Harpsichord

Today is a watershed in my life. I have acquired a harpsichord. This may seem a very different kind of subject from the general tenour of The Light on the Clouds – but this space is one I created to post a diary of the inner guidance I received during some very difficult years where I was experiencing a profound life change from everything I had grown up to the age of 40 with, as a musician, into I-knew-not-what. Because I felt guided (by Sai Baba) I was able to trust a process in which my whole inner world was melted down like that of a chrysalis. I knew it was important to keep a contemporaneous record of that very painful transformation because it could never afterwards be reconstructed, & also because I knew I had been 'chosen' to undergo it in an exemplary form which might afterwards be serviceable to others encountering such experiences.

In the world's eyes I am nobody, yet my determination to be 'present' -and to engage intensely with what that demands in being a a witness to 'that of god within'- is what confers individuality on me – as it does on everyone who chooses to walk such a path. Those who pursue 'celebrity' within which imagine they will find self-affirmation are rewarded with the possession of emptiness. The journey to authenticity lies in the opposite direction – away from the bright lights into the embracing darkness.

When I resigned from the Junior Royal College of Music in 1991 & appeared to be 'walking off the edge of the world' I knew as a musician, I did so within the sense of a promise from Sai Baba that all this (in particular access to an electronic music studio) would all be given back to me in a new & vivid form when I had proved myself. I think I may that while I may have flinched at the harshness of some of the spiritual weather I've been throu, I've stayed more or less true to my path - and that now seems to have brought me to a space which was the one I was striving for in my earlier life, but could never fully achieve.

My deep love of 16/17thC keyboard music was what brought me into contact with my harpsichord teacher Jane Clark (Dodgson) in 1964 when I had no means of expressing my musical impulses effectively. She rescued me as a human being & made me into a harpsichordist – tho that was not really what I wanted as a life-path in an age when the whole dynamic of the 60s seemed to promise breaking down those cultural & social barriers that had held back the tide of creative development for decades, generations or even centuries (depending on your perspective). I was embarrassed by my 'classicism'. But now I feel Ive proved everything I need to - about my virility & fashion-ability - so that I'm now ready to embrace the roots I was desperate to escape from 40 years ago.

My harpsichord is a single manual flemish copy with 2 8's & buff made by Michael Ellis-Jones in 1996. I bought from Colin Booth. Neither of us has been able to discover anything about the maker, but its timbre and scaling are superb, tho it's more of a chamber instrument than a concert one. I've never owned a harpsichord before - & yet now I am able to 'own' not just it but the ability it confers of entering into the palaeo-psychology of different worlds whose emotional value-system is preserved in their music just as ours is. I shall hugely enjoy the opportunities it will offer me to weave this new strand into my life.