Rehearsal and House Circle

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday August 29, 2009 – Rehearsal and House Circle

Morning sitting at my place with the team. Not quite so well attended as the previous weeks. I do hope that this was not just an early in the process spike. Last season Saturday mornings got to be a bit sparse, and I have asked everyone to reexamine this.

To Fremont Abbey for rehearsal. Seven in team, as the Wilsons are out of town for the weekend. Bill R sat in the center and manned the metronome. We again began with some circulating, and then took a look at “49 Notes”. This was followed by some good work on “Eye of the Needle.” After a bit of a break we moved on to some detail and technical work on “In My Room.” Composed circulations in time, in the reverberant Great Hall, and tempo maintenance in general, are probably the greatest challenge. It would seem that our concentration last season on consistency in tempo, involving always practicing pieces at precise tempos, was just practice for what this season will require. We moved on to a limping version (2 out of 6 melody circulators missing) of the Shostakovich prelude, with specific attention on taking advantage of the room’s capacity for dynamics. “Cultivating the Beat”, with metronome and without the Wilsons (always a challenge). Travis stepped out of the way for Ian to take on the new part. Next, a return to F Harmonic Minor and the new zithers, and then on to “The Bus Artist”, which could be connected. Specific work with the rhythm section on maintaining coherence during the improv section in the middle. Ended the day with “Batrachomyomachy”, and some very specific work on the canon melody.

A quick run back to my apartment and the House Circle, three in attendance. Work in two halves. For the first half continuing with the work on circulating through specific harmonic sequences, and some particular work on useful strategies. In the second half I joined so that we could work as a quartet, circulating the 49 note melody. Very good work, and time ran out too soon.