashamed to say that some bits were still rather scrappy.  I was, however, rather pleased, when I recorded one of my solo lines, and nailed it in one take.  Benjamin made me do another, just because he wasn't happy with the concept of someone managing to get it right first time, but even he had to admit that I had!  I felt proud.

Back to today, and he started out with the Navy boys.  I only have sketchy details as to how it went, so I'll leave him to tell you about it. He was also joined at the studio by close friend Fiona, who mercifully was able to step in to record the most important lines that poor Nic has been unable to do.  Apparently, she is still desperately ill, and pretty much bed-bound.  Get well soon, Nic!

After this, he and Julian headed off in the car to Cambridge in order to work for a second session with the Magdalene College Choir, who had had such a trouble time last week.  The last I heard, they were back in the car on their way home, but Benjamin assured me that there was no way he was going to make it back in time to write and post this blog, and so would I do it?  So here I am.

It's been a bit of a weekend for me.  Not only did I spend all of Sunday in the studio, Saturday for me was an epic jaunt up to Manchester, to do a surprise singing gig at a wedding.  Now, I wouldn't normally desribe a little hop to Manchester as an epic jaunt, but on Saturday, that's exactly what it turned out to be.  I was driving the three of us who were going to be singing up the M1, and we got snarled in a horrendous tailback.  While waiting to move on, several fire engines screamed past us on the hard shoulder, so it was clear that something pretty awful had happened up ahead.  When we got to the accident site, some 40 minutes later, the car involved was actually on its roof! I sent a silent prayer that everyone had got out safely, and we carried on our way.

Imagine my horror, then, when halfway up the M6, we found ourselves once again, stationary.  I couldn't believe it.  Another accident, another double lane closure, and this time it took us 45 minutes to travel precisely three miles.  That's an average speed of 4mph!  By this time there was no way we were going to get to Manchester in time to do a sound check, but luckily, we had the CD of backing tracks in the car with us, so were able to have a good sing song, and get our voices ready.

It got worse: when we eventually found the hotel, in Central Manchester, we were told that there was no car park, and that we'd have to go to an NCP job some way away.  We were just getting later and later.

As suspected, there was no time to do any kind os soundcheck, as by the time we arrived, the wedding guests were already milling around, and the element of surprise would have been totally ruined if they has seen or heard us rehearsing.  We were going to have to fly by the seats of our pants, and hope for the best.

As it turned out, they were a fantastic bunch of people to sing for, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the gig. We got a massive standing ovation at the end of Nessun Dorma, which always brings the house down, but this was something else!  I absolutely love singing at weddings.  There is always so much good feeling in the room, and people genuinely want to have a good time.  These kinds of people are easy to entertain.

The trials of the day were nowhere near over though, as on the way home, a short section of the M56 had been closed for resurfacing, and we found ourselves on the most ridiculous diversion you can possibly imagine!

Now, I know road works are inconvenient at the best of times, but sometimes, the people who plan these things need shooting!  Not only did the diversion take us miles back the way we had already come, towards Manchester, but we were taken so far from where we had started that I was scared we had gone wrong somewhere along the way.  Nope! Every few miles, there would be a yellow sign by the side of the road, with a black arrow, and the word "Diversion" on it, assuring us that we were indeed going the way these planners intended us to.  But I thought, "Hang on, this is the M62 to Leeds.  This can't be right."

Suddenly, halfway along the M62, just at the point where I was sure I had missed a turn of some way back, there was one final sign, telling us, "Diversion Ends."  Pardon my ignorance, and call me old fashioned, but surely, the point of a diversion is to take you around whatever obstruction has spawned the diversion in the first place, and deliver you safely back on your original route?  This had done nothing of the sort.  It was as if the planners had said to themselves, "Oh, let's just get them as far from Manchester as we can, then they wont be our problem any more!"  Ridiculous.

So we continued all the way to Leeds, and came home down the M1.  All in all, I was driving for about 9 hours on Saturday.  Utter madness. I'd complain, but 1) who to? and 2) who'd care?

On this day 350 years ago, Samuel also did a lot of travelling.  He and William Pen rode out early to William Batten's house, and were shown "many great rarities," including a chair, known as "king Harry's Chair," that when you sat on it, you could be constrained in it with irons.  Some sort of torture chair I assume, but one that apparently, "makes good sport!"

They were joined over dinner by Samuel's old school chum, Mr Christmas.  Sam was a bit concerned that he would remember some anti-royal statement that Sam himself had made as a boy, but apparently all was well, and Mr Christmas had left the school before the offending remark had been made.  Phew!  It's telling that he would be worried so long after the event, particularly in the light of his current status.  No one, it seemed was above punishment for such things, and it must have made for a very uneasy life indeed, constantly afraid that your past slights might come back to haunt you in very real ways.

They rode home in the moonlight, "it being about 9 o'clock before we got home."

Thanks for reading.  I hope I've kept the blog in good hands in Benjamin's absence.  More from him tomorrow, and perhaps, more form me another time.

No pumpkins

Another hectic and exhausting day in the studio, which has only just ended. I think Julian, our music producer has now had enough of the project; the constant takes, my constant voice in his ear. He doesn't have any more time this month to mix the music and I now have to book a separate recording studio for Nic to do her replacement session. The panic has also set in about the prospect of doing this work live, having heard the issues that so many high calibre singers are having with it in the studio... And then I have to organise Oranges and Lemons. Mayhem. Madness!

It's Hallowe'en and I find myself remembering childhood parties. Hallowe'en was my favourite time of year, and we were the only people in our town who had regular parties. The town I lived in was the perfect setting. The mists would roll in from the fens and the buildings were ancient. A network of secret passageways was meant to be underneath the town.

Thinking about these times makes me realise that this is the first year in my life where I've not hollowed out a pumpkin, a fact which makes me feel somehow very tearful.

October 31st 1660 and Pepys was preoccupied. He was worried about his roof terrace, and a last minute trip to the country that had been organised for the following day but mostly by the fact that he'd not had sex with his wife for two weeks. Oh well... Such is life...

11pm and a little chink of light... I just tried to explain to Nathan the significance of my not carving a pumpkin for the first time and fell into floods of hideous tears. I was obviously far more stressed than I had first thought! Nathan immediately frog-marched me to Muswell Hill and we now have two tiny pumpkins. They were all that was left in the shop. They're proper little runts; dead ugly, and going rotten, but they are going to become things of great beauty before the witching hour is upon us and Hallowe'en ends...

A show of resilience... Mine's on the right, Nathan's is the happy chap on the left!

The hell of Hallowe'en

It's the night before hallowe'en and there are wannabe ghosts and rather tragic-looking spectres everywhere. The tubes are rammed. The man next to me smells of fish, but he's not in fancy dress. Bank Station is closed. I've no idea how to get home... I am being diverted to Tower Gateway..,

Tower Hill tube is closed. Planned engineering works are happening on so many lines this weekend that the stations where there are interchanges have been closed due to overcrowding. Happy Hallowe'en! In the 21st Century, the population of a 'civilised' country should not have to put up with this sort of nonsense! London Underground has stationed a pair of prize w*****s at the door of the closed station. They're supposed to be helping people but one of them is a surly Eastern European who wouldn't know decent customer service if it smacked him in the buttocks and the other one is an arrogant turd who genuinely doesn't give a s**t about anyone he's talking at. 

Today couldn't have gone much worse. We timed out with one choir and I spent much of my time in the studio close to tears for all the wrong reasons. It seemed that we were constantly behind. Only about half of the singers had bothered to prepare the music to what I would describe as a performance standard and I am sick to the back teeth with people on this project who seem to want me to feel grateful that they've deigned to get involved. I don't write music to feel like this. Right now I'm questioning why I write music at all. I cannot continue feeling this stressed every time I  embark on a project and Nathan shouldn't have to put up with so many random and unpleasant mood swings. 

Much of today was spent doing the only thing you can do when someone's in trouble; recording people individually. This means there are little stems of music all over the place; passages where other singers have stepped in and hundreds of takes where people have sight-read their way through the music so badly that we're left needing to stitch three of for takes together. And the upshot of this? Hours and hours of studio time to mix the sodding work, which I simply can't afford. Add to this an extra session in Cambridge, an extra session with poor Nic who was so I'll yesterday and I'm already £675 in debt and counting!

I have never felt so close to throwing in the towel and to make matters considerably worse, I'm not sure anyone will care if I do! 

It's an hour after I left the session in Limehouse and I'm still at Tower Gateway. Hordes of people are trying to get on buses. The bus drivers are being horribly unhelpful. Our driver is refusing to tell anyone where he's  going! No doubt when we get it will be closed!

...Got to London Bridge and am now on a tube surrounded by ghouls and freaks in tutus singing "this is Hallowe'en".

Pepys was angry as well on this date all those years ago. The whole business with the door to his roof terrace being locked was playing heavy on his mind. He tried to contact the land lord to no avail, and ended up so stressed that all he could do was take himself to the theatre to watch a play. Some ridiculous "sequel" to The Taming of the Shrew, which he seemed to like rather a lot! I wish my my troubles could be sorted by a visit to the theatre!!

Green around the gills

It's been a thoroughly exhausting day... But things ARE improving. We're going almost mad, and working silly hours with no breaks, but it now looks like we'll manage record five out of the six movements by the end of our studio sessions. Both the folkies and the early musickers managed to get their way through an astonishing amount of music today. They sang beautifully. The early music girls came together to create a sound which was heartbreaking and Jon, who sings tenor in the folk group made two of us cry with his lament; "I being not able to do it any longer having done now so long as to undo my eyes", a setting of the passage in the diary when Pepys plaintively admits that he needs to stop writing because he thinks he's going blind. 

Unfortunately we're going to need to do another session with Nic in the early music choir who appeared looking decidedly green around the gills and promptly spent the session throwing up in the loo next door. I was so touched that she tried to do the session... She even managed to get through one of the movements!! 

Speaking of which, it was Lord Mayor's day on this date 350 years ago. Elizabeth was left at home, no doubt out of her skull on some dodgy medicine, and bedecked in plasters. Pepys took a group of ladies to watch the parades from an elevated position on Cheapside. He felt the pageants were good 'for such kind of things, but in themselves poor and absurd,' so he slipped away to the pub next door having got a taste for wine first thing in the morning with 'some strange and 'incomparable good clarett' that his friend Mr Rumball had given him.

He returned home to discover one Lady Davis had arrived in his absence and locked the door to his beloved roof terrace. It's not said how or why she had a key, but it so incensed Pepys that he immediately went to bed and couldn't sleep all night!! 

It just gets tougher!

Today was tough! By the end of a stifling four-hour session, which seemed to literally melt into a pool of sweat, we'd only managed to record two movements from the work, which is terrifying. The upshot of the disaster is that Julian, the recording engineer, and I have to go up to Cambridge on Monday night, at great expense, to finish things off. That is, of course, assuming that we manage to get any further with any of the other choirs. 

It's a very difficult situation. You can only move along at the natural pace of the group, which is dictated by how collectively prepared they are. Today's singers have wonderful voices but if just one person hasn't done their homework, or didn't look at one particular bar, then you lose ten minutes from the session, which is a disaster if you're pushed for time. And of course we all know there's a massive gap between what's acceptable in a live performance in terms of tuning and the level of precision needed in a recording.

So then I find myself contemplating Sophie's choice. If there isn't time to record all the movements, which ones will bite the dust? Could it be that part if this glorious work of mine will only ever be performed in a live arena? A miserable thought for a man who stopped working in theatre partly because he didn't like its transience. 

October 28th 1660 was a Sunday and pills and plasters arrived for Elizabeth to help with her problems down below. Pepys, like the caring husband he was, thought better of staying in the house and instead went to Westminster Abbey to view the spectacle of a set of bishops being ordained. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get into Henry Vii's chapel, so instead tool himself off to Sandwich's London residence, to hang out with the lady of the house and two of her children, who were also in town. By the time he finally arrived home Elizabeth was feeling a great deal better. The pills seemed to be working. 

Not old enough to tie his shoelaces...

Earlier on, I found myself watching a little lad and his mother making their way down the steep footpath towards Highgate tube. The lad stopped for a moment. His shoe laces had come undone and his mother obligingly dropped to her knees and did them up again. As I passed them, I noticed that the lad was talking nonchalantly into a mobile phone, whilst his mother busied herself with his shoes. What on earth is wrong with society if a small child can be old enough to use a mobile phone and yet not old enough to tie his own shoelaces! I was flabbergasted!


Those of you who were worried about me yesterday can breathe a sigh of relief, as I've made friends with the opera choir and apologised profusely for my strangely emotional outburst. They seemed to understand. I guess creative people like me are supposed to be somewhat temperamental! I'm sure any psychologists reading this blog would have a lot to say about my mental health. Sometimes I wonder if I'm simply mildly eccentric, or a total and utter fruit loop. Answers on a postcard, please... But be careful, I might thrown a tantrum!

I just had my last rehearsal before recording sessions begin tomorrow. I was working with the choir of pure voices who are replacing the children. I thought it would be an absolute breeze, but it was a proper hard slog. Thank God I didn't find a choir of children because they'd never have coped with the music! One of the passages we were rehearsing today must rank as the most complicated section of writing in the whole piece. I don't know what I was thinking...

A very short entry from Pepys on this date 350 years ago. He spent the day shopping; buying things for his newly decorated house. He called in at the church yard of St Paul’s to look at the books, and came away with a copy of Alsted’s Encyclopaedia which cost a whopping 38 shillings. Hardly surprising, however, when you consider that the work comprised 35 individual books. Pepys returned home to find his wife still ill with her old problem; painful labial cysts, which meant she couldn’t have sex, which probably meant Pepys would be sniffing around some young lass before the week was up.

A face covered in permanent ink

Yesterday was hell. I stumbled my way through the day in something of a coma, feeling so unbelievably tired that I could barely put one foot in front of another.


By the evening, I’d run three rehearsals and still had to drive to Shepherd’s Bush for a fourth. This particular session was with three of the opera singers and it went incredibly slowly. I started to panic and suddenly found myself slamming my fists down on the piano keyboard and shouting. Before I knew what was happening, I'd told the tenor that he was massacring my music. I then downed tools, stormed out of the rehearsal and drove home to Highgate feeling angry and sorry for myself.

It wasn’t until a set of angry emails arrived late in the night from the singers that I realised quite how hurtful I’d been. What a terrible thing to say to anyone who’s doing their best... or in fact, anyone at all. In my pitiful defence, it’s terribly hard for a composer to hand his work over to a singer or performer. The music has been in his head for so long that he knows exactly how he wants it to sound. He's controlled it and nurtured it; safe in the knowledge that no one could judge it or destroy it whilst it was locked in there. The moment he hands it to a singer, he relinquishes all control and becomes utterly reliant on someone else to bring it to life. It's really tough... I compare it to handing a beautiful baby over to a child minder and returning to find his face covered in permanent ink!

Anyway, the bottom line is that there’s never an excuse for being unkind and I feel very ashamed of myself.

Pepys was a busy man 350 years ago. Amongst other things, he paid a visit to Westminster Hall to buy a book which he took home to read to his wife. Unfortunately they discovered that the book had been written so badly that all they could do was sit and laugh at it.

Pepys reserved his most florid prose for a description of the dandy Duke de Soissons and the ostentatious coach he’d taken to travelling about London in; “all red velvet covered with gold lace, and drawn by six barbes, and attended by twenty pages very rich in clothes”. A barb, being a small horse, rather than something more decadent, like a hippo.

I'm just writing words now. None make any sense in my brain, which is officially fried!!