Full Company Circle, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday April 24, 2010 – Full Company Circle, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

Sitting as usual for a Saturday, at my place at 8:30. We scattered on the coffee quest and then gathered in the Great Hall at Fremont Abbey at 9:30.

For the first hour we were the full company, with guitars, led by Frank. He continued on the theme we have been exploring since January, observing the way the body moves with the breath, and carrying that awareness with us as we circulate. The first exercise, which I will not attempt to describe other than to say it involve holding your guitar up in the air, was brand new, and unlike anything I have done with him in 24 years of working together. Incredible. As we moved to the circulation exercises I had the sense that 4 months of living with this theme has had an effect on me, in that I was much clearer in my witnessing of myself than ever, and it occurred to me that some of this practice has really become part of the way I “am” in the circle, any circle, when we are rehearsing or performing.

Frank ended with a version of a familiar favorite exercise of his that involves moving around the room in a group. This time it was with guitars though – I don’t think that I have ever done that with him, although he mentioned they had given it a go in Grossderschau. By the time the session ended, we were looking an awful lot like the Orchestra in Italy.

A short break, and the Performance Team reconvened to rehearse. We went through a number of pieces from the current set, working with the metronome, with the aim of getting both tighter in our performances, and somewhat deeper/clearer musically. We began with Not My Sharona, which was the only thing that threatened to go off the rails this week, and that was really only a moment of terror that was quickly adjusted. From there to Lament, Thrak and Eye of the Needle. A number of issues identified that we will dive into on Monday evening at rehearsal.

After another short break, further on into A Day In the Life. The Lennon sections are pretty well set, and the playing and dynamics are getting better. I can do most of the McCartney bass lines for that section without the music, although I still haven’t had the nerve to run it without the score. We focused on getting the background harmonies for the McCartney section. One more section to fully orchestrate and arrange and we will have at least a working version to be able to get really serious with. I never in my life imagined I’d be doing a Mal Evans part.

The people scheduled after us in the Great Hall were beginning to mass outside the door, so we called it a little early and cleared out for them.

During the morning sitting, a way of looking at pentatonic scales kept insinuating itself into my attention. I knew I had 4 people lined up for the Music Lab, but when Ian turned up making it 5, that pretty much sealed it. A 5-player version of the tone clock appeared, and for 90 minutes we dissected and reassembled C Major into all of its subsidiary major and minor pentatonic scales. To my personal delight, it never stalled (sometimes these things get inexplicably hung up on what I had conceived as simple preliminary work), and we made it to where I had hoped we might. I suppose after dealing with me for so long, the team is figuring out how to respond to these kinds of challenges. Having Ian there, who has a good background in harmony, probably helped as well. Perhaps more of the Performance Team will begin to take part in the future?