All this stuff to do, and it would make sense to have a frantic day of scrabbling. But it’s a Saturday and I needed a break. Tomorrow I’ll be doing lots. Sometimes we need to pull back in order to push forward cleaner.
I had a lie in, only interrupted when Campbell hit the buzzer at about ten. He’s back in town with the Gennaro Maglioni mandolin I gave him half strung. I covered his bus back down from Scotland and bought some strings for the instrument. He was told at the shop that stringing it would cost £300 or break it. That’s just a shop getting business. This has been a working instrument before it was unstrung, and it didn’t break. I suggested that if I bought the strings we could have a go and get some sound out of it. If it breaks then it’s on theme for a show about breaking and we have a guitar as backup.
Campbell my nephew is very musical. He can noodle with guitar and mandolin for starters and I threw him an old mouth organ which he immediately made good as well. “I can taste the ancient dust,” he observed. But that harp is coming back into use now. I’m proud to have involved him in a thing I’m making. So many themes in common with the piece we are making about these machines that used to break things and now just sit and sleep. Old forgotten instruments, instruments that might break if they are used. It all fits the imaginative soundscape so well.
So yeah, we are thinking about the show. But also I’m just trying to have a day to chill out. I’m cramming my weekend into one day so tomorrow I can load up on random things and tweak the script for everybody else and also maybe finally work out what I will be doing in all this. Good lord. It’s a lot to be negotiating, but we have such a lovely team and I think Campbell will be a huge asset. I make most of my decisions through instinct and then go back over them and overthink them. I just saw him in my flat noodling on my guitar missing a string and thought he would be good for a joyful thing. Should you employ family? Yes, when it’s short notice and the money isn’t great.
argh and we got talking and suddenly it’s the wee hours and I’m gonna have to sleep… oops. Saturday night…
AlBarclay 