Re: GG: Studios, Puppies and Burgers; Oh My!

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Tue, 27 Jul 1999, John Hill wrote:

> Hey, Brad!   Don't forget the ant spray acquisition and deployment (remember,
> ants are not *good* conductors, but they're good enough to cause
> significant havoc on the inside of a $3k custom mic preamp!).  

Righto.  My father-in-law diagnosed those li'l guys as "leaf-hoppers"
(surely the correct taxonomic term) and did a more thorough extermination
the week after you were here.  But the spray we had used at least held
them sort of at bay.  Glad none got into your machines, as they do (with
interesting results) in the film "Pi."

> Also of
> note was the need to learn the backroads of Harrisonburg and comingle
> effectively with buggies and kids on bikes.  Quite a change from Nashvegas!
> Oh, also the local ice-cream hang (I forget the name) for post-Diner
> desert binging.

Kline's Dairy Bar; neon Americana.  Flavors of chocolate, vanilla, and
weekly special.  Garrison Keillor could have fun with it, being that it's
real close to Glen's Fair Price (an old-fashioned "dime store" that sells
everything if you can find it), right behind the post office and the
Catholic church (bright red door and everything), and also near the Gift
and Thrift and the American Indian Cafe (American food and Indian food,
not American Indian food). But now they're moving the post office out near
the interstate.  I forgot to take you to the furniture store where they
hand you a free Coke just for walking in.  Gotta attend the Shenandoah
Shakespeare Express next time you're here, too.  Macbeth is on for
tonight.  http://www.ishakespeare.com

When we moved the clavichord out of the studio (Rushville Records?
Rushville Enterprises?  Zatoro Productions?) and back to my living room
after you left, the temperature/humidity shift took out a string: middle
C, kablooey.  No real harm done, just an annoyance at having to change it.
Glad it didn't happen during the session with the mikes in the line of
fire.

> 
> During some of the session breaks, I also had the chance to hear some
> of the many Art of Fugue recordings that Bradley has amassed.
> Gotta say that my faves are still GG on video from Off The Record and the
> Bruno M. films, although there were many interesting moments on the
> others (maybe the next project is a complete Art of Fugue?)

By next time I will have dug out Andy Kazdin's Bolero-on-the-Moog record
for your amusement, plus more of the GG arcana and some even farther out
stuff.

Maybe we can do an Art of Fugue, but I'm not sure what I'd add
significantly to the recorded corpus now that Robert Hill has done it so
well in his new hpsi set.  Well, it's never yet been done on clavichord to
my knowledge, probably because it's so much more terrifyingly difficult to
control on clavichord than on harpsichord.  The harpsichord forgives
finger-shifting and other awkwardnesses.  There might be some fret
conflicts in #8's and #11's most chromatic moments, too; if so, we'd need
an unfretted clavichord.

Maybe instead we should do an album on virginal from the Fitzwilliam,
Mulliner, Ladye Nevell, etc.: some of the Byrd, Farnaby, Sweelinck, more
Gibbons, more Philips, more Tallis, and other stuff we didn't get around
to this time.  How 'bout the 30-variation Walsingham by Bull: sort of a
late 16th C Goldberg?  And that Bull "Ut re mi fa sol la" that goes all
the way around the circle of fifths and comes out the other side?  We
could also do something that shows first-hand why F Minor is such a
special key in meantone temperament.

> 
> PS:  Javachip and Arizona Green Plum rule.

Indeed.  You really got me hooked on that green plum stuff.  But why do
they call it Arizona if it's imported from Canada?

Bradley Lehman ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/ 
Dayton, VA, USA ~ 38.43N+78.98W