Monday March 22, 2010 – Final Guitar Craft Course - Day 2

Monday March 22, 2010 – Final Guitar Craft Course - Day 2

The Guitar Circle I
Guitar Craft 25th Anniversary Completion Course
Special Project: The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists III
Convento La Pace, Sassoferrato (Ancona), Italy

6:51am

Bill and Patrick found a scorpion in their room yesterday. Suddenly, putting on my shoes is an adventure.

9:11am

Working through an “emotional outburst hangover” this morning. I was actually angry last night with what I perceived as a systemic absence of listening. Giving in to this kind of inner emotional turmoil has far-reaching effects on me, and a heavy price to pay, and so my morning sitting was deeply distracted.

In fairness, I suspect the difficulties in last night’s rehearsal were partly the result of the seating arrangements we were experimenting with, which made the connection with the rest of the group very difficult; maybe impossible. In the first section/arrangement we were seated in 6 discrete circles of about 14 players each. Pretty much, whichever circle made the loudest noise dominated the music, and there was no room for subtlety. At one point I actually “shushed” several members of my team. The look of astonishment on their faces was priceless. But there was for the first time in the evening something happening in the room. A lovely C Lydian theme was developing that was shared by the group as a whole, and the atonal, arrhythmic wanking I was hearing around me made it pretty clear that Bill was the only other person in my circle with a direct awareness of what was transpiring. In the second session, there were three discrete circles on the center, with one large circle surrounding them. I sat in the larger circle. This was no better for me. The only time I was actually able to make direct contact with anyone from the inner circles was with Mariana who was in the circle the furthest from me. It was futile, since I couldn’t discern what her group was up to, but it was nice to see at least one awake face. Similarly I managed to connect with Adam, who was across the circle from me, but except for syncing up some rhythmic stuff, it felt more like silent commiseration over the situation. I had someone sitting on my left whose strategy seemed to be to play something/anything all the time, until by some miracle or chance it would fit in with something someone else in the room was doing. I spent a lot of that improv doing nothing, because the barrage coming from my left, left room for nothing.

Very strange dream in the night. Whether or not it had anything to do with going to bed angry is not clear, but I have my suspicions. It involved the discovery of a rare 2-disk (vinyl) Beatles EP. I have no idea if it is something that actually exists, or if I made it up just for this occasion. Black and white cover, and I felt it had been some kind of promotional item. I found it either in a library or a used book store of some kind. It was in very bad shape, and I had the sense it had been tossed aside, and that no one was really aware of it or its value. In real life I actually came upon a copy of the “butcher block” album in very much the same way and condition. I decided to take it. Only after making that decision did it occur to me that it really wasn’t mine to take, and that I would need to discreetly slip out with it; okay, steal it, to be perfectly honest. Nearby, on a bulletin board that was behind glass, there were several notices that were relevant to this record in some way, though I don’t remember how. The only way I could figure out how to get them out was to levitate them up and over the glass, which I did by pointing at them and concentrating until they moved. I woke up before I effected my escape.

11:47am

Enter the Marching Band of Crafty Guitarists. Now that was fun.

11:13pm

A lot of fun. A bit of mob rule. A few people who have a difficult time recognizing the distinction.