Direction musical

Musical Direction.  What does it mean?  To me, it seems to be shaping into "Get the best out of people."  Whether that is writing every note, every chord, every nuance and expecting all the musicians to play what you have written and follow you waving your arms at them wildly...  Or writing an idea, and explaining your way through the music, asking the musicians to understand your ideas and work with them in their own way.  Or focussing the musicians to create their own music, and gently nudging them into ideas and arrangements which are their own.  Getting the best out of people is a great thing.  Getting the best out of people and all having a nice time as you do it is even better.

In the middle of August I 'musically directed' the Traditional Music and Song Association's Young Trad Tour ( http://www.tmsa.org.uk/ ).  Please have a look at the TMSA's website - it has a diverse group of festivals which happen all across Scotland, run by TMSA members, plus it is actively promoting traditional music throughout Scotland with all sorts of workshops, ceilidhs, concerts, archiving etc.  Go and have a look!  Anyway, it also manages the Young Trad Tour.  It's a tour which happens once a year, involving the finalists and winners of the Scottish Young Trad Competition.  Hands Up for Trad run the competition with the support of the BBC and various other bodies.  The dates are posted up on the TMSA website at http://www.tmsa.org.uk/news/tmsa-news.asp?newsID=152 and more information can be found at www.handsupfortrad.co.uk  Previous winners include Gillian Frame, Emily Smith, Stuart Cassells, Anna Massie, James Graham, Shona Mooney.  All phenomenal players, with amazing potential.  This is the third year I've been involved in helping to put the show together.

The musicians are Catriona Watt Gaelic song and 2007 winner, Darren MacLean Gaelic Song, Calum MacCrimmon Pipes, whistle, (and Donal Brown, depping for Calum on the 7th & 8th Sept) Michael Vass Fiddle, Calum Stewart Wooden Flute, Whistle, Martin Hunter Accordion, Shona Mooney Fiddle, Viola and 2006 winner, Innes Watson Guitar, Mhairi Hall Piano accompaniment, flute.  Please search all these musicians out!  They are worth following up as they are good people, all striving to play and write traditional-style material in their 'own style'.  I would describe them all here, and not do any of them justice, so I urge you to go on to each myspace and spend a wee bit of time with them all.  And if you can come to a gig on the tour, please do.  They'll appreciate it!

Musically directing something like this really only involves making sure there is a good live show at the end of it.  There is no need to help the musicians work out chords, or changeovers between tunes, as they all know how to do these things, and are very good at it.  Which is a joy.  We only ever have a few days to put the show together, and this year we spent those days together in Birnam House Hotel.  Birnam is near Dunkeld, in Perthshire.  Much history and music and merriment to be had there!  I recommend it highly (again).  So we had three whole days this time round.  The tunes and songs are all fantastic!  Some traditional, some written by the musicians themselves.  All great stuff.  We worked from 10am to 10pm with a break for lunch and dinner.  I commend all the players for being able to work so long and hard and give it 100%.  Well pretty much 100%.  There was a slight hiccup on the third morning, due to the Tequila Charades game the night before.  Wow I'd forgotten how tingly and spangly tequila is!   And how competitive Darren is.  We had a boys against girls charades marathon.  We let them win, just to keep the peace ha ha.

I am going to see the one in Glasgow on the 22nd Sept and the one in Hawick on the 27th.  Why two?  Why not?  I do like seeing shows more than once if I like them.  And we have a slightly different set-up on the 27th as we are losing Mike Vass to another gig which he had accepted months before the tour was set up.  So we have Anna Massie stepping in for the night.  Not a bad dep...  And the live concerts towards the end of the tour are recorded, with myself and the sound engineers Kris Koren and John Weatherby working on the finished product.  The new cd will be ready for the Young Trad Musician final at Celtic Connections in January 2008.  Maybe even Christmas 2007.  Who knows, if they play as well as they were playing in the rehearsals, then the potential to have a perfect recording is high!  Shouldn't be much to do in the post production.  The previous recordings are available at http://www.tmsa.org.uk/tmsa-shop.htm

Okay enough blogging.  I really do have to spend some time with my cat.
All the best.  Hope September is splendid for you all.

Corrina