‘Jo’s Mtb Tunes’ was a lockdown composition and video-making project, supported by funding from Creative Scotland and The Hope Scott Trust.

The project was a development of something I’d been having fun with for a while in my off-duty time – fanfaring the start of a mountain bike ride with friends by playing a folk tune associated with the location.   So while everyone was pumping up their tyres in the car park, I’d grab my clarinet and play the Loch Torridon Reel, the Rothiemurchas Rant, or the Drunken Wives of Fochabers.  If I couldn’t find a tune about the place, I’d make one up.  It functioned as a sort of blessing of the ride, and I particularly liked to try and select a tune that seemed to express the qualities of the landscape ahead – whether fast and scuttery,  risky with unexpected turns, or brooding and melancholy, layered with historic sadnesses.  

I never imagined it as a formalised arts project, but then someone else did –  so here is a series of six short videos made during the Covid lockdowns, showing a progression from the original activity – a straight up clarinetting of a traditional fiddle tune in its title location – through to my own, increasingly multi-layered compositions.