Old Town Edinburgh from Calton Hill, G.W.Wilson 1870s
Hamish is my closest friend, albeit a fairly grumpy one. He has seen much of my joy and sorrow and commented on nearly all of what he has seen. There has been plenty of laughter along the way. It is now over 20 years since I left Edinburgh but the connection with him has grown stronger, not weaker. Artistic matters are the most personal of all and I have been able to discuss these with him, but not so candidly with others. Like everyone, I am guarded about what is most personal. Yet I have the necessary release of being able to share my private world with this one friend.
Though Hamish is not a musician, he hears me out on my ideas for writing music, saying what he finds positive and what he finds negative. And this is good as one wishes in any case to reach out to a public that does not comprise simply fellow composers. Our music descends into a purely professional activity if we are not careful. We speak to each other like doctors whose jargon excludes the general public. Yet music is intended for that general public just as much as medicine is. Indeed, is it not a sort of medicine? At college, where one sits in the auditorium amongst fellow students, listening to the work of other students, one acquires a taste for “purely professional activity”.
So, in a long conversation last night I explained what I have been planning for the group in Venice I am writing for. It is a radical departure for me, though in a direction I have tried to travel before. There is a point of departure, a direction, a route, a goal, and all things must align themselves if the voyage is to happen. Yes, I can be honest and admit that I have spent a great deal of time hanging around the harbour “getting ready” whereas I was actually “getting into trouble” of various kinds. After I talked to Hamish and he approved my ideas, I felt a nice puff of wind in my sails and some forward momentum as a result.