Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday December 7, 2009 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Bitter cold day. Cold guitars = funky and evolving tuning.

Howard was ambushed by a client, and so had to miss the rehearsal.

Began with a circulation in F Harmonic Minor, which served to center the group and the room, or so it seemed to me. Continuing with the strategy of keeping all of the current repertoire (and even a little bit of non-current repertoire) fresh, well-rehearsed, and ready to be played at a moment’s notice should it come out of the hat. Began with Eye of the Needle, including a bit of review of the work we did in October at Raft Island. From there, it was all about calling tunes and running them. Only where there was some specific issue to be addressed did we repeat anything. Even though they are not in the set, I called the missing 2/3 of the "Turkish Trilogy", Not My Sharona and Where Is the Nurse?, as well as Onyx. Gave La Rueda a couple of runs, which was particularly interesting since Howard sits in the pole position of the circulation and counts it off in performance. When we have to work on a circulated piece while missing a player or two, it is inevitably revealing and very useful: a strategy worth adopting intentionally, I would say. Howard sits in Position 5 (Beat 3) of the 6-part Shostakovich circulation, and this was the first time in my memory that we rehearsed the piece with a gap in that particular slot, and I found it strangely disconcerting. Counting that more or less takes care of itself as a rule for me was getting turned around in surprising ways. Live and learn.

Onward to the final shows of the season.