Music

Over the last month or so, I've been learning the Scottish Gaelic words for the song Ailein Duinn, for another collaboration with Willie Gibson. I sang on his Cutty Wren project a few years ago, and this is even more challenging. The synth version of the song he has made is faster than any of the online versions, but the fact that those are slower has meant that I have been able to get an idea of the pronunciation of the Gaelic words. It's probably still wrong (I'm prepared to be laughed at), but a plea on social media led to precisely nobody being able to help with that.

Gaelic isn't like any other language I've learned. I spoke to a chap with Arabic heritage the other week in Glasgow and he said that sonically there's a lot on common between the two languages. To sing, I've had to persuade my voice to behave in ways it never has before. Gutteral sounds in the German language fit into the spoken rhythms with a particular logic, and I think from what I hear that there are a lot more of those sounds in Gaelic, and you have to move your lips into different shapes to make the sound 'bh', for instance.

Anyway, I sent the track to him on Thursday evening and he sent me a mix yesterday. I think it sounds good: it's more folky that I usually sound and even that has had its challenges. Folk singing has lots of glissando, and crescendos in places where in my normal singing I would hold back. I decided not to sing it in the style of the internet examples, but to think of the plaintive nature of the words and use that as inspiration. Willie's track sounds like the thrashing sea, and the hero died in a shipwreck so that seems just right.

I went and collected the remaining songs that my brother James wrote yesterday so I can help his son to decide which ones we should release next. I made quick mp3 versions from James's files, and realised at one point that some of them may have been partially muted. I'll listen this weekend and see if that is the case: I caught some of them in time, just before I bounced them down. There are about seventeen songs left, quite a lot!

I went to see Gina on the way there, too. A final obstacle in her plan to tour the US with Miki Beryeni got solved just while I was there, which is really great news. I'm going to be doing backing vocals in a couple of her songs at the 100 Club gig, the day after the Essential Logic show at the Lexington, and then again in November (photo by Dean Chalkley)

I'm planning another Everybody gig like the album launch for Showtunes in the Shadows that I did early this year, so I'll be contacting everyone next week to see who is available and when. Gina has said she can do it in December; ideally everyone will be there and also the extra people (Ruth and Karina) who contributed to that gig.

Funny... I thought nothing had happened this week! That's mainly because I was going to sit down and try to arrange some gigs. Normally, I'd have done that in January, but I was recovering from surgery that month, and also collecting all the energy that I could muster so I could do the group of gigs in March that I'd booked before the operation. It's fantastic to be able to sing. Three cheers for Professor Lim and his team, and also for the NHS who graft so hard to keep us all alive- or at least to add as many years to our mayfly lives as they can!