Extracurricular group workout 8

A Tuning the Air Journal

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 – Extracurricular group workout 8

Back in the groove after last week’s break. Greg, Chris, Curt, Carl and Mary Beth in attendance. We made sure that Greg was up to date on the arrangement changes that were made at Monday’s rehearsal, and worked with the metronome on everything. Pieces we touched on…

• “Mad World” run at the new tempo, with the 4 bars dropped from the middle section.
  
• Several runs through “Fallout”, at tempo with the metronome.
  
• A 5-player rendition of the B Minor prelude, with the metronome, which was remarkably coherent.
  
• Several passes through “Connecticut Yankee”, clarifying a couple of technical bits, and looking in detail at dynamics that might help to kick the piece up to the next level.
  
• “Lark’s Tongues” with the extended middle section. We ran the new section several times, and then the whole piece. With Jaxie on violin, Chris had noticed the absence of her guitar part in a couple of places, and is working on a hybrid part for himself that will fill in the gaps. We also observed that we have been playing it somewhat slower than the target tempo.
  
• “Space Circus” also with the metronome, which indicated that we have been performing it a little on the slow side.
  
• After Greg left, one runthrough of “Gnossienne” with Chris and Mary Beth playing the entire melody in unison (except for the couple of minutes when Chris had to run out to move his car so that Greg could get out).
  
• A sloppy-but-getting-there trio version of “Bicycling to Afghanistan”, and then we called it a day.