Iain Cameron's Diary
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2002-06-15 - 6:47 a.m.

Maybe no more on Prague? Well I will just mention that I looked in on the shop where they had the Cz-Armstrong flute for �285 - it had gone the female shop assistant told me with glee. Another regret.

When I got in James was chilling upstairs on his bed. I explained about the two items of fiction I had got him and apologised that the detective collection was slightly crumpled from me reading it at the airport and on the plane. He didnt seem to mind this at all. I said how funny it was that writers from different cultural perspectives seem to emphasise the same aspects of life under Communism.

Vita rolled in from a gig at a local club looking very sophisticated but not so sophisticated she didnt get into the Pierrot - Yvonne who had similar style puppets when she was a girl thought it was a nice thing too. I also gave Vita a thin bracelet of amber on a thin silver chain which was OK I think too.

Yvonne says she has been sleeping better since I have been away - because the house is truely silent during the silent hours. I promised to try to be quieter. I had a sip of Absinthe (75%) to knock me out and went to bed listening to the penultimate minidisc of works. A segued version of Alfie, a guitar instrumental I had forgotten about, The burning nightingale, 2 versions of Place To Be.

On the plane I read some Craft-Stravinsky conversations - at one point Str says that he thinks in the future music might be part electronic and part acoustic with new forms of tuning and improvisation. He tells of hearing a Noh flute and then later the same day a conventional Western one - he is struck by the impoverishment of the equal temperament.

I also looked at the Smetana scores while listening to the CD of the S4tets - got an idea about adapting the opening section of the last movement of the second quartet.

I have just listened to the mix I made of the Mark-Robin ComputerCoolio track to which I added various parts. Maybe I will send Mark a copy on CD after all.

The exception that proves the rule has neve struck me as a logical idea. Exceptions are just exceptions - well maybe not "just" - Aldous Huxley's biologist friend had a motto - treasure your exceptions. I need to mention the last band I heard in the bebop bar which in truth mainly had mainstream groups in. This one was an exception - a Cuban singer playing hand percussion, a young local bass-player and a pianist from Georgia who was a real m-f - in his early 20s I guess. They were doing mostly Cuban songs with some instrumental passages. I have heard a lot more Brazilian than Cuban music. When the pianoplayer realised he had an audience he stretched out esp on the harmonic front - polytonality on that rhythmic basis was electrifying.

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