Sitting, Rehearsal, Practical Work and House Circle

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday September 19, 2009 – Sitting, Rehearsal, Practical Work and House Circle

Modest turnout for the Saturday sitting.

Eight here for the rehearsal, with Jaxie AAD. I unveiled the setlist I had worked out. It includes 15 pieces plus an assortment of circulations and zithers. I had conceived it in 5 distinct mini-sets of 2-4 pieces. The opening and closing “sets” were pretty straightforward but I was still rearranging the other 3 at 8am. There was no immediate objection to the set as proposed, so we worked through it to see if the flow worked. Except for a couple of train wrecks and one tune in need of serious review (somehow we hadn’t played “Brazil” since we began the preseason rehearsals) we didn’t stop to work on anything, staying focused on the big picture. Overall, the set and flow felt very good. Tempos were a little brisk across the board for some reason, but nothing heinous.

After a short break, Bill gave us a couple of notes before departing. The set was formally adopted, of course pending any revisions that come up on Monday. We worked on circulations, which is something that is too easy to overlook when we are otherwise under pressure. Ran a few pieces from the set with the metronome to get them back in line, and then hit the pieces that will be “in the pocket” for encores, should they be demanded.

During the rehearsal, Mary Beth was in the back room assembling the a-frames. After rehearsal she, Travis and Taylor headed over to Fremont Abbey to drop them off and do a check on the location and condition of the risers. But before everyone left I popped in the remastered mono “Please Please Me” to demonstrate. The look on Igor’s face, who was halfway out the door until he heard the opening of “I Saw Her Standing There”, was priceless, as though he was hearing the piece for the first time.

Short break. I grabbed a piece of fruit and sent the setlist out to the team, to make it official.

Greg, Andrew, Charles and Christina in the House Circle. Mary Beth needed the afternoon to take care of some chores related to her upcoming move. We focused for the entire 90 minutes on C Minor. Began and ended with free circulations. In between, explored the scale through 4 octaves, expressed as a simple scale, thirds, triads, and seventh chords. Ended by learning the arpeggio part to Tony’s “Lament”.

Met with Andrew afterward to lay out a plan for an interesting future potential.

A bit of work on email updates to promote next Thursday’s opening night before calling it a day.