Saturday 30 July 2022

Admin plus

Originally written before the pandemic and left as a draft and now it is time for this brain child to be born.I have decided to write again and let you in to another little part of my life. I have been in a period of ordering the past and registering arrangements I had made for cello and classical guitar duo. I spent some considerable time going through the processes. The most interesting was the recordings finalising track lists on which I played in the 70s and how the process of logging who played where and when has now become much more ordered.It was originally in the hands of the Musicians Union to locate people sometimes ten years or more after the recording in order to pay them their royalties it has happened to me on two occasions.However the extraordinary fluke was that I had studied at universities, I had packed up my home in boxes it had been stored in an acquaintance's home in a spare room and locked and then after that put into 'professional ' storage. Just a few weeks ago there was a question about my playing on an iconic recording (I didn't know that it would be iconic at the time) however the writer of the music was a person who had written more that 3.000 adverts for television which you would have been bound to have seen. I certainly played on the Martini advert in any case and maybe one or two others. See my blog on recording...you go there, you play the music, you leave.There was some question about whether I had in fact played on that recording. I had all sorts of ideas as to how I could prove it. My diary for that year was one that started in mid year and went through the following year complete, conveniently leaving the first half of the year missing.I don't know whether such diaries are made now. It is lovely and has a red leather bound cover. Anyhow the important point I am making is that I went to a box opened a file and on top was the remittance for the very recording I was needing for proof. Everyone, even the Musicians Union were astounded and so was I quite frankly.... so fortuneate!. Why would I have kept the remittance for something that I did in the 70's I do not know but it was WONDERFUL to behold!! Regarding my cello and classical guitar arrangements each one needs to be traced so that if they are out of copyright the coast is clear to make arrangements of compositions. I have spent literally yonks in the British Library doing my homework looking at the original editions of works by composers that are out of copywrite seeing best how I can arrange them. Some works have been arranged many times by others already and that is something to be very careful about.