Performance team rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday, October 1, 2011 – Performance team rehearsal

Full performance team in the house at Fremont Abbey. Our resident ears, on a couple of days break between the Humans’ east coast tour and their upcoming UK tour, came to lend his attention and feedback.

The first hour was entirely dedicated to “I Am The Walrus”. We walked through the form, one section at a time. Travis and I on guitar/piano are pretty solid. Chris and Carl were fine-tuning the phrasing and inflections of the vocal lines. Bob and Jaxie have been working on the cello part for the past week, but this was their first opportunity to run it in context. Mary Beth, Taylor and Greg are taking on the rest of the string and horn parts, as well as some of the ancillary sound effects and bits, and this was the first time they were presented with their parts. Time consuming, but necessary. For some in the group, this is pretty new material. At one point I found myself laughing about how young my bandmates are (a strategy for avoiding the alternative: thinking about how old I am), when the question came up about what album this is on.

Several runthroughs. Not ready for primetime, but the form and arrangement are beginning to gel. Over the break, Bill suggested a few things to fill out the arrangement, including arming a couple of guitarists with slides.

Second segment began with the Bach B Minor Prelude. Still shaky, but better than Thursday’s debacle. To tighten things up, we began working from the final bar backwards, which revealed a number of things, including a few blind spots in people’s parts. By the end of the session, we were making it through the piece – not quite art, but the elements begin to emerge.

We ran “Fallout”, giving the lead players a little more time with the new melody line, in the context of the rhythm section. Also, giving the rhythm section a little more time staying on track while the lead players are whipping this twisted melody line.

For the final segment, Bill took a place in the center of the circle and we ran the set. A few revealing moments in terms of what still needs to be tightened up, but an honorable performance. The middle section of “Slow Burn” went remarkably well, which was a pleasant surprise since we only just got it on its feet on Thursday. When we are "on it", it is a stunningly beautiful sequence of passages.

Chris asked us to do our best and run “Walrus”, but I lobbied heavily for Bach first, and he relented. The team responded with the best performance to date – far from flawless, but remarkable in every way. Bill, along with Darlene who was also sitting in the center of the circle, both observed that this needs to be in the set. This was exactly the thought that was passing through my mind. Protests from players, but after a couple of moments the Music Director made the call: “it’s in the set.” Woo hoo.

We then went ahead and ran a best-shot, as-is “Walrus” and called it a day. The small group performing “Vashon Ferry” hung behind and we cleared up some matters of arrangement, and formalized the part I have thus far been improvising, so that I know what to practice for Monday night’s runthrough.