Time is running. And running. Blink once and it's Christmas. I came to Uist almost 3 weeks ago and it's just incredible how fast time flies by.
I am still getting used to things here but what a difference a (day makes! what a joke there, i know that was bad, sorry) week makes. With every day I learn more stuff about the place and get more used to life up here. I realized that a car is a real luxury and that I shouldn't rush things but try how it works without a car and if I realize after time that it's really impossible to survive then I can still get one. So far it could be worse. I got really used to the buses that get me to the college in the morning and drop me off again in the evening. I also find myself being more productive in the college than at home so I guess that's a benefit from being in college all day. Also I'm only in college Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so I get Monday and Friday to get stuff done at home, which is quite handy.
This week I have a friend visiting who came all the way from Germany to the Outer Hebrides. What a journey! The best thing about your friends making music as well is that you get to share your passion with someone else. The two of us met through the folkBaltica Ensemble in Germany/Denmark and we just realized today that without that we wouldn't have met. That moment we both felt very blessed and thankful for the opportunity we got! Our plan was to get a few sets together and get them recorded in the recording studio in college. It's always good to have something to work for and it's also good to have an idea of how these recording studios and recording in general works because I tell you: It's not easy! I'm sure once you know how it works you'll be totally fine but if you've never done that before it can be quite overwhelming. But also exciting!
We decided on 5 tunes to record because we only have a week, but there should be a range of different tunes. Instruments are voice, piano fiddle and trumpet. What a combo, eh? We quickly had the first song which is gonna be our own arrangement of a song with voice, a harmony and piano. Practise it over and over to get the harmony in and the chords on the piano? Check! Two of the other tunes are going to be own compositions, one by myself with an instrumental tune using fiddle, trumpet and piano. Can't wait for that one! Second one is by my friend and it's a song about a german folk story. Voice and Harmony as well as piano on that one. Three down two to go. After realizing that we both love a particular folk song from England we had our fourth song. The last tune needed to be an instrumental set so we found a tune from Canada, one from Slovakia and one from Denmark and had our last set. Whoop whoop! It took us some time to make the recording software work but we managed! So off we went starting some sweeeet recordings. See recording is so much fun, but it takes time! Especially if you're recording yourself because mostly you are a lot more critical about yourself than others so it might take ages to get the perfect recording. But that's also the fun part about recording. Because the more often you go over the parts the more you find new ideas, get new influences and might decide to structure the tune completely different. But the feeling when you hear it all together the first time is incredible! It gets you hyped to record even more and record a thousand more tunes (at least that's what happened to me yesterday)!
With the weekend now we get some time to finalize the arrangements for the tunes to have them ready to record on Monday and get a whole day to record. Let's see how that works, but I'm sure it'll be great! The weather out here is horrible so there is lots of time to sit inside and practise.
Remember that piping workshop I mentioned in the first blog? Well the dates for next year are out since this week. Reading the dates I was sure that it was not clashing with any other events, so I was happy for the moment. 10 minutes later I had another thought and realized that the last residency for my music degree at university is exactly before that and the first day of the piping workshop clashes with the last day of the residency. Additionally the linear line between the residency (Stornoway) and the piping workshop (Hamburg) is 1,500 km. I couldn't miss the piping workshop! For me this is such an IMPORTANT part of the year and it can't be missed. It might be only a few days but it gives me so much inspiration so much motivation that I just have to go! Also the residency is one of the most important parts of the degree so I can't and don't want to miss that! That means planning, planning, planning. Check flights from Stornoway to Edinburgh, Edinburgh to Hamburg, Stornoway to Glasgow, Glasgow to Hamburg, etc. And all of that to a specific time so I won't miss a lot from the residency and the workshop. Well, well it takes time but we're getting there! I find myself spending a lot of time on things like that but I realized that that is only because I am very passionate about both of these things! If I wouldn't be passionate about it I would just cancel one of the two and it would be a lot easier but you know what? That wouldn't fullfill me and I would be utterly gutted to miss one of the two or in other words I JUST CAN'T! So I think if there is something you are very interested in or passionate about it you should pursue it and do it no matter what people say, no matter how much effort you need to put in it, do it! I always tend to think that after those things you should say to yourself "Imagine I know all the great things that happen but I wasn't there because I simply didn't try hard enough to make it work, how gutted would I be?" or "If we could go back in time, how much would someone have to pay me to get myself knowingly miss out on that experience?" I think you can figure out the answer yourself. I wouldn't even change it for anything in the world. Nothing.
Now I am very much looking forward to the next week to do the recordings! Can't wait for the result & what news I'll have next week! Hope you're well and take care.
Cheers, Emilia
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