Rehearsal, House Circle, Course Management Meeting, and a drive

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday October 17, 2009 – Rehearsal, House Circle, Course Management Meeting, and a drive

Good crowd in the living room in the morning. There was a dance audition at Fremont Abbey, so all of our activities took place at my apartment.

Jaxie was out for the rehearsal, and Howard was under the weather, so there was a certain limitation on what we could address. Tony had his guitar with him, so we invited him to sit in with us, and for the first hour+ we worked on circulating “any note”, with the metronome, in eighth notes at tempos that began at quarter=120bpm and worked up to 186bpm. Bill helped with observations about out timing. With 8 players, eighth notes are regular in the circulation, so it is easy to fall into simply playing in time rather than actually circulating. We spoke about the AT theme the high flyers will be addressing at next week’s Guitar Craft course, which will be “Up”, and how that might be incorporated into how we are as we circulate. Before the break we moved to eighth note triplets, at a considerably slower tempo. In a circle of eight, this is a little more challenging, and we were not as consistently accurate in either the timing or the flow. Some discussion of why this might be.

After the break, on to La Rueda. We weren’t looking to play the piece, per se, but to go through the score and verify the parts. Tony was in Howard’s seat, and had to pick up the initiating notes of each bar, which he did quickly. Over the course of an hour, we identified a number of questions, places where the recording and the score were at variance. After the rehearsal I emailed Luciano for some clarification.

The House Team arrived at 1pm; Greg, IgorK and Mary Beth on board, with Christina under the weather and so staying home. We worked entirely in C Major, once again addressing diatonic arpeggios, triads and seventh chords, with an ear toward recognizing their quality and significance.

Jaxie, Chris and Travis arrived at 2:30 for a final pre-course meeting, focusing on the finances, travel, and all of the assorted details that are needed to get a Guitar Craft course off the ground.

At 4pm the meeting was over, and I loaded into my car for the (rainy) drive up to Vancouver, to spend the evening with Pablo and Melina and the boys before tomorrow’s inaugural Vancouver Open Circle.