Monthly Open Circle and Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday September 5, 2009 – Monthly Open Circle and Rehearsal

Rather disappointing turnout for the morning sitting. There is always a reason, and the reason is always reasonable, and completely legitimate. But nevertheless something is irrevocably lost.

A coffee break, and then off to Fremont Abbey Arts Center for the Monthly Open Circle. 14 in the circle today, plus me on my feet. We began with an instruction which launched a group improvisation, and from the very first notes it was magical. Music seemed to walk through the front, sit down in the middle of the circle, and there it remained of 120 minutes. For the majority of the day I worked with gently rhythmic exercises designed to require the players to listen with a level of intention that might not automatically be available. The selfish side of this was that I wanted to learn as much as I could about how this room responds to rhythm. The result was some truly astonishing music. There was a moment when, as I was listening, I heard myself thinking, “to hell with booking shows, to hell with designing sets, to hell with promotion, to hell with business… all I ever want to do in life is THIS. Let someone else deal with all the rest.” We ended the circle as we began it, with an improvisation. Again, stunning moments of Music.

One thought that came to me: we simply have to get David Hykes into this room the next time he is in town.

A quick break and move back to my apartment for the Performance Team rehearsal. Jaxie would be with us for 90 minutes, and then she and Bob would tag-team. We began with the pieces I felt most needed attention, with a slant toward the pieces that Jaxie is key for. “Eye of the Needle”, “49 Notes”, “My Precious Dream”, “Voices of Ancient Children”, “King for a Day” and “The Bus Artist”. Very good work, looking at several details that can be the difference between excellent and superb when performance time comes.

At the break, Jaxie departed and Bob arrived. We began with a bit of Groundhog Day, repeating the pieces we had worked on with Jaxie, getting Bob up to speed on what we had observed. From there to some additional pieces. In particular, looking at a bit more of the revamped arrangement of “Scorched Air”, filling Chris in on the zither assignments we worked out on Monday, and recalibrating the rhythm section for the new seating arrangement. We ended with work on “Lament”.

Monday is a tech night at Fremont Abbey, working out lighting and staging decisions.