Pulse
Finding my Pulse
Studying classical music, there is a lot to learn. You play in string sections, follow conductors, sight-read fast and fluently. You get the bowing right, the tuning exact. That is the training.
But I wanted more. I wanted to hold a beat. Play with swing. Catch a fiddle tune and not rush it. That felt out of reach.
For my final recital, I had to perform a piece written after 1945. I decided to create my own work. With support from Jenni Roditi, one of my Guildhall teachers at the time, I created a new work based on George Mackay Brown’s poem Roads. It wove together poetry, music and improvisation. I loved it.
The judging panel, however, did not! I got a poor mark. Their feedback? I was there to interpret other people’s music, not create my own. It made me furious, but it lit a fire. I promised myself, one day, I’ll find my voice.
The People in Pulse
Margaret Bennett
When I returned to Edinburgh from London around 1990, Scottish folklorist Margaret Bennett encouraged me to visit Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. She helped me see the treasure in their music. It holds something ancient, something we’ve half-lost here in Scotland.
Their fiddle music is wild and rhythmic, with a percussive lift in the shoulder and foot. It sounded older than us, and it felt like home. I fell in love with the tunes, the steps, the swing of it.
David Francis
Somewhere around that time, I ran into Dave again in Edinburgh. We first met in Lismore in 1987. He taught me my first tune by ear. That moment set a thread in motion. We would go on to form a duo and much more, which I talk about on Auld Lang Syne.
César
Mexico was a bit of a whim. I wanted to see more of the world. The plan was Mexico first, then Canada for Cape Breton fiddle, then west to Bowen Island to visit my sister.
After Cape Breton, I took the long train from Halifax to Vancouver. I couldn’t afford a sleeper, just a reclining seat. On the second day, a train guard asked if I’d play a tune for the carriage. I did, and I earned myself a bed for the rest of the journey. The train became its own wee world. Four days of sharing stories, tunes, food. A moving village.
Mexico surprised me. The women were deeply feminine. The men, intensely masculine. I felt suddenly very Scottish, very buttoned-up. Protestant, even!
I followed a fellow I fancied to Guadalajara, though I sensed something was off. He was kind but distant. Turns out, he was training to become a Jesuit priest. No wonder he was cautious, I had been tailing a man headed for holy orders!
My audition for the Guadalajara Chamber Orchestra was surreal. The room was massive, dark, and lined with hundreds of egg boxes for acoustics. I got the job. But César’s friend warned me off. Told me the orchestra was corrupt, tied up with things I’d be better off avoiding. I didn’t dig for details.
Years later, in 2015, César and I reconnected through Facebook. He’d left the Jesuits soon after I left Mexico. Met a woman, married, lost her to cancer. In 2018, he visited me in Edinburgh. Dave wasn’t thrilled about that, but it all turned out fine.
The Arc and Form
My collaborator and director, Kath Burlinson, helped shape Pulse. She brought clarity and language to what had started as a swirl of sound and feeling. In my process, music comes first. Then visuals. Words come last. Kath helped me find them.
Pulse follows the arc of the Hero’s Journey, a classic structure for a time in life when you’re searching. You leave home, face tests, find treasure (if you’re lucky), and return changed.
The Heart of Pulse
At its centre, Pulse is about loss and return. It’s a personal story, but it touches something wider. It’s about waking up. About realising how much we’ve lost—and how hard, and how beautiful, it is to try to find it again.
It’s bittersweet. And it’s true.
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