Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 31, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

The Music Director had to work tonight. We began digging deep into The Children’s Hour. By the end of any given rehearsal, this piece is generally in passable shape, but we haven’t quite reached the point where it is ready to go right out of the gate. We began by addressing the end of the piece and gradually worked our way back to the beginning. We put a lot of attention into better understanding the relationships between the parts. In particular, Howard and I, as the de facto section leaders of the left and right hands of the piano part, discovered a number of places where making an intentional connection noticeably helps the flow and musicality of the piece. Good progress made all the way around. There was some discussion about whether or not Chris had said he is planning to put this piece in the hat, or even in the setlist, for this week. We are aiming to be ready, should it turn up. It will certainly be played during soundcheck.

Another look at Ian’s Voodoo Improv, incorporating changes he made since Saturday. Ian seemed pleased with the results.

Some metronome work with Eye of the Needle, and we called it a night.

Performance Team Rehearsal, Music Lab, Lament and Folklife

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 29, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal, Music Lab, Lament and Folklife

Fremont Abbey again booked today, so we worked in my apartment.

The performance team, all present and accounted for, spent the first half of rehearsal with The Children’s Hour. It is a tricky little piece, but kind of in and inverse way. The timing of the various parts is extremely complex, and the only way for us to get a grasp of it is to break it down. But, while necessary and inevitable, breaking it down actually makes it more difficult. Then there is a moment when the Music of way the parts collaborate suddenly becomes apparent, and suddenly it is very easy to play. At this point we are still in a place where it takes us some work to get to that point – and of course performing it requires that we be at that point from the first note, without preparation. Monday’s rehearsal will be the test of whether or not the progress made today is assimilated.

Ian worked with us on a circulation/improv vision he has based on a couple of scale/tonalities that he has been studying this year. The resulting Voodoo Improv was very cool. Not sure if it is in the Hat for Thursday.

Continued work on A Day In The Life, with incremental refinements. Metronome work with Space Zombies! From Outer Space! and Eye of the Needle.

For the Music Lab, we continued the ear training work, going back to review seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths. Afterward, several of the team stayed behind for 30 minutes to look at fingering and timing details in Lament.

Later this evening, Lost Pedro playing at Northwest Folklife, evidently with a guest artist sitting in on chromatic harmonica for one piece.

Tuning the Air #180

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 27, 2010 – Tuning the Air #180

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Phrygian

From the Hat:

A Day At The Circus
The Turkish Suite

Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss
A Day In The Life

From the Hat:

Brasil

Lament

From the Hat:

What Is That Strange Sound?

Circulation in A♭ Major
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Seattle Circle Board of Directors Meeting

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 24, 2010 – Seattle Circle Board of Directors Meeting

It is getting to be annual meeting time. And there are significant arisings both in the Tuning the Air realm as well as the nascent Seattle Circle Guitar School that made meeting sooner than later a necessity. With that in mind, we are feeling that a series of board meetings is going to be needed, as we begin to lay out a somewhat new direction for the company. When the 6 current members of the board compared their calendars looking for a date/time to meet, nothing was presenting itself. About the time we found ourselves seriously considering a date in late June, it became clear that we needed to take some slightly drastic action. Since 5 of us would have been at the Wilson’s for rehearsal tonight anyway, it seemed like the unfortunate but obvious solution.

Very strange to leave the house without a guitar. And a little sad that having Charles Ives’ Children’s Hour up and running is going to have to be delayed a little for lack of rehearsal time. Drag to have to choose between playing guitar and doing the non-musical work necessary to allow us to play guitar, but that is ever the tradeoff I’m afraid. Looking forward to Thursday when all I will have to do is strap on a guitar and do the thing I love most.

Full Team Circle with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 22, 2010 – Full Team Circle with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

The only Saturday this month that Fremont Abbey has been available on Saturday morning, so we were finally able to get back with the program. My apartment is too small for the full company to meet, especially if we are working with Frank. It was a treat to be able to get back to the Great Hall for our work today.

I arrived at the Abbey shortly after 9am, to see if the space needed any preparation. The calendar indicated a concert of some sort in the Great Hall last night, and sometimes after these we find the space less than fully restored in the morning. No big deal today. Some chairs for the audience still set up, but no gear in the way or anything like that, so arranging the room for ourselves was a snap.

For the first part of the morning, it was the full company in the circle with guitars, working at Frank’s direction. Bob was home with the girls, and Joel and Charles were not able to make it today. I am beginning to think that Frank is psychic. For the second meeting in a row, the work he has put us through has precisely mirrored the musical work we are doing in performance rehearsals. He has been working with us on a consistent unfolding theme since we began rehearsals for this season in January. Somehow, though, the particulars of the exercises he presents have an uncanny way of being exactly what we are concerned with at the moment, even though he hasn’t been to many shows lately. Go figure. Last time around it was all about listening and blending when playing notes together, which perfectly spoke to the exploration we were doing of parts like the “piano” section of A Day In The Life, in which 4 players are playing together as if they were a piano player doing chords. Today, after revisiting a recently presented preparation exercise involving holding the guitar over our heads as we lower ourselves into the chair, he focused entirely on listening exercises that exactly mirror the work we have been doing with themes in the “spontaneous compositions” Chris has been including in every set.

Wonderful.

After a short break, the performance team, sans Bob, reconvened to rehearse with Frank supporting by moving around the circle and working with individuals as he saw fit. Most of our time was invested in getting the Charles Ives piece up on its feet. By the end of the rehearsal, this one had reached that inevitable point where the end is in sight, but is feeling unreachable. One more solid rehearsal and that sahara will have been crossed. Unfortunately we have to usurp Monday’s rehearsal time for the annual Seattle Circle board meeting, so this will have to wait another week.

A little stretch break, and on to practical matters. A couple of observations about A Day In The Life from Thursday’s performance, and we worked through it with the metronome several times, and without after that. More metronome work followed, with Space Zombies! From Outer Space! on our feet, acoustically, as it is actually being performed in the gig, and then with Eye of the Needle, also in performance format.

At 12:30 we moved out of Fremont Abbey. I went back to may place for the Music Lab, which was attended by Christina, IgorK, Mary Beth and Ian. Again this week, after sitting quietly before we began, on a strong impulse I did an abrupt right turn from what I thought I would be presenting. I had the quartet do some free circulating in D Lydian (that had been the “key of the day” in our work with Frank earlier). My sense was that D Lydian was not really being presented, but that it quickly settled into A Major. I then assigned notes to each of the players, beginning on D and moving in thirds until a full D Maj13 #11 was spelled out. The aim of this was to hear in the basic triad the most rudimentary quality of the Lydian mode. By adding the major seventh, further refinement. And then the ninth, the augmented eleventh and the major thirteenth, each contributing a color or facet that, when taken together, establishes the character and quality of this mode. The they circulated again. This time Lydian managed to present itself. It then slipped away, but to some degree found itself once again.

We employed the same tactics with D Mixolydian, D Aeolian and D Dorian, each with varying degrees of success. Natural minor was the clearest, likely as it is the most familiar.

A short break, and then back to the ear-training exercise begun a few weeks ago. Today we worked with recognizing and being able to find perfect fourths and perfect fifths. This was what I had originally planned to work with today, and I was glad to have some time to at least touch on it, as it strikes me as central right now. Given the short time available, we didn’t review seconds and thirds as I had thought we would, nor did we push it as far as we might. More on this in the future, to be sure.

Tuning the Air #179

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 20, 2010 – Tuning the Air #179

World Premier night for A Day In The Life. It felt very good, and all feedback indicates it is a winner. After the show, regarding the piece, Steve T made an intriguing suggestion which I immediately laughed off. But this only masked the fact that it struck a very tempting chord for me.

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Phrygian

From the Hat:

What Does Led Zeppelin Sound Like?
120 Miles an Hour

Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss
A Day In The Life

From the Hat:

Moving Stillness

Lament

From the Hat:

You’re In A Bar And It’s 1940

Circulation in A♭
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 17, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Howard was down with a cold, and out for tonight. Jaxie and I were not in much better shape, and perhaps should have followed his lead, but a lot of work on the table.

Opened with a “spontaneous composition” in C whole tone, continuing the work with theme establishment, recognition and response.

Then, straight into the primary challenge: getting A Day In The Life ready for a Thursday debut. This largely involved revisiting details we identified on Saturday, and running the piece in its entirety with the metronome at the established tempo. For the bass players, still a bit of a stretch on the memorization side, but more or less ready to go.

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! was next on the docket; down to work. A bit of metronome work to find and establish the right group tempo. Then a bit of metronome work to get the piece – including the tricky bits – reliably in time. As this is now in the lead-off encore spot, it needs to be reliable without being precious, while remaining fun without being out of control.

A break, and then for the final segment we launched into the Charles Ives piece, The Children’s Hour. This was on the table last year, but shelved when our work took us in a slightly different direction, letting go of heavy rehearsal time committed to complex arrangements, and focusing our energy on arising performance issues. It has been hovering just out of our field of vision ever since then, and Bob took it on to re-visit our arrangement and mold it into something a bit more manageable. We did the preliminary read-through tonight, taking some time to establish the circulation and dealing with a little bit of the tricky timing. One 8-bar section went untouched, and I assume we’ll be back to that at our next rehearsal. But the overall sense was that this can be up and running in fairly short order. It’s all about being able to play triplets in duple time and duplets in triple time, seamlessly without stuttering and/or startling. When that happens, it is very organic music – virtually playing itself. When it doesn’t, it is a study in counting, which is not really something anyone wants to play or hear.

Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 15, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

Fremont Abbey was once again otherwise booked, so we needed to forgo the full group work with Frank. Instead, after the sitting the performance team met to rehearse at my place. Jaxie called, sounding something akin to death warmed over, to say she was sick and that Bob was going to need to stay home with the kids, so we were 7 for the rehearsal.

We began with taking a deep look at how “spontaneous compositions” work; establishing themes, recognizing and supporting themes, moving to new themes, etc. This is the sort of work we did a lot of in the early days, but rarely have or take the time for recently, and it felt very necessary. Spontaneous compositions have, so far this season, been very good (and occasionally incredible), but the general sense is that we have not begun to explore their potential. We took turns proffering thematic material, quickly establishing it, with everyone else responsible for getting behind it. By the end of the first hour there was a sense that we had cracked a bit of the code on this mystery.

After a short break, we moved on to Space Zombies! From Outer Space! [I am resolved to use the full title for a while, in part to get a handle on it – I am perpetually butchering it – but also because the composer said in an email that the title is “the only thing I'm particularly picky about regarding the tune these days.”] Mary Beth was brought up to speed on the part that she was assigned in absentia on Monday. We took a hard look at some of the details that will move this from an enthusiastic bodge to a tour de force of silly fun. This is always a tricky moment in the life of a new piece of repertoire. When it is brand new and just plain fun, it seems to play itself, and you can do no wrong. Then we begin to dig in on the details and it is not so easy, and not nearly as much fun, so the spirit of the piece becomes a kind of assumption of virtue – in this case, played as if it were fun, even though we are not feeling the fun so much ourselves. Then, once we have mastered the details, and can really, actually play the thing, it will not only be fun again, but very, very hot. We listened to both the Riddle Trio version and the SA League version (which the composer regards as the currently canonical version). The Tuning the Air rendition is a kind of hybrid, more like the League in overall arrangement, but with a strong nod to the Acid-Surf bass-driven sound/feel of Riddle.

We also did some detail work on My Precious Dream, focusing on the group phrasing of the melody. This phrasing work, which is very much connected with the work the entire company has been doing with Frank, has become something of a theme for this season, and most of our repertoire is benefiting from digging in on this level. It has everything to do with allowing the music to breath, and that always has something to do with allowing ourselves to breath.

Finally, the 800-pound gorilla I the room: A Day In The Life. More work with the same kinds of phrasing issues, but much of the work centered around the two orchestral freakouts in the piece; the 23 bars that connect the Lennon section to the McCartney section, and the second, more frenetic, 23 bar section leading up to the end. We listened to the recording in some detail to identify the overall shape of these sections, as well as the strategies the orchestra employs. We of course cannot duplicate the range of a full orchestra, and acoustic guitars will never have the blasting range of brass instruments blowing their lungs out, but we can certainly honor and replicate the spirit. So far, my inner Mal Evans has been chanting out the bar count in these sections, and I wanted to see if it was possible to do without, or at least limit this. Leaving the count out entirely was, at least at this stage of the game, a total flop. In the end, we settled on a strategy of me weighing in on the count around bar 19 (or anytime it feels like we need to take stock of where we are), and then cuing the downbeat of the next session. This worked pretty well. And we will have to look again on Monday before committing to a working strategy for next Thursday.

One final run through, followed by a rehearsal-closing blast of Space Zombies! From Outer Space! and we were done for the day.

A short meeting in the sun of the back yard for Chris, Travis and myself, and then I returned for the Music Lab. Ian and Mary Beth stuck around for this, joined by Greg, Christina and IgorK.

I had originally planned to revisit and continue with the ear-training exercise from last week, and that was my intent as we sat in silence before beginning. We began with a circulation in C Major – we always begin with a circulation, which for me amounts to taking the pulse of the group. On hearing this circulation, I decided to take an entirely different tack. For most of the 90-minutes we worked with an exercise that I used a great deal in the old Beginner’s and Repertoire Circles, as well as in the early days of the Seattle Guitar Circle, that we referred to as Intentional Circulation. In this exercise we build a composed circulation one note at a time. The first person chooses and plays a note. The next person in the circle 1) listens to the note, 2) hears the note they wish to play, 3) plays that note, as best they are able. If the note is the note they meant to play, that is acknowledged. If the note is NOT the note they meant to play then, 1) the intended note is found, or 2) if the note played is “better” than the one they intended, they may commit to it. These first two notes are then played, and the next person in the circulation goes through the same procedure. This continues two or three times around the circle, creating an “intentionally” composed circulated musical phrase.

This is an extremely enlightening exercise, and generally a humbling one for players at every level.

In the final 20 minutes of the Lab, we took a look at the 2 supporting parts (colloquially, the Hernan and Martin parts) of Voices of Ancient Children.

Tuning the Air #178

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 13, 2010 – Tuning the Air #178

A very, very good performance tonight, at least from my vantage point. Unfortunately, very few people there to hear it. Beautiful weather in Seattle is almost never our friend. People get mildly intoxicated by the weather and going inside to hear music falls many notches down on their list of priorities.

A slightly modified opening that worked very well. My Precious Dream is thankfully back in the available repertoire, and for this week in the predetermined set. It was a little shaky/scary at soundcheck, but came alive in performance. The improvs were quite good. Thanks to the Hat, we had two “spontaneous compositions” in a row. Trust the Hat. The second was in F Lydian and included Joel. I had a clear sense of what I heard in terms of the musical theme/flavor, and launched into it. Joel simultaneously launched into something completely complementary and fitting. I looked up at him across the room and smiled. The piece played itself. Just after the second improv (There’s A Fight In The Street – quite fun, and I managed a kind of anemic but fun faux-police-siren at the end, using the ebow and a slide), Jaxie heard Brasil waiting in the wings and called it.

During sound check we ran Space Zombies! From Outer Space! We are still about one rehearsal away from being actually competent at it, but it is fun and has energy, and doesn’t suffer terribly when enthusiasm is in the place of accuracy. It was not in the set or in the Hat, but was okayed to be called should the spirit move. The spirit moved as we exited the green room for the encore.

Most exciting/scary was the sound check run through of A Day In The Life. I still don’t have the bass part completely at my command without the score, so a certain amount of faking it going on. But it sounded good. The tweaks we did in rehearsal are paying off. After the final E Major chord, for the second week in a row a spontaneous outburst of applause from the House Team. Chris got that “now or never” look in his eyes and announced, “next week”. So, we are committed.

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic MinorVoices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
The Wig Maker
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Harmonic Minor

From the Hat:

Spontaneous Composition in F Lydian, with Joel
Whiz And Zither Madness
There's A Fight In The Street

Brasil (called by Jaxie)

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss

From the Hat:

Open Circulation

Lament

From the Hat:

Pipeline
Ikada-Jima

Circulation in A♭
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic (called on our way out of the green room)
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 9, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Performance team at Bob and Jaxie’s this evening. Mary Beth was back in Boston for business, so we were 8 in the circle.

Began by recapping Saturday’s rehearsal to bring Jaxie up to date.

For tonight’s work we began with a circulation in A♭ Major, and then ran Twilight. We then reviewed the A Mixolydian zithers from the in-the-audience circulation, making sure we had our parts right. Several runs through of My Precious Dream, both with and without the metronome, and again focusing some attention on the count-free opening. Chris declared it ready for primetime (or, more accurately, observed that the way to get it over the last hurtle is to throw it into the performance mix) and so this week it will be part of the opening set. Ran the Turkish Suite*, and then took a close look at the phrasing of the lead players in the second half of Batrachomyomachy. Lament with the metronome, as we are aiming for a slightly quicker tempo and it has not yet settled in.

After the break, on to Space Zombies! From Outer Space! I needed refreshing, and we had new information from the composer as well, so we again broke into bass and lead section work. Chris drilled the leads, and taught Jaxie her part. Travis worked with me and Ian on the bass part, which we tweaked in some detail. Ran the piece several times after we reconvened the full group, with and without the metronome. It seems that what is emerging is a distinctly Tuning the Air arrangement is neither Riddle Trio nor The League. Stripped down and energetic. A lot of fun. It will be more fun when it is a little more competent, but in the meantime it is still fun. It is on for a run through at soundcheck on Thursday. I don’t know if a decision has been made about putting it in the hat. Perhaps that will be a surprise.

Several runs through A Day In The Life, incorporating Saturday’s adjustments, and getting Jaxie up to speed. I managed to stay off of the score, but I am definitely faking it and/or getting lucky in the third and fourth verses, so that will be heavily in my practice schedule for the next couple of days. Memorizing a part in which each verse is ever so slightly different from the last one, but close enough to be seriously confusing, is a real challenge. We could easily just repeat the bass line to any one of the verses and it would work fine musically, and I imagine the audience would be none the wiser. But this is The Beatles, and I can think of at least two people who might be in the audience on any given night who would definitely hear, and for this one I’m kind of inclined to play to them.

One last run through Space Zombies! From Outer Space! at a seriously jacked up tempo, and we all headed home for the night.

---

* Had a discussion with Bill after last week’s show, about the use of the word “suite” to describe this series of compositions. When I got home I pulled out my trusty Harvard Dictionary of Music, and found that the first definition was: “An instrumental form of baroque music, consisting of a number of movements, each in the character of a dance and all in the same key.” Tony’s composition is obviously not baroque, and only two of the three are in the same key, but my sense is that the Turkish Suite has enough of the flavor to warrant the name. While I don’t see powdered wigs and hoop skirts, they are sure as hell dances.

Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 8, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

The Great Hall at Fremont Abbey was booked today, and we met at my place. My living room is not really big enough to contain a full-company circle, so a performance team rehearsal made the best sense. Jax is away for the weekend with the girls, so we were 8 today. Chris began with some circulating in E Harmonic Minor, which is the current key specificaction for the “spontaneous composition” in the set. Last Thursday it had been somewhat tentative. I can claim my own share of responsibility for that, since in the moment I completely forgot that we had changed keys and initially launched into D Minor – one would have to work pretty hard to be more wrong than that. A little E Harmonic Minor drill was definitely in order.

Mary Beth was ready to get herself performance certified on Ikada-Jima and Voices of Ancient Children, so we ran those. A small arrangement change for Taylor on Voices suggested itself, and that was rehearsed and incorporated. Chris then called for some work on My Precious Dream. Jaxie, although absent today, is pretty much ready to go on her new part, which was Igor’s part in an earlier incarnation. Earlier in the week she had worked with Mary Beth, teaching her the main melody, and so we needed to rehearse her on that part. And Howard is now playing the melody in the intro (Jaxie’s old part), and that also needed attention. We ran it several times with the metronome, reconnecting with the intended tempo. We have always begun this without a count, but in the new orchestration I had put the count back. Howard, Chris and I worked on the introduction a bit, and got it back to the point where the count can once again be dropped.

After a short break, we watched and listened to the video Christina had made of the run-through we did on Thursday of A Day In The Life. Not really a lot of “new” information here, but a number of things we already knew about the piece were driven home with a sharp clarity, and for the next hour we worked on a lot of the details that are going to make the difference in this piece. Very good progress made. I managed to make it through the entire rehearsal without ever resorting to the score; not that I truly have it memorized, but more a testament that I am sufficiently comfortable with the harmonic structure of the piece that when details fail me I can improvise my way through it with some authority. Of course, I was solo on the part, and this will not really fly when there are two of us playing. Nevertheless, a small milestone.

We still need to find a proper alarm clock that can be triggered on cue for the middle orchestral madness section. The “traditional telephone” ring on my iPhone comes close, but not quite convincing.

For the final half hour we addressed Space Zombies! From Outer Space!**. Mary Beth, Ian and I went into the back room with Travis to get the bass/rhythm part organized, while Chris, Howard, Bob and Taylor remained in the living room to get the lead part running. Basic pycho-surf music in a blues progression, iconic to the point of being nearly genetic, so we had it up and running in short order. It will be a fun thing to have jump out of the hat, I would think. Chris indicated that the Riddle String Trio version we are learning is not, according to the composer, precisely definitive. There is no mp3 or score of the intended version, but only a video of the League that was once on YouTube but has since been removed. Chris is going to contact Mariana to see if the video is in the Guitar Craft archive and available for us for our research.

Thinking about the kind of space-kitsch ambience of the piece, as folks were packing to go I began experimenting with a combination of glass slide and ebow that creates a pretty passable Theremin-like sound, and it looks like this may get incorporated into our arrangement.

For me, a short break for a snack, and then Greg, Christina, Mary Beth and Ian reconvened for the Music Lab. We opened with a free circulation in C major that was pretty impressive, and nearly convinced me to go a different direction than I had initially intended. After the last Music Lab, a couple of weeks ago, an ear-training exercise that the Seattle Guitar Circle had worked with quite seriously for a period of time shortly after I arrived here, re-presented itself to me. This is what I wanted to work with today, and I stuck to it. We began working with recognizing and recreating major and minor seconds, in a specific circulation exercise. I allowed this to stretch out a bit. In a way this doomed us to not getting as far with the exercise as I had envisioned, but I began to notice that there was measurable improvement happening, and felt that this was worth committing to. We moved on to the same exercise, but working with major and minor thirds, and again I let it run long in order to allow the players to really assimilate what they were learning about how they hear these intervals. We ended the no-break 90-minute exercise with an applied version of the exercise, circulating in C Major.

The final “free” circulation of the day, in C Major, interestingly, lacked much of the spontaneity and magic of the opening one. It is a notable phenomenon. Sometimes when I have worked the group hard on an exercise that requires a level of attention, contact and care that they may not be able to muster, cold, the final circulation displays a noticeable sensitivity that was not present in the opening circulation. In this case, the final circulation had something more akin to an increased self-consciousness that, creatively speaking, was not an improvement. My sense was that the skill we touched on today is going to take a while, and a certain amount of work, to show its benefits; ninety minutes only hints at the possibilities.

Whenever we do this kind of work in the Lab, I come out exhausted. I do not, generally, sit in the circle and participate, but take on responsibility for holding the entirety of the exercise. In a way, without a guitar in my hand, I am still playing every note, and this requires a level of sustained attention. Extremely valuable work for me, and I may arguably be the one in the room reaping the greatest benefit. But when it is done I am wrung out. Today’s response to this was an immediate shower and an afternoon sitting, and that seemed pretty effective in both assimilating what I had touched on, and at the same time letting the exercise go.

---

**Title corrected per the composer.

Tuning the Air #177

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 6, 2010 – Tuning the Air #177

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
(entrance of performance team)
Chiming in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
(small group move together)
Cultivating the Beat
(return to places)
The Wig Maker

Spontaneous Composition in E Harmonic Minor

From the Hat:

In the middle of the ocean
Brasil
The passing of time in reverse
Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
(take positions in aisles within the audience)
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
(all except Bob and Jaxie return to places)
Sigh and a Kiss (Bob and Jaxie return to places at 2nd verse)

From the Hat:

Whizz and Zither Madness

Lament

From the Hat:

Ikada-Jima
Turkish Suite

Circulation in Ab
Twilight

Encore:

Thrak – acoustic in arc at the west end
Eye of the Needle – acoustic in arc at the east end

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 3, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Full team on board for tonight’s rehearsal. Chris laid out the modified setlist for this week, which involves a little more dipping into “the hat”. One of the mini-sets is being dropped, and those pieces returned to the hat, which also has an expanded selection of improv themes and circulations.

As we talked through the revamped set I mentioned an idea I had for adding a zither to the strategies available for the “through the audience” circulation. So we began by establishing our zither chords and trying out a number of approaches, including a cascade. We looked at a couple of pieces of set repertoire. My Precious Dream is very close. I don’t know if it will be in the hat this week, but soon for sure. We also took a first stab at how The Wig Maker might work with Jaxie on viola.

After a short break, we ran Ikada-Jima, with Mary Beth auditioning for the melody. She passed. Lost Pedro presented a John Peacock piece that they learned in Italy, with full group potential. The Wilsons also presented a work in progress, and Mary Beth put the piece the House Circle Band recently podcast, with Jaxie on viola, out on the table.

We ended the night with further refinement of A Day In The Life. Next step, hearing it through the PA at soundcheck on Thursday.

Monthly Open Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 1, 2010 – Monthly Open Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

There is a neighborhood festival happening today in the upper Fremont area, and there are a number of related events taking place at our Fremont Abbey home, so we went into the Open Circle not knowing exactly what we might find. Keeping the possibility open that there might be a number of walk-ins from the festival. As it turned out, at that point in the morning things were still pretty quiet in Fremont. The team that turned up for the Open Circle was more or less the usual suspects; most of the Tuning the Air company was there, a couple of our Open Circle regulars as well, and one second-timer who arrived just a little late.

As we began, there were 12 in the circle. Since this was primarily an experienced group, the sense that Frank and I had was that we could push a bit. I called “when ready, please begin.” Right out of the gate it was amazing. The first couple of chords sounded so composed that I think it startled the players; Travis and others later confirmed this experience. “When ready, please begin” was called three times, and each one had its own quality and character. Each had a very clear beginning, middle and end. Never did any of them run on once the end had presented itself. Fabulous.

With 12 in the circle, the Tone Clock was whispering to me, so I began to assign the notes of a chromatic scale through 4 octaves. At this point, the newcomer from last month’s circle arrived. He was more or less in tune, so after the group had circulated the scale several times, Jaxie agreed to step out, and the newcomer took her seat. We continued to circulate the scale up and down 4 octaves while the circle recalibrated to a new player. From there on to skipping players, dividing the circle into 6 equal parts and creating the two possible whole-tone scales. Then skipping 2 players, dividing the circle into 4 parts and creating the 3 possible diminished sevenths. I was tempted to work through all of the possible intervals, as we did several years ago at Camp Caravan, but I also remained aware of time constraints, so I moved on to creating major scales, all 12 of them, by skipping payers to create the necessary whole steps. It was very hard work, and I had a clear sense of the struggle, and how it was blocking the joy possible. I had about resigned myself to having the exercise be just an interesting experiment, but I asked them to run the entire sequence one more time, with the instruction to hold the entire pattern as best we could, and to be clear in where the notes were coming from and to whom they were being passed. This time I was immediately aware of a subtle but undeniable change in the group; a kind of ease and openness that allowed the challenge to be met with a musicality that I had not heard in any of the preliminary goes. The presence of a group.

A short break. I spoke with Frank, indicating that most in the circle had AT experience, but that there were a couple of people with little or no experience, and that they needed to be considered. I began to say that my sense was that work on maintaining a wide awareness within the circle seemed to be greatest need at that point, and he said that this was precisely what he had in mind to work with. So for the first part of the next segment, he worked with the group on opening up their field of vision and hearing, and maintaining that while doing a simple circulation and, eventually, some more complex circulations.

Looking at where the group had come to through this work, I decided in the final 20 minutes or so to revisit an exercise from the last circle (or was it the one before?) involving the team choosing notes from the key of C Major and chiming them gently in unison, changing notes as the spirit moved, to create a continuously changing harmonic world within a particular key. As they did this I reminded them of what Frank had been guiding them through and suggesting they continue this, taking in the whole group through both the eyes and the ears. I then asked them to move their attention, within the aural landscape, to other individual players within the circle, to blend their notes with that player in terms of tone and timbre, and then to move on to another player. I had a whole bag of strategies/tricks I was going to suggest, but none of them was necessary. What unfolded was one of the most remarkable examples of creative group listening I have encountered. I wanted it never to end, and really only the knowledge that another group needed the room right after us and would likely be beginning to arrive soon made me feel the need to bring the exercise to a close. But I didn’t need to. The composition came to its completion on its own.

The performance team moved on to my apartment for rehearsal. The Music Director had to work this afternoon, but he had given us some direction about what he hoped we would address; primarily continued work on A Day In The Life. Bob was running a few minutes late, so while we waited for him we took the opportunity to get Mary Beth up to speed on both Ikada-Jima and Voices of Ancient Children. Followed this up with My Precious Dream. Jaxie is just about up to speed on Igor’s part now, so it is close to being ready for primetime. Once Bob arrived we dove into ADITL, again focusing on fleshing out the McCartney and “Aaaah-aah-aah-aaah” sections. A lot of good work on individual and group phrasing. The work we did earlier in the Open Circle began to seem almost prescient. I had some questions on McCartney’s phrasing for the bass part, so during the break we listened to it. Wrapped up our work on the piece after the break and moved on to other pieces of repertoire from the set. Mary Beth had some observations about Eye of the Needle and Jaxie followed up with something RTM had said about our performance of the piece on Thursday. We took a look at the tempo for Lament, and eventually moved it up a bit from our current speed, closer to Tony’s tempo. The feeling is that with this year’s more Spartan arrangement, the quicker tempo works where in the large group arrangement it had not. Back to Eye of the Needle, this time to reestablish the group tempo with has been a little inconsistent lately. Discovered we were playing it a bit faster than before, and concluded that this works because we are closer together in performance, standing in an arc. So, with a little experimentation, a new group tempo was identified.

Tonight, off to Belltown to celebrate Igor’s birthday at midnight. Bob, Ian, Travis and I will be sitting in with Urban Achievers, banging out our best Led Zeppelin.