Performance team rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday, August 29, 2011 – Performance team rehearsal

The performance team met at Bob and Jaxie’s home this evening. Travis and Chris were away with other commitments, so I was asked to drive the rehearsal. Bob and Jaxie were not at either Wednesday’s extracurricular group practice or Saturday’s rehearsal, so we focused on getting them up to speed on the pieces we addressed last week.

We began by showing them their parts for “Space Circus Part I”. Jaxie is in the pole position of the hocketed left hand part, while Bob will be joining Chris and me on the right hand melody. The piece is fairly simple, and in 30 minutes is was up and running.

The bulk of the rehearsal was then dedicated to “Larks’ Tongues Part II”. We walked through it section by section. Bob is joining me on the bass part, and Jaxie on one of the guitar parts. Details of timing and fingering addressed. One feature of this piece has been reconciling the ways we individually understand and experience the pulse and timing, and that was again a topic of some discussion. The piece rather quickly came functionally together, and by the break (which was somewhat later than usual) we were managing “hell or high water” renditions with only minor disasters.

With everyone now at the same place on these to pieces, they move out of nuts and bolts and into rehearsal mode.

After the break we addressed Satie’s “Gnossienne”. Greg walked Bob and Jaxie through the melody – simple to learn, but requiring a lot attention to feel and phrasing; especially as six players (and an oboist, when available?) will need to phrase as a unit. For those of us who first learned this on Saturday, an opportunity to practice and get a better understanding of the whole. For the next phase, we will begin to look at Satie’s musical indications, which include directions for individual passages such as “Très luisant (Shining)”, “Questionnez (Questioning)”, “Du bout de la pensée (From the tip of the thought)”, and “Postulez en vous-même (wonder about yourself)”.

We had time to run each of the three pieces once more before we called it a night.

Another opportunity for extracurricular group work at my place on Wednesday, and then full group rehearsal on Saturday.