Begin with the Creative...

Begin with the Creative...

Seattle Circle Guitar School Mission Statement

The Seattle Circle Guitar School is a nonprofit music school devoted to opening the door to the creative process for children and adults, regardless of previous training or experience. Our approach emerges from the knowledge that learning to play music together contains endless possibilities for growth, and that the experience gained through this process develops skills that are essential.

Music Instruction Turned Inside Out

We have turned traditional musical instruction on its head. We begin by immersing students in a musical environment where they are composing and experimenting on their first days in class. The master musician is able to play and have fun while calling directly on the Muse. We treat the children as if they are master musicians and gradually build in the skills needed to actually move toward this goal. We introduce skills as the child recognizes the need for them: my pick keeps falling out of my hand! Well, let's take a closer look at how to hold the pick, then. If we can remain in contact with this spirit of exploration and play while developing skills, then our journey is joyful and we remain in contact with the spirit of music.

Working within the guitar circle, we open the door to a world where learning is a meaningful inquiry. Once we have a taste of this playful and joyful spirit, then any musical pursuit is enriched.

Our Approach Is Experiential

Music is primarily a collaborative activity, and the skills we develop in the process have far reaching application. We learn by doing, by failing, by doing again in the light of what we have learned. What we experience is ours, and cannot be taken away or forgotten. It informs us as we look ahead to where we want to go, and helps us to see for ourselves what we need in order to get there.

Make This Sound

The Seattle Circle Guitar School works within the oral tradition of music, engaging our students with the actual sound and feel of music as presented by practicing musicians. Throughout history and in every culture, musical education has been transmitted through apprenticeship. Music is best learned by being around musicians, listening to and playing with musicians.

Engaging The Whole Body

Crucial to our enjoyment and long-term participation in music is how we use our bodies - if it is physically hard, uncomfortable or painful to play, we won't have fun! The SCGS faculty has a strong background in Alexander Technique. The aim here is freedom and relaxation in the body; release of unnecessary tension; engagement and direction of attention; and the ability to respond to each other, to the situation, and to Music itself.

Where Did All This Space Come From?

In the experience of playing music, sometimes a new world opens up: a world with lots of space in it.

The Guitar Circle

The Guitar Circle embodies a new approach to guitar instruction and music-making as developed over 25 years in Guitar Craft, which was founded in 1985 by Robert Fripp. When a group of people sit together in a circle with guitars, something happens which does not happen any other way, and we can get a glimpse of something magical.

“I wish I had had the opportunity to play this way when I was a child…they are learning how to play cooperatively, listen carefully, and have fun playing together!” - Marian Wagner, 3rd grade teacher, Salmon Bay School

Weekend at CCMAC: Sessions #5 and Departure

A Tuning the Air Journal

Sunday August 29, 2010 – Weekend at CCMAC: Sessions #5 and Departure

Sunday August 29, 2010
Copper Colored Mountain Arts Center
Ann Arbor, MI

5:00am – Rise
5:30am – 1-hour silent meditation with community
6:30am – Free time/breakfast
9:00am – Community blessing (without doughnuts this time)
9:30am – Free time
1:00pm – Lunch
2:00pm – Session #5
3:30pm – Seminar completion
4:45pm – Departure for Airport

Up again for the 5:30 sitting. Made some minor adjustments, and avoided yesterday’s discomfort in my legs. Back to the house for a bit of breakfast, and then a morning mostly to myself. The community had some community business to attend to. I read, showered, and got myself more or less packed and ready to head for the airport after the afternoon session. Lovely lunch of homemade pesto (basil grown here on the property). Got a tour of the second barn which has a room on the top floor with 4 walls of stunning Tibetan-style paintings of various relevant deities and teachers. My understanding of Buddhist practice and tradition is woefully inadequate, but the shear artistic impact was impressive and wonderful.

Session #5, our final session, began at 2pm. I did not plan on a heavy work session, but primarily aimed to bring the various threads of inquiry from the weekend to a completion. I began with putting the rhythmic figures the team had memorized and practiced, together. Again I was pleased to discover that this had been taken seriously, and so I was able to move the exercise much further along than I had dared to hope or anticipate. More work with boomwhackers, taking the basic circulation exercises we had explored yet another step.

We re-gathered in the circle to share observations before drawing the weekend to a close. Very good insights that indicated to me that what was being presented, beyond the superficial activities, was comprehended and the team seemed to recognize the value of what they had experienced. Ended the meeting and the class with the Tuning the Air hand clap circulation and “let it go” gesture, which brought the weekend to a very powerful completion for me.

A little free time. Got my stuff together and ready for travel. Cleaned out my room. Walked about the property enjoying the heat. Hit the road for the Detroit Airport a little before 5pm. Breezed through security. Had time to grab some functionally adequate food before departure time, since there would be no food on the plane and nothing in my refrigerator when I got home.

Travel was smooth. I even had no one in the seats adjacent to me – almost unheard of these days. The only dark spot on the trip was the brain-dead Delta employee at the gate who saw the duffle bag I was carrying the boomwhackers in and insisted that it would not fit in the overhead. My explanation that on the way out it had fit just fine, taking up the same space as a little wheelie bag, did not sway her. The fact that it fit in the stupid little measuring thing at the gate was not enough to convince her that her estimation of the bags size was possibly in error. Meanwhile, as this conversation was going on, people were passing by us dragging steamer trunks on wheels that were never going to fit in any overhead compartment ever. In the end her idiocy trumped my energy for argument, and the bag was checked. Pea brains rule the world. Not enough to spoil my weekend, though.


Back to Day 2

Weekend at CCMAC: Sessions #2, 3 and 4

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday August 28, 2010 – Weekend at CCMAC: Sessions #2, 3 and 4

Saturday August 28, 2010
Copper Colored Mountain Arts Center
Ann Arbor, MI

5:00am – Rise
5:30am – 1-hour silent meditation with community
6:30am – Free time/breakfast
9:00am – Community blessing (followed by doughnuts!)
9:30am – Session #2
12:00noon – Free time
1:00pm – Lunch
2:00pm – Session #3
4:30pm – Break
5:00pm – Out to Ann Arbor with three of the CCMAC team for an awesome dinner
7:00pm – Session #4

Sitting at 5:30 is pretty brutal, even for me. Plus, it has been a long time since I’ve done my morning sitting cross-legged on cushions. But I didn’t bring my kneeler with me (along with the laptop, a decision designed to keep me down to carry-on for the flights), so I suffered legs falling asleep.

Session #2 began at 9:30am. The two or three people from the Ann Arbor vicinity who took part in last night’s free class did not decide to follow through and sign up for the full weekend. I choose not to take this personally. So the team for the balance of the weekend are all part of the group here that runs the Arts Center. There will generally be 13 or 14 in the circle, depending on a few individual schedules (a couple of the participants will need to miss at least one session due to their work obligations). One advantage to this turn of events is immediately apparent. This is already a group. This is a community following a particular spiritual path, from the Buddhist tradition, and they are used to working together. This makes my life a bit easier, in certain respects, since turning a mob of strangers into a group is generally where a lot of my energy goes at the beginning of a seminar. Not necessary here.

We began with a return to clapping circulation exercises, picking up on the work from last night and going further and deeper.

Then a 40-minute session of Body Beat. I had originally envisaged this for the afternoon session. It is a good way to generate energy in that after lunch midday slump. But the weather forecast is for high temperatures and humidity today. The barn-converted-to-arts-center has fans and some air conditioning, but I am concerned that even with that it will be too much. Even at 11am it is pretty warm when we wrap it up. Good work, and the team manages to rise to most of the challenges. Clapping on backbeats always a stumbling block, but not nearly as daunting for this group as for most, so naturally I push it!

Back to the circle, and out with the boomwhackers. We reviewed the rhythmic figures I presented to be memorized last night, and introducing the next ones. The penny seemed to drop that this is going to require a bit of personal work and review in between class sessions.

After lunch, Session #3 began at 2pm. It was in fact pretty warm in the barn, and I wanted to keep the physical activity low-key. Dug into my storehouse of Frank Sheldon exercises, and introduced two. First was the “Winking Game”. This never fails to illuminate the state of our attention. Plus, it is a bit silly, kind of fun, and when it clicks there is a wonderful elegance about the way the group interacts and moves that is instantly noticeable. Excellent observations from the team. Then to another Frank classic: circulating words. We worked with creating stories one word at a time in circulation. The fans in the room made speaking up an absolute necessity, and forgetting to speak up a good indication of attention having meandered. I asked one of the participants to summarize the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and then had the group tell it in circulation (“the first 4 words of your story will be ‘once upon a time’, and you will indicate the end of the story with ‘happily ever after’.”) The version of Goldilocks that emerged was a little strange, but certainly entertaining. This helped the group to get a sense of narrative, with a beginning and a middle and an end, and so the next totally improvised story had much more coherence, ending in raucous laughter over some strange images with potentially bawdy interpretations.

Introduce the next set of rhythmic figures to be memorized. Now it is abundantly clear that this exercise is going to involve personal work. Ended the afternoon session with some thrakking in 5 and 7, with hand claps and then boomwhackers. Wrapped up Session #3 at about 4:15.

Went into town with Hootie as well as both the president and the executive director of CCMAC (who happen to be a married couple). Great bbq, and interesting conversation discovering a lot of crossed paths. Time for a little rest and personal gathering before the next session.

Session #4 at 7pm. I began by introducing the final rhythmic figures to be memorized for the weekend. Drilled them to make sure everything was in place. A number of people made notes for studying. The plan is to put it all together at the final session on Sunday afternoon.

Just beyond the middle, and the evening of a good day of pretty hard work. A bit of fun seemed in order. A number of the people in the class are studying drumming on conga drums, and an inquiry determined that there were enough extra drums around that we could have an entire conga drum circle. The risk, as I saw it, of this was that by putting familiar instruments in everyone’s hands we might revert to familiar and comfortable patterns. This is not a drum seminar, and I am definitely not a drum teacher. We are working with opening up, directing and dividing attention, connecting with the other players. Thankfully, the team seemed to get this, and so outside of a bit of random banging as the drums were set up, we managed to remain on task. We went to a number of circulation exercises already introduced, and pushed a bit further. The sound of the drums certainly adds a bit of fun, which helps. Definite improvement. We thrakked, this time adding an 11 pattern to the 5 and 7. This, as always brought the energy level up. I reminded the group of the basic exercises in directed attention we have been using to contain our energy and this was instantly understood. A lot of juice in the room. Moved on to set up The Whizz. We managed a certain velocity, and even flirted with escape velocity. Not sure what kept us from really taking off. Is it the nature of drums? The hot weather? Something in the nature of this particular group? Perhaps simply not enough people to really handle the current. I don’t know. Certainly fun, and very cool sounding on the drums.

Wrapped things up at about 9pm. Back to my quarters. Chilled and did a bit of reading, and early to bed (5:30 will again come sooner than I realize).

Back to Day 1
On to Day 3

Weekend at CCMAC: Travel and Session #1

A Tuning the Air Journal

Friday August 27, 2010 – Weekend at CCMAC: Travel and Session #1

The class description on the Copper Colored Mountain Arts Center website read as follows:

This Moment: Exploring the interface of music and mindfulness.
Weekend Workshop, August 27th-29th

Open to musicians and non-musicians alike. We will use Musical exercises integrating mindfulness and rhythm to create a dynamic space, deepening the connection between awareness and the joy of music. Using instruments, clapping, boomwhackers and group circulation techniques, we will explore the relationship of attention, rhythm and group interaction. Instructed by Curt Golden.

Friday August 27th, 7:00pm Free Introductory Evening
Saturday August 28th, 9:30am-12:00pm, 2:00-4:30pm, 7:00pm-?
Sunday August 29th, 2:00pm-4:00pm

I was up bright and early in Seattle. My ride to the airport arrived right on time. No problems at the airport, and everything fit in carry-on. Arrived Detroit a little early. RV (aka, I have come to learn, “Hootie”) met me out front and we made the 45ish minute drive to the Ann Arbor vicinity. Off the interstate, onto some state roads and then a dirt road, and Copper Colored Mountain Arts Center.

Summer in the Midwest; hot and humid. My room is a small office in one of the houses, converted for guests. I have a lovely view of the grounds. The buildings are air conditioned. Whew. I share supper with the residents of the house at 6pm, keeping it light since 7pm is showtime.

Session #1 (of 5) was free and open to the public. Most of the participants would be taking part in the entire weekend, but an unknown number might show up just for this session. So my challenge was to present, in about 90 minutes, material that would set the weekend in motion, while being a coherent whole for those who would not be returning. I talked a little about my background and introduced the them of working with attention. A little more PT Barnum/razzle dazzle, perhaps, than I might have unleashed at the first session had it not been for the visitors. Introduced circulation with some simple forms using hand claps, pushing the complexity up to the edge of the available attention. We did several iterations of an exercise circulating our names, as well as the names of those sitting to our left and right. This not only serves as a way of introducing ourselves, but also injects a bit of levity into a proceeding that can sometimes become a little self-consciously serious, and introduces a necessary element of play into the way we approach the challenges.

At this point, the dramatic introduction of the boomwhackers. I learned this trick from watching Sandra and Rob; you walk into the center of the circle, open the bag and unceremoniously dump 50 colored and tuned pvc tubes onto the floor, making a raucous clatter that never fails to elicit smiles all around, even if you know it is coming (at least that has been my experience). I invited everyone to choose the two tubes that attracted them, and we launched into some more challenging circulation work.

Wrapped the session up at about 8:30, introducing a couple bars of specific rhythm to be memorized by those taking part in the entire weekend. This will be a thread we will follow, adding more bars each session until (hopefully) it can be all put together by the closing meeting. It is clear to me that except for a couple of guitarists known to me, the team is a combination of non-musicians and people who have begun studying hand drumming. That makes boomwhackers the closest we will get to working with melody or harmony. Changing harmonic elements is one way to inject variety into repeated exercises, but that little ploy is not going to be available to me this weekend. Most of the people taking part in the weekend seem to be part of this community, which means they have an established practice, and that will likely be what makes this work.

In that slightly psychotic jet-lagged state; very tired from a long day of travel and work, but in a time zone where it is later than my internal clock will acknowledge, I went back to my room and fell into a longish nap. Got up long enough to slip out to the kitchen for a midnight snack, then a quick wash-up and back to bed in earnest. This community does a one-hour silent meditation at 5:30am, and jet lag or no jet lag that hour is going to sneak up on me fast.

On to Day 2

Retreat Day 4

A Tuning the Air Journal

Sunday August 8, 2010 – Retreat Day 4

• 6:00am – Rise
• 6:30am – Curt and Tony walk to W. Broadway to join team
• 7:00am – Sitting
• 7:45am – Breakfast prep
• 8:00am – Breakfast
• 8:30am – Personal meetings. Preliminary cleanup. Curt, Tony and Victor (and later, Tom) get with guitars, Curt sharing Seattle ear training exercises.
• 9:30am – Work in the Circle with guitars; new exercise from RF
• 10:30am – House restoration
• 11:30am – Final meeting
• 12:25pm – Completion of retreat acknowledged with enthusiasm
• 12:27pm – Intentional walk to the restaurant at the end of the block for a post-retreat/pre-departure meal and decompression.

Everyone leaving town was on the road by about 3:00pm. Tony, Jaxie and I did one last turn around the House. Tony and I were back at his place at 3:30pm. He is napping. I am going to do the same. Dinner plans for us with Jaxie at a Peruvian restaurant (I do love NY).

Retreat Day 3

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday August 7, 2010 – Retreat Day 3

• 6:00am – Rise
• 6:30am – Curt and Tony walk to W. Broadway to join team
• 7:00am – Sitting
• 7:45am – Breakfast prep
• 8:00am – Breakfast
• 9:15am – Work in the Circle with guitars – Tony presenting a bell ringing exercise
• 10:30am – Meet to complete presentation of reports on professional life: Jaxie, Curt, Sandra, Tony.
• 12:30pm – Lunch prep
• 1:00pm – Lunch
• 3:30pm – Report on Seattle Circle Guitar School
• 4:00pm – Tea (continue SCGS discussion)
• 4:30pm – SSG I meeting
• 5:00pm – SSG IV meeting
• 5:30pm – Vayu Prana Meditation
• 6:15pm – Dinner prep and AT/Breathing work with Sandra
• 7:00pm – Dinner
• 8:30pm – Personal meetings
• 9:30pm – Work in the Circle with guitars

NYC was kind to us; I managed to sleep with open windows and no A/C. When Tony and I stepped out onto W 4th Street at 6:30am it was noticeably less hot than previous days. Not so much cool, but welcomingly warm; my body warmed up from the simple exertion of a brisk walk to SoHo, rather than simple existence in the sauna of NY in August.

For the work in the Circle this morning, Tony introduced an exercise he is doing with the NY Circle, involving traditional bell ringing changes. Very challenging for us.

After lunch Jaxie, Tony and I presented a report on the status of the Seattle Circle Guitar School. The ensuing discussion went into and through Tea (Tony preparing Turkish Coffee for the second day in a row!). Very good feedback, as well as some brainstorming about related reading, plus potential donors to help us get through the initial period. The photos of the Kids Circle performing at Tuning the Air was again a big hit, meeting universal enthusiasm. The videos of that show were also very effective, not to mention a source of amusement – never a bad combination.

Awesome Pad Thai from the kitchen team of Jaxie, Tom and Robert. Associatively, a number of kitchen-related Guitar Craft histories, recorded by Tony.

[go to Day 4]

Retreat Day 2

A Tuning the Air Journal

Friday August 6, 2010 – Retreat Day 2

• 6:00am – Rise
• 6:30am – Curt and Tony walk to W. Broadway to join team
• 7:00am – Sitting
• 7:45am – Breakfast prep
• 8:00am – Breakfast
• 9:15am – Work in the Circle with guitars
• 10:15am – Meet to present reports on professional life: Tom, Victor, Dev
• 12:45pm – Lunch prep
• 1:00pm – Lunch
• 2:30pm – Personal time, dinner pre-prep
• 4:00pm – Tea
• 5:00pm – Vayu Prana Meditation
• 5:30pm – Work in the Circle with guitars
• 6:00pm – Dinner prep
• 7:00pm – Dinner
• 9:30pm – Listen to JGB talk on the Formatory Apparatus, and follow-up discussion
• 11:00pm – Curt and Tony walk back to W 4th Street for the night

Interesting to look back on the day in terms of remembering and documenting the schedule which, outside of the general plan for meals, is not predetermined; we look ahead a few hours, and make sure we have time set aside for a number of activities we consider essential. What utterly fails to be captured is the content of the activities, taken on by a group that has been working together for, in some respects, 25 years. Almost entirely self-organizing. After the early evening intro to the meditation we are taking on for the weekend, feet and guitars directed us to the Circle without a word spoken. Meal conversation is never strained or in any way formal, and yet it is very much a part of the activity of the retreat in which matters, often of great import, are observed, considered and discussed in depth. How do you describe eight people with minimal talking converging on a kitchen, and less than 60 minutes later there is a stupendous meal laid out on a well appointed table, everything accomplished with a care that is not at all precious. After listening to JGB’s Theme Talk, the discussion was unforced and relaxed. Walked back to Tony’s apartment thinking, “finally, after so many years of those kinds of meeting, that is the way they are supposed to be.” Not a shoe gazer in the bunch.

Big news of the day: Robert finally had his initiation into the Guitar Craft Kitchen.

Over lunch, received the news from England that Alice Lawton has flown away. She and Ken, who passed away last year, hold a special and happy place in Guitar Craft history, specifically in the Red Lion House era, and were a great support to us.

[go to Day 3]

Retreat Day 1

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday August 5, 2010 – Retreat Day 1

Arose at Tony’s place about 6:30am. Sat at 7am. Already in the 80’s outside with serious humidity. A shower and breakfast, and then he and I headed out to the Whole Foods on Houston (just typing that phrase makes me shake my head) to do the basic shopping for the weekend. Tony took a page (or maybe 2?), and I took a page (largely the vegetable and fruit page). An hour or so later, 8 or 10 bags of groceries. Citibank saw a $250 charge try to go through at a grocery store in NYC, and elected to not approve the purchase, on the chance that the card had been stolen (speaking to them later, my snarky reference to the fact that I had purchased the airline ticket on that card didn’t make much of an impression). So, Chase got that business today, and Citibank did not. We hailed a cab and headed down to SoHo to the retreat location. Managed to make all the keys work, unloaded the groceries, turned on the air conditioning (by this time 80º was only a fond memory).

We headed back up to the Village to Tony’s place to get the guitars and a few necessities (Tony and I will be returning to his apartment to sleep throughout the weekend). Again cabbed back to SoHo, and found that Jaxie had arrived. A few bits of Housecraft, and then we hit the streets for a slice for lunch. The rest of the team would be arriving between 2 and 3pm. Hot and crowded out, we brought the pizza back to eat in comfort.

Tom called to let us know he and Robert were a few blocks away, so we went down to meet them. Loaded out their car, and Tom left to put it in the parking lot. Dev and Victor arrived next, looking a bit wrung out, having driven from Boston with no AC in the car. Victor came in, and Dev set out to the parking lot. Sandra arrived, and we loaded her gear out. Tony accompanied her to the parking lot. By tea time, we were all present and accounted for.

Over tea, some discussion about the weekend, with Robert leading off regarding his aims. We all weighed in on our sense of the weekend, and talked about the flow of the days, meals (everyone is on kitchen duty at every meal – only dinners are at all involved, but even they are going to be as simple as possible).

Eight of us in a wonderful kind of choreography as we improvised our way through the dinner prep. Dinner had a force in it. I gave Mr Bennett’s blessing, nearly stumbling on the line that often gets ironically inverted. More discussion over dinner about Guitar Craft, GC History, and this group.

For the evening meeting, Robert presented the exercise for our morning sitting, which ties directly into the exercise we will be taking on throughout the day. Afterward, some guitaring seemed to be calling us. We sounded tired and a bit dispersed, but a necessary breaking of the ice. Robert, still on UK time, called it a night about 10:30. The rest of us sat and talked another hour before Tony and I left for the 20-minute trek back to his place, and the rest settled into their beds.

[go to Day 2]

Tuning the Air #182, with the Thornton Creek Kids Circle

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday June 10, 2010 – Tuning the Air #182, with the Thornton Creek Kids Circle

Much to process and write about this. For now, just the facts:

Joel Palmer – Improvised preshow music

Thornton Creek Kids Circle:

Enters playing a thrakish call and response, which continues as we march once around the Great Hall, and take our seats at the east end. The Tuning the Air team follows, each taking up a seat near their place in the circle.

• Dirty Water – from our seats. From there on we are on our feet and on the move.
• Whizz – from the north side of the room
• The Blues – Curt in a chair on the west side of the room, blasting out-of-tune blues licks, with Jaxie and the Kids marching around the room doing the accompaniment.
• Spider Web Circulation – from the south side of the room
• La Bamba – standing in front of our original seats on the east side

The Tuning the Air performers move to their positions in the circle and put on their guitars. The Kids take places between the adults.

• Circulation on any note of your choice.

Kids Circle re-gathers at the east end, takes their bow, and exits to the green room.

Tuning the Air:

As Joel begins the opening music for the Tuning the Air segment, the house team strikes the chairs set up for the Kids Circle, and sets Curt’s guitar out. Jaxie and Curt escort the Kids out to join their families in the audience, and we take our places in the TTA Circle.

• Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
• Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
• Voices of Ancient Children
• Cultivating the Beat
• The Children’s Hour (world debut!)

• From the Hat: A Quiet Song

• Pipeline

• Address the Audience – Curt
• Circulating through the audience, as the spirit moves
• Sigh and a Kiss
• A Day In The Life

• From the Hat: A One-Minute Collage, with each player on a 5-note phrase of their choice (with special guest Bill Rieflin in the role of timer)

• Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – with Joel Palmer providing awesomely creepy ambience.

Encore:

TTA team exits. When we return we are carrying guitars for the Kids. We take our places in the circle, invite the Kids back up from the audience to join us.

• La Bamba (Slight Return)