Evening Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday October 19, 2009 – Evening Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Gathered at the Wilsons at 8:30. Chris under the weather, so we were 8 in the circle. Began by going over the corrected score for La Rueda that Luciano sent in response to my questions. This was pretty quick work. We couldn’t exactly run the piece without Chris, but with all of the arpeggio circulators present we did manage not only to verify the parts, but to get it up to tempo and have a good look at balance and blending details. Very good work, and a clear sense that this could be up and running in pretty short order.

A couple of runs through Eye of the Needle before a break.

Last part of the rehearsal dedicated to Scorched Air. All of the circulators present, so we began with the low clockwise circulation. Once that was well established and up to tempo, on to the double circulation. Several runs through the entire piece. Still not quite ready for primetime, but beginning to show signs of life.

The question, not entirely rhetorical, posed was “how do we keep these pieces (La Rueda and Scorched Air) viable and current when we will not be rehearsing together for a couple of weeks?” The entire team, except Bob, will be moving to Raft Island for the Guitar Craft course on Friday, so it will not be possible to have full group rehearsals until the Monday after the course, 2 weeks from now. Of course, there will be a lot of work together, and that is always beneficial to the group and the show – in many ways better than rehearsal, or at least a valuable change of routine with a good dose of new information – but these are pieces that need to be practiced together if they are to be performed, and if nothing happens with them between now and our next rehearsal, we will be back to starting over with them, and that isn’t a particularly attractive future.

The rehearsal ended with some discussion about the show itself, both details and more general qualities. We don’t sit and talk about this as often as we once did, and it was both necessary and refreshing.

One more show before the course, likely with a few of the arriving participants in the audience. No idea what the show for the following week will be. It could be that the company will simply slip away for the show, and the course will go on in our absence. Or, perhaps we will bring some additional players along and incorporate some of the work we are doing in the retreat as a kind of special project. Hell… maybe we’ll pack the whole course into vans and cars and have a Tuning the Air extravaganza – it’s a Guitar Craft course and one never knows what will happen.