Full Team Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday October 17, 2010 – Full Team Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

A truly remarkable morning of work together.

Frank returned to the Saturday morning full team circle. We are working with “upping the ante” for everyone, giving the players not currently in the performance team an opportunity to work at that level of challenge, and giving the performance team a weekly opportunity to play (emphasis on play) with material and ideas that are not necessarily directly related to the practical needs of the next performance. This has been very fruitful work this season, and we asked Frank if he would be available to help with this process.

Frank was on fire! He arrived with what turned out to be two-thirds of an inspiration for a game/exercise; two-thirds in the sense that he had a clear idea for two contrasting approaches to an improv exercise, but the third third did not reveal itself to him until we were actually in the room and addressing the challenge. In the first part of the exercise we worked with a musical expression of a familiar exercise with “filling the room”. In this we look for our place in the room where we each have the maximum space around us. Of course, as soon as someone moves, it changes everything, and so we all move. In fact, the room is in constant dynamic motion. To this exercise, he added the instruction to play parts on our guitar as different from everything else we hear as possible. A wonderful and interestingly thoughtful cacophony. For the next stage of the exercise we were asked to do the opposite: to get as close together as possible and play exactly the same thing in the same way. Once this unanimity was established we were instructed to break up, move away, and then do it again. The human sculptures created by 12 guitarists trying to get as close together as possible (without touching) while working to come to consensus on what to play were quite amazing.

The “third third” arrived for Frank, and he instructed us to do both exercises at the same time; that is both stay as far away and as close together as possible from one another, both physically and musically. Obviously impossible. But only impossible for an individual. For the entity of the group, entirely possible, although it took us a few minutes to grasp this. A little tentative play with the conundrum, and suddenly it came to life. A number of people, afterward, noted that they had experienced the arrival of The Orchestra in that moment; a completely organic improv beast, assembling and deconstructing without pretense. An unlike the three Orchestras I have thus far worked with, this one involved and required no “section leaders”. Amazing music.

We gathered in the circle and shared observations. The full circle work completed with a short, silly, but informative exercise in telling jokes.

After a short break, the performance team reconvened for rehearsal. Frank and Bill joined us for the first hour. Bill offering his ears and musical insights to the work we were undertaking, and Frank silently working the perimeter.

This was the nuts and bolts portion of the rehearsal. In some ways kind of a letdown (albeit, a totally necessary one) from the earlier circle. For myself, however, I found that the quality of the earlier work informed the rehearsal in several unmistakable ways. The first thing I noticed was a kind of heightened sensitivity. We were working, in the first part of the rehearsal, with matters of time, feel and pulse, specifically with The Children’s Hour. In circulated parts we are particularly exposed, and I found that while I was making the same kinds of observations and remarks I always do (for better or for worse), I was experiencing a level of empathy that was unusual. Occasionally, this generally increased sensitivity in the circle manifested as a bit of prickliness, but I was at all times aware of a general good will that made the work extremely productive.

After Bill and Frank departed, and another short break, we launched into the initial presentation, parts assignments and read-through of a new/old piece of material that we may play with the California Guitar Trio when they perform here in November. As with much CGT material, deceptively simple. Not so difficult on the technical level, but requiring a level of precision that may not be so evident from the outside.

Sadly, for the next two weeks the Abbey is not available for Saturday rehearsals, so the full group circles are on hold until November 6. The performance team is going to take advantage of this to use that time to get Neptune off of the drawing board and into the repertoire.