Performance team rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday, September 19, 2011 – Performance team rehearsal

Circulation night.

The assignment for tonight, along with everything else we need to stay on top of, was to have bars 1-17 of the B Minor Prelude ready to go. This is a circulated arrangement, so learning and practicing an individual part is a singularly academic exercise. Many of us have been practicing along with a recording by Glenn Gould, which at least gives the work some context. But it was clear from the moment we began to run the piece that none of us had actually heard it before. Our first attempt derailed pretty quickly, but for a moment the power of the arrangement was crystal clear. We took up the practical process of breaking down each statement of the theme and playing it until we could here our own parts within the whole. Then putting phrases together until we were able to reliably execute 17 bars of music. Stunning. My experience was that while the learning of a part like this is draining, physically and mentally, playing it with a group such as this (is there any other group such as this?) is energizing in the extreme.

During the break, Travis, Chris and Bob worked a bit on their arrangement of “Vashon Ferry”. I noticed that a section that could use a bass line, and Travis observed that he had the same thought. More on that in upcoming days.

The missing details for “Slow Burn” were next. The intro is yet to be rearranged, and we elected to skip over it for tonight. I had reconstructed the bass part, so as we ran the piece I was calling out changes to Greg. Then, on to the cascades for the middle section. Bob had come up with a harmonic scheme, which, on Jaxie’s suggestion, he had tweaked to create a rhythmically compelling set of arpeggios. We were each assigned our parts, consisting of 5-6 chord voicing per guitarist, to be played in an expanding “cascade”. We are familiar with the way the part works, but the particular voicings and the number of players is the new element. One interesting and challenging surprise was the way the circulation wraps around at the repeats, so that 3 of us are scrambling a bit. Doable. Not easy, but doable.

We ran the new arrangement of “Gnossienne” a number of times. For several passes I called out the Satie indications at the appropriate sections. The arrangement itself is challenging – no room for anything but full attention. The qualities that Satie ascribes help to move the overall arc of the piece in a much clearer flow.

Just before calling it a night, the Wilson Trio (Bob, Jaxie and Carl) wowed us with a stupendous rendition of “Tico Tico”.