Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday June 21, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

All present and accounted for tonight. We began by working on Taylor’s arrangeent of the first minute and a half of “Neptune”, from The Planets. This began to really take shape tonight, as we got a bit past the notes and began to address the music. A general kind of “proof of concept” that gives us the clarity that it is possible, and will work. And so the arranger has his work cut out for him; 90 seconds down and about another 5 minutes to go. We’ll play it amplified at sound check on Thursday, for additional information, but it is unlikely to be ready before the season closes.

Found this online about the piece earlier in the day and circulated it to the team:

“Neptune” was the first piece of orchestral music to have a fade-out ending. Holst stipulates that the women's choruses are “to be placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed”, and that the final bar (scored for choruses alone) is “to be repeated until the sound is lost in the distance”. Although commonplace today, the effect bewitched audiences in the era before widespread recorded sound—after the initial 1918 run-through, Holst's daughter Imogen (in addition to watching the charwomen dancing in the aisles during “Jupiter”) remarked that the ending was “unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter... until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence”.

We moved on to some detail and refinement work on The Children’s Hour, focusing on phrasing as a group.

Next on the agenda was Ian’s Voodoo Situation, a loosely structured improvisation following along the harmonic lines of George Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept, using chords from Miles Runs the Voodoo Down as the jumping off point. Good fun. A stretch for us, but stretching is good. We’ll also give this a go at soundcheck, and that will determine whether or not it will go in The Hat for this show.

A run through of A Day In The Life.

Lastly, a review of a new spin on Ikada-Jima that we stumbled into on Saturday. Since Howard was not at rehearsal on Saturday, and had no idea about the changes, we got to experience his unfiltered reaction, which was an ear-to-ear grin. Very good sign. It is on!

One more time through The Children’s Hour and we called it a night.

Full Company with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday June 19, 2010 – Full Company with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

Solstice Festival day in Fremont, which made parking a bit dicey. It is overcast and chilly, and we begin pretty early, so it wasn’t too bad going in. By the time we departed, just after noon, the joint was definitely jumping.

First part of the morning was the full team with guitars, with Frank. We are wrapping up a season of consistent work with him, and following of on a week of intensive work with Sandra. He summarized the process of observing the body as it responds to the breath, our presence at the “critical moment”, and took us through an intensive look at “inhibition” in the Alexander Technique sense of the word. He led us through a simple rhythmic exercise, slowly adding more bits to it and increasing the complexity. The final part of the exercise was as close to The Movements as anything I have encountered; both revealing and energizing.

After a break, the Performance Team reconvened for rehearsal. A bit more focused work on The Children’s Hour to begin with. Chris revealed that for next week some repertoire is returning to The Hat, and so we spent the rest of the rehearsal reviewing pieces we may not have played for some time: The Turkish Suite, Brasil, Twilight, 49 Notes, Ikada-Jima, The Wig Maker, Thrak, and Lament. We got of on a very silly tangent on one of the pieces, reworking its arrangement and including a radical change in genre. Lots of fun, and I believe it will be incorporated. It took quite a bit more time than anticipated, however, and so continued work on Taylor’s arrangement of Neptune and Ian’s Voodoo Situation were pushed back to Monday’s rehearsal.

Return to my place where Greg, Mary Beth, Ian and IgorK gathered for today’s Music Lab. We moved forward in the interval recognition ear training exercise, taking on sixths and sevenths. From there we moved on to recognizing the elements of a harmonic environment – in this case various modes – and building a scale that is consistent. Feels like the beginning of some essential stuff. The circulations that surrounded this exploration had a definite “something” about them.

Tuning the Air #183

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday June 17, 2010 – Tuning the Air #183

Setlist:

• Joel Palmer – Improvised preshow music into C Harmonic Minor
• Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
• Voices of Ancient Children (Kabusacki/Nunez)
• Cultivating the Beat (Williams)
• My Precious Dream (Binder)

• From the Hat: The Lizard of Ooze
• Pipeline (Carman/Spickard)
• From the Hat: Everyone Solos Then Everyone Plays Together

• Address the Audience – Travis

• Circulating through the audience, as the spirit moves
• Sigh and a Kiss (Williams)

• The Children’s Hour (Ives)
• A Day in the Life (Lennon/McCartney)

• Spontaneous Composition in E Minor, with oboe
• Ikada-Jima (Gibson)
• From the Hat: Worst Song I Ever Heard [rejected by performers]
• Alternate from the Hat: Open Circulation

• Space Zombies! From Outer Space! (Peacock) – with Joel Palmer on creepy ambience.

Encore:

• Eye of the Needle (Fripp)

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday June 14, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Shorthanded tonight, with Chris out of town and both Travis and Howard unavailable.

The first half of the rehearsal we applied ourselves to digging into the details of the rhythmic and phrasing subtleties of The Children’s Hour.

After a break, we began work on Taylor’s arrangement of “Neptune” from Holst’s The Planets. Tempted to push on, but Ian had some further work into the harmonic explorations for the Voodoo Chord, which yielded some rather stunning improvs.

Alexander Technique Day

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday June 12, 2010 – Alexander Technique Day

An embarrassment of riches. We had not 1, not 2, but 3 AT teachers on board to help us out today. Frank Sheldon, of course. Sandra Bain Cushman is in town this week doing a series of classes. And our pal Teo Hannum, who we haven’t seen for some time, was along as well.

Sandra took the first hour, working largely with us without guitars. Some boomwhacker circulations in the circle, and a number of exercises that, among other uses, helped us to respond to circulations and, especially, The Whizz, without our usual startle and other unnecessary physicalizations. The first hour ended with some walking whizzes… with one oboe involved!

After a break, Frank worked with us, continuing the theme of “the breath” and focusing on the distinction between reacting and responding. For this we worked entirely in the circle, with guitars (and oboe). Simple circulations and improvisations, in which presence at the “critical moment” was the only aim. On a number of occasions, what the group was creating was so musical that it was very difficult for me to stay with the exercise. Tending to revert to “musician mode” is always a challenge when we are addressing AT with our instruments, and today was more challenging than most. The addition of the oboe, suggested some possibilities for Tuning the Air that were impossible to ignore, and keeping my mind on the business at hand was a constant struggle.

For the final hour, the AT trio of doom put us through a number of very physical exercises, beginning with a variation on Simon Says.

At the end of the workshop, those able stayed for a few minutes to help the next tenant in the Great Hall set up for a piano recital, and then we went our separate ways. It was an incredible spring day in Seattle, and the Music Lab was “called on account of sun.”

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)

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday June 7, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Travis had a scheduling conflict (the nature of which was the source of much humor throughout the evening), so we were eight in the circle tonight. Sandra Bain Cushman, in town for a week of fun with Alexander Technique, was in attendance as well (until her east coast time orientation caught up with her about halfway through the rehearsal).

Twofold task for the evening… to sketch out a slightly shorter set than usual for Thursday night’s show with the Kids Circle, and to ensure that The Children’s Hour is presentable and ready for primetime.

The Children’s Hour was up first. Ran it cold, to test our true command of the piece first… in performance there is no warm-up or practice run. Quite good. The work we did on Saturday was evident, and there were no snags that we could not maneuver around. The difficult bits, particularly transitions, remain difficult, but no longer daunting. We engaged the metronome and got down to work. There was one short section where I was not hearing the melody clearly. It involves Jaxie and Chris playing lines that are partly unison and partly contrapuntal, and joining them into a single statement. A little work, a little analysis, and a little more work, and the passage was transformed. A few other details addressed, and the piece was declared ready, and to be included in Thursday’s set. We played it a couple times again in the evening, once as part of the set run through and again at the end of the night with us on our feet as we will be at the gig.

A Day In The Life was next. Travis plays the rhythm guitar part on this, and it is very much the skeleton on which the rest of the parts hang, so this was an opportunity for us to see how well we have internalized the music. Kind of a strange way for Sandra to hear the piece for the first time, but for the players a very informative experience. Space Zombies! From Outer Space! was also an interesting challenge without Travis holding down the middle.

On to set creation. From the weekend, we had already decided the musical content of the crossover from the Kids Circle to the TTA team. Chris laid out the plan he had in mind. Some suggestions and a bit of tweakage and we had a working set. We ran it for time (allowing some estimates for the selections from the Hat). The form an flow of the set seemed pretty good, but it ran a bit long. We looked at what could be dropped, and that inspired a little re-orging as well, and in the end we had a set that will work well in the shorter format: still complete, and without any kind of compromise, but running at a length that will not overtax the good will of an audience that will very likely include a number young people out on a school night; and their parents.

Monthly Open Circle, Company Meeting and Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday June 5, 2010 – Monthly Open Circle, Company Meeting and Performance Team Rehearsal

Thirteen in the Open Circle this morning, plus me on my feet and Frank working the periphery. One first-timer, who plugged into the way the circle works very quickly. A number of regular Open Circlers, the House Team, but only three players from the Performance Team. With the experiential center of gravity at the beginner/intermediate level, this shifted to a more standard beginner’s circle, working on basic circulation skills. This struck me as something of a missed opportunity, as the circle felt as though it was perpetually right on the edge of really going somewhere, but never quite had the momentum to make the leap. A few more experienced players would have made a big difference.

Nevertheless, very good work. For the first half we worked with basic “any note of your choice” circulation exercises as well as some circulated scale/arpeggio work. For the second half it felt to me as though something a little more musical was called for, so I divided the circle into 2 halves, and we developed a simple form in which one group would play a gentle pulsing rhythmic form on a basic chord while the other group improvised in circulation. Roles reversed every 8 bars. This really began to get going after a while. Toward the end, several of the more experienced players had, and responded to, the impulse to get on their feet. Everyone followed their lead, and the thing really came alive. It was clear from the final “any note of your choice” circulation that there had been forward progress in our 2 hours together.

Back to my place for the Performance Team rehearsal, which began with a short (but not as short as I had originally envisioned) full company meeting to get the full team up to speed on how the Thursday show with the Kids Circle is going to go. It was a beautiful afternoon, so we met outside in the back yard. That may help to explain why the meeting went long – no one wanted to leave. I laid out the general framework of the show, pointed out a number of the challenges, and together we hammered out the details. Quite a few insights and inspirations from the team that were vast improvements over my original conception, and so by the end of the meeting we had crafted a far superior performance. Left the meeting feeling energized and enthusiastic.

Short Performance Team rehearsal inside at my place. Most of our work on The Children’s Hour, as the (absent due to work obligations) Music Director had made it pretty unambiguous that he would like to have it available for Thursday. A Day In The Life, Space Zombies! From Outer Space!, and 49 Notes also received a bit of attention.

Tuning the Air #181

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday June 3, 2010 – Tuning the Air #181

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in F Major

From the Hat:

On Mars We Play Like This
49 Notes

Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience
Sigh and a Kiss
A Day In The Life

From the Hat:

Journey To The Unknown
Ikada-Jima

Circulation in G Major
Eye of the Needle

Encore:

Horn Up Your Ass – acoustic, for Meleah’s birthday
Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 31, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

The Music Director had to work tonight. We began digging deep into The Children’s Hour. By the end of any given rehearsal, this piece is generally in passable shape, but we haven’t quite reached the point where it is ready to go right out of the gate. We began by addressing the end of the piece and gradually worked our way back to the beginning. We put a lot of attention into better understanding the relationships between the parts. In particular, Howard and I, as the de facto section leaders of the left and right hands of the piano part, discovered a number of places where making an intentional connection noticeably helps the flow and musicality of the piece. Good progress made all the way around. There was some discussion about whether or not Chris had said he is planning to put this piece in the hat, or even in the setlist, for this week. We are aiming to be ready, should it turn up. It will certainly be played during soundcheck.

Another look at Ian’s Voodoo Improv, incorporating changes he made since Saturday. Ian seemed pleased with the results.

Some metronome work with Eye of the Needle, and we called it a night.

Performance Team Rehearsal, Music Lab, Lament and Folklife

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 29, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal, Music Lab, Lament and Folklife

Fremont Abbey again booked today, so we worked in my apartment.

The performance team, all present and accounted for, spent the first half of rehearsal with The Children’s Hour. It is a tricky little piece, but kind of in and inverse way. The timing of the various parts is extremely complex, and the only way for us to get a grasp of it is to break it down. But, while necessary and inevitable, breaking it down actually makes it more difficult. Then there is a moment when the Music of way the parts collaborate suddenly becomes apparent, and suddenly it is very easy to play. At this point we are still in a place where it takes us some work to get to that point – and of course performing it requires that we be at that point from the first note, without preparation. Monday’s rehearsal will be the test of whether or not the progress made today is assimilated.

Ian worked with us on a circulation/improv vision he has based on a couple of scale/tonalities that he has been studying this year. The resulting Voodoo Improv was very cool. Not sure if it is in the Hat for Thursday.

Continued work on A Day In The Life, with incremental refinements. Metronome work with Space Zombies! From Outer Space! and Eye of the Needle.

For the Music Lab, we continued the ear training work, going back to review seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths. Afterward, several of the team stayed behind for 30 minutes to look at fingering and timing details in Lament.

Later this evening, Lost Pedro playing at Northwest Folklife, evidently with a guest artist sitting in on chromatic harmonica for one piece.

Tuning the Air #180

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 27, 2010 – Tuning the Air #180

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Phrygian

From the Hat:

A Day At The Circus
The Turkish Suite

Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss
A Day In The Life

From the Hat:

Brasil

Lament

From the Hat:

What Is That Strange Sound?

Circulation in A♭ Major
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Seattle Circle Board of Directors Meeting

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 24, 2010 – Seattle Circle Board of Directors Meeting

It is getting to be annual meeting time. And there are significant arisings both in the Tuning the Air realm as well as the nascent Seattle Circle Guitar School that made meeting sooner than later a necessity. With that in mind, we are feeling that a series of board meetings is going to be needed, as we begin to lay out a somewhat new direction for the company. When the 6 current members of the board compared their calendars looking for a date/time to meet, nothing was presenting itself. About the time we found ourselves seriously considering a date in late June, it became clear that we needed to take some slightly drastic action. Since 5 of us would have been at the Wilson’s for rehearsal tonight anyway, it seemed like the unfortunate but obvious solution.

Very strange to leave the house without a guitar. And a little sad that having Charles Ives’ Children’s Hour up and running is going to have to be delayed a little for lack of rehearsal time. Drag to have to choose between playing guitar and doing the non-musical work necessary to allow us to play guitar, but that is ever the tradeoff I’m afraid. Looking forward to Thursday when all I will have to do is strap on a guitar and do the thing I love most.

Full Team Circle with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 22, 2010 – Full Team Circle with Frank, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

The only Saturday this month that Fremont Abbey has been available on Saturday morning, so we were finally able to get back with the program. My apartment is too small for the full company to meet, especially if we are working with Frank. It was a treat to be able to get back to the Great Hall for our work today.

I arrived at the Abbey shortly after 9am, to see if the space needed any preparation. The calendar indicated a concert of some sort in the Great Hall last night, and sometimes after these we find the space less than fully restored in the morning. No big deal today. Some chairs for the audience still set up, but no gear in the way or anything like that, so arranging the room for ourselves was a snap.

For the first part of the morning, it was the full company in the circle with guitars, working at Frank’s direction. Bob was home with the girls, and Joel and Charles were not able to make it today. I am beginning to think that Frank is psychic. For the second meeting in a row, the work he has put us through has precisely mirrored the musical work we are doing in performance rehearsals. He has been working with us on a consistent unfolding theme since we began rehearsals for this season in January. Somehow, though, the particulars of the exercises he presents have an uncanny way of being exactly what we are concerned with at the moment, even though he hasn’t been to many shows lately. Go figure. Last time around it was all about listening and blending when playing notes together, which perfectly spoke to the exploration we were doing of parts like the “piano” section of A Day In The Life, in which 4 players are playing together as if they were a piano player doing chords. Today, after revisiting a recently presented preparation exercise involving holding the guitar over our heads as we lower ourselves into the chair, he focused entirely on listening exercises that exactly mirror the work we have been doing with themes in the “spontaneous compositions” Chris has been including in every set.

Wonderful.

After a short break, the performance team, sans Bob, reconvened to rehearse with Frank supporting by moving around the circle and working with individuals as he saw fit. Most of our time was invested in getting the Charles Ives piece up on its feet. By the end of the rehearsal, this one had reached that inevitable point where the end is in sight, but is feeling unreachable. One more solid rehearsal and that sahara will have been crossed. Unfortunately we have to usurp Monday’s rehearsal time for the annual Seattle Circle board meeting, so this will have to wait another week.

A little stretch break, and on to practical matters. A couple of observations about A Day In The Life from Thursday’s performance, and we worked through it with the metronome several times, and without after that. More metronome work followed, with Space Zombies! From Outer Space! on our feet, acoustically, as it is actually being performed in the gig, and then with Eye of the Needle, also in performance format.

At 12:30 we moved out of Fremont Abbey. I went back to may place for the Music Lab, which was attended by Christina, IgorK, Mary Beth and Ian. Again this week, after sitting quietly before we began, on a strong impulse I did an abrupt right turn from what I thought I would be presenting. I had the quartet do some free circulating in D Lydian (that had been the “key of the day” in our work with Frank earlier). My sense was that D Lydian was not really being presented, but that it quickly settled into A Major. I then assigned notes to each of the players, beginning on D and moving in thirds until a full D Maj13 #11 was spelled out. The aim of this was to hear in the basic triad the most rudimentary quality of the Lydian mode. By adding the major seventh, further refinement. And then the ninth, the augmented eleventh and the major thirteenth, each contributing a color or facet that, when taken together, establishes the character and quality of this mode. The they circulated again. This time Lydian managed to present itself. It then slipped away, but to some degree found itself once again.

We employed the same tactics with D Mixolydian, D Aeolian and D Dorian, each with varying degrees of success. Natural minor was the clearest, likely as it is the most familiar.

A short break, and then back to the ear-training exercise begun a few weeks ago. Today we worked with recognizing and being able to find perfect fourths and perfect fifths. This was what I had originally planned to work with today, and I was glad to have some time to at least touch on it, as it strikes me as central right now. Given the short time available, we didn’t review seconds and thirds as I had thought we would, nor did we push it as far as we might. More on this in the future, to be sure.

Tuning the Air #179

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 20, 2010 – Tuning the Air #179

World Premier night for A Day In The Life. It felt very good, and all feedback indicates it is a winner. After the show, regarding the piece, Steve T made an intriguing suggestion which I immediately laughed off. But this only masked the fact that it struck a very tempting chord for me.

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Phrygian

From the Hat:

What Does Led Zeppelin Sound Like?
120 Miles an Hour

Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss
A Day In The Life

From the Hat:

Moving Stillness

Lament

From the Hat:

You’re In A Bar And It’s 1940

Circulation in A♭
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 17, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Howard was down with a cold, and out for tonight. Jaxie and I were not in much better shape, and perhaps should have followed his lead, but a lot of work on the table.

Opened with a “spontaneous composition” in C whole tone, continuing the work with theme establishment, recognition and response.

Then, straight into the primary challenge: getting A Day In The Life ready for a Thursday debut. This largely involved revisiting details we identified on Saturday, and running the piece in its entirety with the metronome at the established tempo. For the bass players, still a bit of a stretch on the memorization side, but more or less ready to go.

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! was next on the docket; down to work. A bit of metronome work to find and establish the right group tempo. Then a bit of metronome work to get the piece – including the tricky bits – reliably in time. As this is now in the lead-off encore spot, it needs to be reliable without being precious, while remaining fun without being out of control.

A break, and then for the final segment we launched into the Charles Ives piece, The Children’s Hour. This was on the table last year, but shelved when our work took us in a slightly different direction, letting go of heavy rehearsal time committed to complex arrangements, and focusing our energy on arising performance issues. It has been hovering just out of our field of vision ever since then, and Bob took it on to re-visit our arrangement and mold it into something a bit more manageable. We did the preliminary read-through tonight, taking some time to establish the circulation and dealing with a little bit of the tricky timing. One 8-bar section went untouched, and I assume we’ll be back to that at our next rehearsal. But the overall sense was that this can be up and running in fairly short order. It’s all about being able to play triplets in duple time and duplets in triple time, seamlessly without stuttering and/or startling. When that happens, it is very organic music – virtually playing itself. When it doesn’t, it is a study in counting, which is not really something anyone wants to play or hear.

Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 15, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

Fremont Abbey was once again otherwise booked, so we needed to forgo the full group work with Frank. Instead, after the sitting the performance team met to rehearse at my place. Jaxie called, sounding something akin to death warmed over, to say she was sick and that Bob was going to need to stay home with the kids, so we were 7 for the rehearsal.

We began with taking a deep look at how “spontaneous compositions” work; establishing themes, recognizing and supporting themes, moving to new themes, etc. This is the sort of work we did a lot of in the early days, but rarely have or take the time for recently, and it felt very necessary. Spontaneous compositions have, so far this season, been very good (and occasionally incredible), but the general sense is that we have not begun to explore their potential. We took turns proffering thematic material, quickly establishing it, with everyone else responsible for getting behind it. By the end of the first hour there was a sense that we had cracked a bit of the code on this mystery.

After a short break, we moved on to Space Zombies! From Outer Space! [I am resolved to use the full title for a while, in part to get a handle on it – I am perpetually butchering it – but also because the composer said in an email that the title is “the only thing I'm particularly picky about regarding the tune these days.”] Mary Beth was brought up to speed on the part that she was assigned in absentia on Monday. We took a hard look at some of the details that will move this from an enthusiastic bodge to a tour de force of silly fun. This is always a tricky moment in the life of a new piece of repertoire. When it is brand new and just plain fun, it seems to play itself, and you can do no wrong. Then we begin to dig in on the details and it is not so easy, and not nearly as much fun, so the spirit of the piece becomes a kind of assumption of virtue – in this case, played as if it were fun, even though we are not feeling the fun so much ourselves. Then, once we have mastered the details, and can really, actually play the thing, it will not only be fun again, but very, very hot. We listened to both the Riddle Trio version and the SA League version (which the composer regards as the currently canonical version). The Tuning the Air rendition is a kind of hybrid, more like the League in overall arrangement, but with a strong nod to the Acid-Surf bass-driven sound/feel of Riddle.

We also did some detail work on My Precious Dream, focusing on the group phrasing of the melody. This phrasing work, which is very much connected with the work the entire company has been doing with Frank, has become something of a theme for this season, and most of our repertoire is benefiting from digging in on this level. It has everything to do with allowing the music to breath, and that always has something to do with allowing ourselves to breath.

Finally, the 800-pound gorilla I the room: A Day In The Life. More work with the same kinds of phrasing issues, but much of the work centered around the two orchestral freakouts in the piece; the 23 bars that connect the Lennon section to the McCartney section, and the second, more frenetic, 23 bar section leading up to the end. We listened to the recording in some detail to identify the overall shape of these sections, as well as the strategies the orchestra employs. We of course cannot duplicate the range of a full orchestra, and acoustic guitars will never have the blasting range of brass instruments blowing their lungs out, but we can certainly honor and replicate the spirit. So far, my inner Mal Evans has been chanting out the bar count in these sections, and I wanted to see if it was possible to do without, or at least limit this. Leaving the count out entirely was, at least at this stage of the game, a total flop. In the end, we settled on a strategy of me weighing in on the count around bar 19 (or anytime it feels like we need to take stock of where we are), and then cuing the downbeat of the next session. This worked pretty well. And we will have to look again on Monday before committing to a working strategy for next Thursday.

One final run through, followed by a rehearsal-closing blast of Space Zombies! From Outer Space! and we were done for the day.

A short meeting in the sun of the back yard for Chris, Travis and myself, and then I returned for the Music Lab. Ian and Mary Beth stuck around for this, joined by Greg, Christina and IgorK.

I had originally planned to revisit and continue with the ear-training exercise from last week, and that was my intent as we sat in silence before beginning. We began with a circulation in C Major – we always begin with a circulation, which for me amounts to taking the pulse of the group. On hearing this circulation, I decided to take an entirely different tack. For most of the 90-minutes we worked with an exercise that I used a great deal in the old Beginner’s and Repertoire Circles, as well as in the early days of the Seattle Guitar Circle, that we referred to as Intentional Circulation. In this exercise we build a composed circulation one note at a time. The first person chooses and plays a note. The next person in the circle 1) listens to the note, 2) hears the note they wish to play, 3) plays that note, as best they are able. If the note is the note they meant to play, that is acknowledged. If the note is NOT the note they meant to play then, 1) the intended note is found, or 2) if the note played is “better” than the one they intended, they may commit to it. These first two notes are then played, and the next person in the circulation goes through the same procedure. This continues two or three times around the circle, creating an “intentionally” composed circulated musical phrase.

This is an extremely enlightening exercise, and generally a humbling one for players at every level.

In the final 20 minutes of the Lab, we took a look at the 2 supporting parts (colloquially, the Hernan and Martin parts) of Voices of Ancient Children.

Tuning the Air #178

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 13, 2010 – Tuning the Air #178

A very, very good performance tonight, at least from my vantage point. Unfortunately, very few people there to hear it. Beautiful weather in Seattle is almost never our friend. People get mildly intoxicated by the weather and going inside to hear music falls many notches down on their list of priorities.

A slightly modified opening that worked very well. My Precious Dream is thankfully back in the available repertoire, and for this week in the predetermined set. It was a little shaky/scary at soundcheck, but came alive in performance. The improvs were quite good. Thanks to the Hat, we had two “spontaneous compositions” in a row. Trust the Hat. The second was in F Lydian and included Joel. I had a clear sense of what I heard in terms of the musical theme/flavor, and launched into it. Joel simultaneously launched into something completely complementary and fitting. I looked up at him across the room and smiled. The piece played itself. Just after the second improv (There’s A Fight In The Street – quite fun, and I managed a kind of anemic but fun faux-police-siren at the end, using the ebow and a slide), Jaxie heard Brasil waiting in the wings and called it.

During sound check we ran Space Zombies! From Outer Space! We are still about one rehearsal away from being actually competent at it, but it is fun and has energy, and doesn’t suffer terribly when enthusiasm is in the place of accuracy. It was not in the set or in the Hat, but was okayed to be called should the spirit move. The spirit moved as we exited the green room for the encore.

Most exciting/scary was the sound check run through of A Day In The Life. I still don’t have the bass part completely at my command without the score, so a certain amount of faking it going on. But it sounded good. The tweaks we did in rehearsal are paying off. After the final E Major chord, for the second week in a row a spontaneous outburst of applause from the House Team. Chris got that “now or never” look in his eyes and announced, “next week”. So, we are committed.

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
Ringing in C Harmonic MinorVoices of Ancient Children
Cultivating the Beat
The Wig Maker
My Precious Dream

Spontaneous Composition in E Harmonic Minor

From the Hat:

Spontaneous Composition in F Lydian, with Joel
Whiz And Zither Madness
There's A Fight In The Street

Brasil (called by Jaxie)

Address the Audience – Travis
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
Sigh and a Kiss

From the Hat:

Open Circulation

Lament

From the Hat:

Pipeline
Ikada-Jima

Circulation in A♭
Twilight

Encore:

Space Zombies! From Outer Space! – acoustic (called on our way out of the green room)
Eye of the Needle – acoustic

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 9, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Performance team at Bob and Jaxie’s this evening. Mary Beth was back in Boston for business, so we were 8 in the circle.

Began by recapping Saturday’s rehearsal to bring Jaxie up to date.

For tonight’s work we began with a circulation in A♭ Major, and then ran Twilight. We then reviewed the A Mixolydian zithers from the in-the-audience circulation, making sure we had our parts right. Several runs through of My Precious Dream, both with and without the metronome, and again focusing some attention on the count-free opening. Chris declared it ready for primetime (or, more accurately, observed that the way to get it over the last hurtle is to throw it into the performance mix) and so this week it will be part of the opening set. Ran the Turkish Suite*, and then took a close look at the phrasing of the lead players in the second half of Batrachomyomachy. Lament with the metronome, as we are aiming for a slightly quicker tempo and it has not yet settled in.

After the break, on to Space Zombies! From Outer Space! I needed refreshing, and we had new information from the composer as well, so we again broke into bass and lead section work. Chris drilled the leads, and taught Jaxie her part. Travis worked with me and Ian on the bass part, which we tweaked in some detail. Ran the piece several times after we reconvened the full group, with and without the metronome. It seems that what is emerging is a distinctly Tuning the Air arrangement is neither Riddle Trio nor The League. Stripped down and energetic. A lot of fun. It will be more fun when it is a little more competent, but in the meantime it is still fun. It is on for a run through at soundcheck on Thursday. I don’t know if a decision has been made about putting it in the hat. Perhaps that will be a surprise.

Several runs through A Day In The Life, incorporating Saturday’s adjustments, and getting Jaxie up to speed. I managed to stay off of the score, but I am definitely faking it and/or getting lucky in the third and fourth verses, so that will be heavily in my practice schedule for the next couple of days. Memorizing a part in which each verse is ever so slightly different from the last one, but close enough to be seriously confusing, is a real challenge. We could easily just repeat the bass line to any one of the verses and it would work fine musically, and I imagine the audience would be none the wiser. But this is The Beatles, and I can think of at least two people who might be in the audience on any given night who would definitely hear, and for this one I’m kind of inclined to play to them.

One last run through Space Zombies! From Outer Space! at a seriously jacked up tempo, and we all headed home for the night.

---

* Had a discussion with Bill after last week’s show, about the use of the word “suite” to describe this series of compositions. When I got home I pulled out my trusty Harvard Dictionary of Music, and found that the first definition was: “An instrumental form of baroque music, consisting of a number of movements, each in the character of a dance and all in the same key.” Tony’s composition is obviously not baroque, and only two of the three are in the same key, but my sense is that the Turkish Suite has enough of the flavor to warrant the name. While I don’t see powdered wigs and hoop skirts, they are sure as hell dances.

Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 8, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

The Great Hall at Fremont Abbey was booked today, and we met at my place. My living room is not really big enough to contain a full-company circle, so a performance team rehearsal made the best sense. Jax is away for the weekend with the girls, so we were 8 today. Chris began with some circulating in E Harmonic Minor, which is the current key specificaction for the “spontaneous composition” in the set. Last Thursday it had been somewhat tentative. I can claim my own share of responsibility for that, since in the moment I completely forgot that we had changed keys and initially launched into D Minor – one would have to work pretty hard to be more wrong than that. A little E Harmonic Minor drill was definitely in order.

Mary Beth was ready to get herself performance certified on Ikada-Jima and Voices of Ancient Children, so we ran those. A small arrangement change for Taylor on Voices suggested itself, and that was rehearsed and incorporated. Chris then called for some work on My Precious Dream. Jaxie, although absent today, is pretty much ready to go on her new part, which was Igor’s part in an earlier incarnation. Earlier in the week she had worked with Mary Beth, teaching her the main melody, and so we needed to rehearse her on that part. And Howard is now playing the melody in the intro (Jaxie’s old part), and that also needed attention. We ran it several times with the metronome, reconnecting with the intended tempo. We have always begun this without a count, but in the new orchestration I had put the count back. Howard, Chris and I worked on the introduction a bit, and got it back to the point where the count can once again be dropped.

After a short break, we watched and listened to the video Christina had made of the run-through we did on Thursday of A Day In The Life. Not really a lot of “new” information here, but a number of things we already knew about the piece were driven home with a sharp clarity, and for the next hour we worked on a lot of the details that are going to make the difference in this piece. Very good progress made. I managed to make it through the entire rehearsal without ever resorting to the score; not that I truly have it memorized, but more a testament that I am sufficiently comfortable with the harmonic structure of the piece that when details fail me I can improvise my way through it with some authority. Of course, I was solo on the part, and this will not really fly when there are two of us playing. Nevertheless, a small milestone.

We still need to find a proper alarm clock that can be triggered on cue for the middle orchestral madness section. The “traditional telephone” ring on my iPhone comes close, but not quite convincing.

For the final half hour we addressed Space Zombies! From Outer Space!**. Mary Beth, Ian and I went into the back room with Travis to get the bass/rhythm part organized, while Chris, Howard, Bob and Taylor remained in the living room to get the lead part running. Basic pycho-surf music in a blues progression, iconic to the point of being nearly genetic, so we had it up and running in short order. It will be a fun thing to have jump out of the hat, I would think. Chris indicated that the Riddle String Trio version we are learning is not, according to the composer, precisely definitive. There is no mp3 or score of the intended version, but only a video of the League that was once on YouTube but has since been removed. Chris is going to contact Mariana to see if the video is in the Guitar Craft archive and available for us for our research.

Thinking about the kind of space-kitsch ambience of the piece, as folks were packing to go I began experimenting with a combination of glass slide and ebow that creates a pretty passable Theremin-like sound, and it looks like this may get incorporated into our arrangement.

For me, a short break for a snack, and then Greg, Christina, Mary Beth and Ian reconvened for the Music Lab. We opened with a free circulation in C major that was pretty impressive, and nearly convinced me to go a different direction than I had initially intended. After the last Music Lab, a couple of weeks ago, an ear-training exercise that the Seattle Guitar Circle had worked with quite seriously for a period of time shortly after I arrived here, re-presented itself to me. This is what I wanted to work with today, and I stuck to it. We began working with recognizing and recreating major and minor seconds, in a specific circulation exercise. I allowed this to stretch out a bit. In a way this doomed us to not getting as far with the exercise as I had envisioned, but I began to notice that there was measurable improvement happening, and felt that this was worth committing to. We moved on to the same exercise, but working with major and minor thirds, and again I let it run long in order to allow the players to really assimilate what they were learning about how they hear these intervals. We ended the no-break 90-minute exercise with an applied version of the exercise, circulating in C Major.

The final “free” circulation of the day, in C Major, interestingly, lacked much of the spontaneity and magic of the opening one. It is a notable phenomenon. Sometimes when I have worked the group hard on an exercise that requires a level of attention, contact and care that they may not be able to muster, cold, the final circulation displays a noticeable sensitivity that was not present in the opening circulation. In this case, the final circulation had something more akin to an increased self-consciousness that, creatively speaking, was not an improvement. My sense was that the skill we touched on today is going to take a while, and a certain amount of work, to show its benefits; ninety minutes only hints at the possibilities.

Whenever we do this kind of work in the Lab, I come out exhausted. I do not, generally, sit in the circle and participate, but take on responsibility for holding the entirety of the exercise. In a way, without a guitar in my hand, I am still playing every note, and this requires a level of sustained attention. Extremely valuable work for me, and I may arguably be the one in the room reaping the greatest benefit. But when it is done I am wrung out. Today’s response to this was an immediate shower and an afternoon sitting, and that seemed pretty effective in both assimilating what I had touched on, and at the same time letting the exercise go.

---

**Title corrected per the composer.

Tuning the Air #177

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday May 6, 2010 – Tuning the Air #177

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
(entrance of performance team)
Chiming in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
(small group move together)
Cultivating the Beat
(return to places)
The Wig Maker

Spontaneous Composition in E Harmonic Minor

From the Hat:

In the middle of the ocean
Brasil
The passing of time in reverse
Pipeline

Address the Audience – Travis
(take positions in aisles within the audience)
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, zithers, other, as the spirit moves
(all except Bob and Jaxie return to places)
Sigh and a Kiss (Bob and Jaxie return to places at 2nd verse)

From the Hat:

Whizz and Zither Madness

Lament

From the Hat:

Ikada-Jima
Turkish Suite

Circulation in Ab
Twilight

Encore:

Thrak – acoustic in arc at the west end
Eye of the Needle – acoustic in arc at the east end

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday May 3, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

Full team on board for tonight’s rehearsal. Chris laid out the modified setlist for this week, which involves a little more dipping into “the hat”. One of the mini-sets is being dropped, and those pieces returned to the hat, which also has an expanded selection of improv themes and circulations.

As we talked through the revamped set I mentioned an idea I had for adding a zither to the strategies available for the “through the audience” circulation. So we began by establishing our zither chords and trying out a number of approaches, including a cascade. We looked at a couple of pieces of set repertoire. My Precious Dream is very close. I don’t know if it will be in the hat this week, but soon for sure. We also took a first stab at how The Wig Maker might work with Jaxie on viola.

After a short break, we ran Ikada-Jima, with Mary Beth auditioning for the melody. She passed. Lost Pedro presented a John Peacock piece that they learned in Italy, with full group potential. The Wilsons also presented a work in progress, and Mary Beth put the piece the House Circle Band recently podcast, with Jaxie on viola, out on the table.

We ended the night with further refinement of A Day In The Life. Next step, hearing it through the PA at soundcheck on Thursday.

Monthly Open Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday May 1, 2010 – Monthly Open Circle and Performance Team Rehearsal

There is a neighborhood festival happening today in the upper Fremont area, and there are a number of related events taking place at our Fremont Abbey home, so we went into the Open Circle not knowing exactly what we might find. Keeping the possibility open that there might be a number of walk-ins from the festival. As it turned out, at that point in the morning things were still pretty quiet in Fremont. The team that turned up for the Open Circle was more or less the usual suspects; most of the Tuning the Air company was there, a couple of our Open Circle regulars as well, and one second-timer who arrived just a little late.

As we began, there were 12 in the circle. Since this was primarily an experienced group, the sense that Frank and I had was that we could push a bit. I called “when ready, please begin.” Right out of the gate it was amazing. The first couple of chords sounded so composed that I think it startled the players; Travis and others later confirmed this experience. “When ready, please begin” was called three times, and each one had its own quality and character. Each had a very clear beginning, middle and end. Never did any of them run on once the end had presented itself. Fabulous.

With 12 in the circle, the Tone Clock was whispering to me, so I began to assign the notes of a chromatic scale through 4 octaves. At this point, the newcomer from last month’s circle arrived. He was more or less in tune, so after the group had circulated the scale several times, Jaxie agreed to step out, and the newcomer took her seat. We continued to circulate the scale up and down 4 octaves while the circle recalibrated to a new player. From there on to skipping players, dividing the circle into 6 equal parts and creating the two possible whole-tone scales. Then skipping 2 players, dividing the circle into 4 parts and creating the 3 possible diminished sevenths. I was tempted to work through all of the possible intervals, as we did several years ago at Camp Caravan, but I also remained aware of time constraints, so I moved on to creating major scales, all 12 of them, by skipping payers to create the necessary whole steps. It was very hard work, and I had a clear sense of the struggle, and how it was blocking the joy possible. I had about resigned myself to having the exercise be just an interesting experiment, but I asked them to run the entire sequence one more time, with the instruction to hold the entire pattern as best we could, and to be clear in where the notes were coming from and to whom they were being passed. This time I was immediately aware of a subtle but undeniable change in the group; a kind of ease and openness that allowed the challenge to be met with a musicality that I had not heard in any of the preliminary goes. The presence of a group.

A short break. I spoke with Frank, indicating that most in the circle had AT experience, but that there were a couple of people with little or no experience, and that they needed to be considered. I began to say that my sense was that work on maintaining a wide awareness within the circle seemed to be greatest need at that point, and he said that this was precisely what he had in mind to work with. So for the first part of the next segment, he worked with the group on opening up their field of vision and hearing, and maintaining that while doing a simple circulation and, eventually, some more complex circulations.

Looking at where the group had come to through this work, I decided in the final 20 minutes or so to revisit an exercise from the last circle (or was it the one before?) involving the team choosing notes from the key of C Major and chiming them gently in unison, changing notes as the spirit moved, to create a continuously changing harmonic world within a particular key. As they did this I reminded them of what Frank had been guiding them through and suggesting they continue this, taking in the whole group through both the eyes and the ears. I then asked them to move their attention, within the aural landscape, to other individual players within the circle, to blend their notes with that player in terms of tone and timbre, and then to move on to another player. I had a whole bag of strategies/tricks I was going to suggest, but none of them was necessary. What unfolded was one of the most remarkable examples of creative group listening I have encountered. I wanted it never to end, and really only the knowledge that another group needed the room right after us and would likely be beginning to arrive soon made me feel the need to bring the exercise to a close. But I didn’t need to. The composition came to its completion on its own.

The performance team moved on to my apartment for rehearsal. The Music Director had to work this afternoon, but he had given us some direction about what he hoped we would address; primarily continued work on A Day In The Life. Bob was running a few minutes late, so while we waited for him we took the opportunity to get Mary Beth up to speed on both Ikada-Jima and Voices of Ancient Children. Followed this up with My Precious Dream. Jaxie is just about up to speed on Igor’s part now, so it is close to being ready for primetime. Once Bob arrived we dove into ADITL, again focusing on fleshing out the McCartney and “Aaaah-aah-aah-aaah” sections. A lot of good work on individual and group phrasing. The work we did earlier in the Open Circle began to seem almost prescient. I had some questions on McCartney’s phrasing for the bass part, so during the break we listened to it. Wrapped up our work on the piece after the break and moved on to other pieces of repertoire from the set. Mary Beth had some observations about Eye of the Needle and Jaxie followed up with something RTM had said about our performance of the piece on Thursday. We took a look at the tempo for Lament, and eventually moved it up a bit from our current speed, closer to Tony’s tempo. The feeling is that with this year’s more Spartan arrangement, the quicker tempo works where in the large group arrangement it had not. Back to Eye of the Needle, this time to reestablish the group tempo with has been a little inconsistent lately. Discovered we were playing it a bit faster than before, and concluded that this works because we are closer together in performance, standing in an arc. So, with a little experimentation, a new group tempo was identified.

Tonight, off to Belltown to celebrate Igor’s birthday at midnight. Bob, Ian, Travis and I will be sitting in with Urban Achievers, banging out our best Led Zeppelin.

Tuning the Air #176

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday April 29, 2010 – Tuning the Air #175

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
(entrance of performance team)
Chiming in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
(small group move together)
Cultivating the Beat
(return to places)
The Wig Maker

Spontaneous Composition in D Minor

Brasil
Ikada Jima
(move to smaller circle)
Batrachomyomachy
Not My Sharona
Where Is The Nurse?
(return to places)

Address the Audience – Travis
(take positions in aisles within the audience)
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, other, as the spirit moves
(all except Bob and Jaxie return to places)
Sigh and a Kiss (Bob and Jaxie return to places at 2nd verse)

From the Hat:

What Is The Sound Of Androids Playing Guitar?

Lament

From the Hat:

49 Notes
It’s A Long Blue Road Home

Circulation in Ab
Twilight

Encore:

Thrak – acoustic in arc at the west end
Eye of the Needle – acoustic in arc at the east end

Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday April 26, 2010 – Rehearsal at the Wilsons

In a way, rehearsal began an hour early, and at the Seattle Drum School. Ian, Travis and I arrived there to run through of the Zeppelin tunes we’ll be doing on Saturday night with Urban Achievers. Bob was there to pick his youngest daughter up from her drum lesson, so we nearly had a quorum. Bob will be doing The Ocean and Black Dog, but he was not there to rehearse today. Ian went in first and played Houses of the Holy. Next Travis ran Custard Pie and Ten Years Gone. I was last, and we did Out on the Tiles, The Immigrant Song and Rock and Roll. This left us about 10 minutes to dash down to the Wilsons for the Tuning the Air rehearsal.

Chris was running a little late, so we began looking at metronome work with the pieces we identified on Saturday as needing attention. Not My Sharona was first on the list, which we dialed down to about 80% tempo. Chris arrived and joined in. At one point Travis observed that one of the things we need to find a way to practice is adjusting to one another when things threaten to go off the rails, so we went around the room playing the piece in pairs, some more successful than others. From there, we moved on to Batrachomyomachy, and then played the entire trilogy. Jaxie has been working on getting Igor’s part to My Precious Dream up to speed, so we gave that a spin. Not far off… perhaps another rehearsal or two and we may be able to get it into the available repertoire. Mary Beth will be learning the melody that Jaxie used to play. Howard will be playing the melody through the opening.

We took a break, where Christina, cake with strawberries and whipped cream, and some very green “Avatar” cupcakes appeared, in a small celebration of my birthday.

After the break we took a little time to go through the setlist and identify who we are looking to for the beginning and end of each piece (not always the same person), as well as who is cuing and leading the various blocking changes. From there we moved on to more work with A Day In The Life, focusing on the as yet skeletal McCartney section, and then running the piece as best we were able all the way through. We ended with Eye of the Needle, bringing Mary Beth up to speed on the inner work that is the real focus of the piece. We ran it, and rehearsal was complete. Travis, Ian, Mary Beth and I stopped off for a little Birthday Beverage on the way home.

Full Company Circle, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday April 24, 2010 – Full Company Circle, Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

Sitting as usual for a Saturday, at my place at 8:30. We scattered on the coffee quest and then gathered in the Great Hall at Fremont Abbey at 9:30.

For the first hour we were the full company, with guitars, led by Frank. He continued on the theme we have been exploring since January, observing the way the body moves with the breath, and carrying that awareness with us as we circulate. The first exercise, which I will not attempt to describe other than to say it involve holding your guitar up in the air, was brand new, and unlike anything I have done with him in 24 years of working together. Incredible. As we moved to the circulation exercises I had the sense that 4 months of living with this theme has had an effect on me, in that I was much clearer in my witnessing of myself than ever, and it occurred to me that some of this practice has really become part of the way I “am” in the circle, any circle, when we are rehearsing or performing.

Frank ended with a version of a familiar favorite exercise of his that involves moving around the room in a group. This time it was with guitars though – I don’t think that I have ever done that with him, although he mentioned they had given it a go in Grossderschau. By the time the session ended, we were looking an awful lot like the Orchestra in Italy.

A short break, and the Performance Team reconvened to rehearse. We went through a number of pieces from the current set, working with the metronome, with the aim of getting both tighter in our performances, and somewhat deeper/clearer musically. We began with Not My Sharona, which was the only thing that threatened to go off the rails this week, and that was really only a moment of terror that was quickly adjusted. From there to Lament, Thrak and Eye of the Needle. A number of issues identified that we will dive into on Monday evening at rehearsal.

After another short break, further on into A Day In the Life. The Lennon sections are pretty well set, and the playing and dynamics are getting better. I can do most of the McCartney bass lines for that section without the music, although I still haven’t had the nerve to run it without the score. We focused on getting the background harmonies for the McCartney section. One more section to fully orchestrate and arrange and we will have at least a working version to be able to get really serious with. I never in my life imagined I’d be doing a Mal Evans part.

The people scheduled after us in the Great Hall were beginning to mass outside the door, so we called it a little early and cleared out for them.

During the morning sitting, a way of looking at pentatonic scales kept insinuating itself into my attention. I knew I had 4 people lined up for the Music Lab, but when Ian turned up making it 5, that pretty much sealed it. A 5-player version of the tone clock appeared, and for 90 minutes we dissected and reassembled C Major into all of its subsidiary major and minor pentatonic scales. To my personal delight, it never stalled (sometimes these things get inexplicably hung up on what I had conceived as simple preliminary work), and we made it to where I had hoped we might. I suppose after dealing with me for so long, the team is figuring out how to respond to these kinds of challenges. Having Ian there, who has a good background in harmony, probably helped as well. Perhaps more of the Performance Team will begin to take part in the future?

Tuning the Air #175

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday April 22, 2010 – Tuning the Air #175

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
(entrance of performance team)
Chiming in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
(small group move together)
Cultivating the Beat
(return to places)
The Wig Maker

Spontaneous Composition in D Minor

Brasil
Ikada Jima
(move to smaller circle)
Batrachomyomachy
Not My Sharona
Where Is The Nurse?
(return to places)

Address the Audience – Travis
(take positions in aisles within the audience)
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, other, as the spirit moves
(all except Bob and Jaxie return to places)
Sigh and a Kiss (Bob and Jaxie return to places at 2nd verse)

From the Hat:

Soft to Loud with Joel

Lament

From the Hat:

Popcorn
49 Notes

Circulation in Ab
Twilight

Encore:

Thrak – acoustic in arc at the west end
Eye of the Needle – acoustic in arc at the east end

Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday April 19, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

I picked up Mary Beth and Travis in Ballard, and headed out to Bob and Jaxie’s for the 8:30 rehearsal. Chris had to work the Mariners game tonight, so we were Music Director-less, but we had our marching orders.

When we arrived, Jaxie showed us a viola she is trying out on spec, and considering buying, so we knew right away there would be some experimenting in addition to the work we knew was ahead of us. Bob was on parental duties when we first arrived, so before we began the “formal” rehearsal, Mary Beth and Taylor presented a duet version of a work-in-progress.

Bob joined us and we began looking at some of the repertoire with an eye toward tightening it up a bit. Jaxie is on a new part for Batrachomyomachy this season, so we focused on that, with the metronome. We also looked at the blending and complimenting between Ian and Travis as they trade and double melody lines in Voices of Ancient Children. Mary Beth is switching parts on Thrak, and we worked with the metronome using a number of different strategies to find the pocket. Eye of the Needle, with metronome. Jax was then encouraged to grab the viola, and we ran The Wig Maker, with her adding an entirely improvised part. During the middle section, we gave her lots of time and space to stretch out. A wonderful sound. Violas are loud, even with a mute. Definite potential here.

After the break, we went back to A Day In The Life. I find that I am nearly “off book” on the first three verses – not quite confident enough to take my eyes entirely off the score, but not dependent on it either. I think my task for the week is to get the Lennon verses reliably in my hands. Travis worked the four “piano” players through the chord patterns, focusing on blending while maintaining tempo and energy. Working with the metronome, we discovered that it is really a lot quicker than we have been playing it, which changes the feel a bit. General dynamics addressed, noting that they are most organic and natural when the “pianos” are following the lead of the bass and rhythm parts, rather than trying to drive the dynamics themselves. Still to be addressed: the middle section, aka the McCartney section, which is not going to be simple, but it feels like we are on the verge.

Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday April 17, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal and Music Lab

The Music Director is unfortunately going to be working on Monday night, so once again the Performance Team needed to usurp the Saturday morning slot, which had been set aside for full team work with Frank during the rehearsal period. Plans under way to get that back on track for next Saturday, at least for part of the day.

We began by sitting down and talking through our reflections from Opening Night. Although we set aside 15-20 minutes for this, my observation on Thursday that there was “a lot of information” in the experience was on the mark. So we went a bit over the allotted time, all in a very good cause.

The bulk of this rehearsal was on getting the skeleton of A Day In The Life on its feet. The 4 folks doing the “piano” part had never played it in context, so we focused on getting that going. Jaxie and I are not quite ready to do the bass part without the score (I found myself sending good wishes to my mother, thanking her for “making” me learn to read music). Bob and Chris did a little honing on the phrasings for the vocal parts. I took the liberty of doing the Mal Evans audible count on the two climactic orchestral bits, and as of today it is an official part of the arrangement; now if we can find an alarm clock that can be triggered on cue. It was a working session, with corrections and tweaking going on in the new parts. For myself, however, it remained a kind of interesting experiment that I was not thoroughly convinced would work, right up until the moment Chris had a small, simple, and brilliant inspiration regarding the intro, and the moment I heard it played I thought, “Okay… this is really going to work.” We’ll do more grunt work on the parts on Monday.

After a short break, we reconvened to spend the final 45 minutes on musical issues from the show. We began by looking at the crisscross, through the audience circulation. Brainstorming a bit, we arrived at the first 3 of what I suspect will eventually become a whole pile of available strategies for this. Next, as I recall, was Cultivating the Beat. This is a piece that we have some concerns about in terms of balance and simple audibility. We looked at the balance, setting up a few approaches to remind ourselves of on gig night. The sense was also that when the level of the sound system is up where it should be (it was a little low last week, when there was an audience acting as baffles) there would be some relief as well. We then sat down and hammered through a number of pieces that just need to be played often. A quick look at the acoustic encores, and it was time to leave (actually, a few minutes beyond our time to leave).

I came home to the House Circle. Greg, IgorK, Christina and Mary Beth in attendance. We began by talking a little about what this group would like to be working on, which became a discussion of what work they could take on that would support the performances. I pondered what they said for a few moments, and an exploration of the inner workings of the Harmonic Minor scale bubbled to the surface. This involved looking very closely at what makes up the diatonic triads and seventh chords natural to this scale (I found myself sending good wishes to all of my sight singing and ear training teachers at Berklee, thanking them for making me take this seriously). Some interest had been expressed in Voices of Ancient Children, so in the final 15 minutes I presented a couple of preparatory right hand and counting exercises. I ended the day with an exercise I came up with in 1986 at Red Lion House – a quiet look at the Thrak polyrhythm, designed to exclude the mad physicalizations that seem to plague players addressing the piece.

In the discussions at the beginning of the meeting, someone (Mary Beth, maybe?) dubbed us the Tuning the Air Music Lab, and that appeals to me very much. I am testing it out as a more appropriate name, rather than House Circle which has always been a bit clunky, and funnily exclusive.

Tuning the Air Opening Night

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday April 15, 2010 – Tuning the Air Opening Night

Tuning the Air #174 is in the bag.

Sitting at my place at 7am. Mary Beth and Taylor had rescued the sandwich boards from the storage space and installed the new posters yesterday, and brought them here. After the sitting, a lesson with Mary Beth, focusing on how and what to practice on gig day (after this week, the lesson will be moved to a non-gig day). She and I then headed over to Fremont Abbey to set out the signs and hang up the banner. Dropped her off at her place and then came home.

Work at home on various projects and obligations. Made myself a substantial midday meal, to carry me through the gig. Showered and got into gig clothes, and then sat down for an hour of concentrated warm-up/practice. At 4pm, acknowledged that our work today had begun, and organized my gear. Out the door at 4:30.

Set-up was pretty quick. A little extra manpower from a Fremont Abbey intern got the cables all laid out. Ryan, the soundman, wasn’t arriving until 6:30, so we warmed up as the rest of the team arrived. Soundcheck was predictable – reasonably fast, but it included one or two unexpected technical issues. Ultimately, all was well. We went a little later than planned, right up to doors open time, but for opening night this was pretty painless. Travis was confronted, right before showtime, with an issue not directly related to his role as a performing guitarist, and I was concerned that letting it go would be difficult. I don’t know what his experience was, but from my vantage point he seemed to manage pretty well; maybe a little distraction in the first one or two pieces, but I can’t be sure. If he had a blog, we could check that. In any case, I don't envy him the task.

For the most part, it was a good opening night, from my perspective. Lots and lots of information. Where it felt weak (“weak” probably a bit strong) to me had to do with unfamiliarity with the new format; technical details, distractions, missed cues, basically just little stuff. Occasionally the feeling that we were not necessarily fully committed to some detail or another. But I am being picayune. I imagine it will take a few shows to figure out the various this’s and that’s.

Good sized audience. Very receptive. On guy’s cell phone rang just in time for Brasil. It was a strangely perfect after 10 or 15 minutes of pretty intense music. I thought to myself that we ought to put a shill in the audience with a cell phone set to go off at that point. Great icebreaker.

I honestly don’t know how the first improv went. For me that was the moment of maximum insecurity. The 3 improvs “from the hat” which kind of blended into a suite of improvs, had a definite “something” about them.

Meleah and the lights were on fire. She was in total improv mode, and when I looked up and realized she was circulating the lights to match our improv, I knew we were in good hands.

Lament was stunning; 3 wonderful guitar solos, each unique, yet there was a continuity to them.

Lots of funny moments of things just going horribly wrong that, in the final analysis, didn’t really matter, except that I’d just as soon not repeat them, thank you very much.

The setlist:

Joel Palmer – C Harmonic Minor
(entrance of performance team)
Chiming in C Harmonic Minor
Voices of Ancient Children
(small group move together)
Cultivating the Beat
(return to places)
The Wig Maker

Spontaneous Composition in D Minor

Brasil
Ikada Jima
(move to smaller circle, without looking like we’re menacing the audience)
Batrachomyomachy
Not My Sharona
Where Is The Nurse?
(return to places)

Address the Audience – Travis
(take positions in aisles within the audience)
Circulating through the audience – spirals, crisscross, other, as the spirit moves
(all except Bob and Jaxie return to places)
Sigh and a Kiss (Bob and Jaxie return to places at 2nd verse)
Lament

Three Improvs from the Hat:

In A Dream I’m Being Chased By Wild Animals
What Do 100 Guitars Sound Like?
I’ve Lost My Marbles

Circulation in Ab
Twilight

Encore:

Thrak – acoustic in arc at the west end
Eye of the Needle – acoustic in arc at the east end

Final Rehearsal Before Opening Night

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday April 12, 2010 – Final Rehearsal Before Opening Night

Performance team gathered at the Wilsons at 8:30pm. Chris asked us to run the set, as it was understood at this point, so that we could play through it for timing. We began by “calling the set”, as we do before each show: the person responsible for beginning or counting in each piece calls it out, theoretically in the right order. We clarified a couple of gray areas, and then went for it. A number of x-factors to keep in mind in terms of the timing; the opening C Minor chimes, the D Minor spontaneous composition and circulating “through the audience” are not of determined length, of course, nor is Travis’ address to the audience, so we needed to think in terms of a range of time. Up through Sigh and a Kiss, the end of the “fixed” set, we clocked in at 38 minutes. Aiming for a 50-55 minute set, so that left 12-17 minutes, plus or minus the x-factors.

The plan for this final set was a combination of repertoire and directed improvs, all coming “from the hat”. So we reviewed the available repertoire. Jaxie wondered if having a predetermined “closer” would be a good idea. This is something we adopted last season – little islands of reliability at the beginning, middle and end of the set, even when we were doing almost entirely “from the hat” shows. Twilight has proven a powerful closer, which makes it attractive in that slot. The question – probably the “question of the season” when you come right down to it – was, are we doing whatever we do because it is what is best for the show, or because it is [safe, different, proven, a change of pace – fill in the appropriate potential description]? It is a very interesting microscope to put every choice we make under. We are literally on our toes at every stage.

Since Lament was on the list, but there has been some question about what the arrangement ought to be, it seemed that some decisions needed to be made before committing the piece to the hat. In the end, a new and powerful arrangement emerged. It was strong enough that Chris felt it warranted a secure place in the set. So the final part of the set emerged, with a couple of “improvs from the hat” in strategic spots around the more set repertoire.

Of course, the Music Director (or any of us, when you come right down to it) always has the option to call out a deviation from the established flight plan, should the spirit move. The set feels very solid; a good mix of repertoire and elements of the unknown, and a launching pad for whatever is going to come, this Thursday and over the arc of the season; reliable and deliverable, without fixing us too securely to the earth.

A Notable Date

A Tuning the Air Journal

Sunday April 11, 2010 – A Notable Date

On this day, five years and 173 performances ago, Tuning the Air hit the boards for the first time.

Performance Team at Fremont Abbey

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday April 10, 2010 – Performance Team at Fremont Abbey

We reluctantly abandoned the Full Team Saturday Circle for this week, in order to deal with performance and blocking issues on our last opportunity to get into the Great Hall before opening night.

We arrived at 9:30. Chris and I quickly defined the circle, putting tape down to mark our positions. We then set up chairs for the audience so that we could work as closely as possible to the way it will be on Thursday, minus the sound reinforcement (and consequently, the cable issues, although we did address these throughout the rehearsal, especially in terms of blocking).

Igor had asked that we look at entrances, exits and green room issues early on, so that he could attend to other commitments asap. So the first hour was almost entirely dedicated to entering, exiting, walking, standing, putting guitars on, taking guitars off, and generally all of the glamorous stuff that makes one glad to be a musician. Very happy with how this evolved. The movement of the performers, as it developed has a certain combination of natural simplicity and elegance. Found my enthusiasm appearing.

Let Igor go, and took a short break. On to the music. We walked through the set as it stands right now, addressing blocking as well as the music. The first half of the set is more or less as it was on Thursday, with some tweaks. Trapiche has been happily dropped for the time being. A bit more space for improv, including some pretty interesting circulation potential after the mid-show address to the audience. The second half of the show is a bit more open. The Music Director is working on a scheme more akin to last year’s “set list from the hat” approach. A new small group piece was also debuted, to general and enthusiastic approval.

With the 12:30 tenants gathering at the door, we wrapped things up and called it a day. Monday evening will be the performance team at the Wilsons, focusing on musical issues.

Full Tech Rehearsal at Fremont Abbey

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday April 8, 2010 – Full Tech Rehearsal at Fremont Abbey

I met with Taylor and Mary Beth early in the day to load the lighting and house gear out of the storage space and into my car. Travis and Chris were in charge of getting the sound gear out of Travis’ place.

The team arrived at Fremont Abbey at 6:30. We circled up, took a look at the tasks in front of us. Within 45 minutes, the room was set up and pretty much ready to go, including the entrance/lobby, and the new concept for the audience, as if it were a gig night. Sound check was relatively quick, although it involved some tweakage throughout the evening. Joel soundchecked, and we were ready to go.

Chris had Joel set up a bit of C Harmonic Minor, and we joined in a Tuning the Air improv. As the improv faded, I brought Voices of Ancient Children in. From there to Cultivating the Beat and The Wig Maker; our first mini-set. Next came a semi-structured improv in D Minor, with Joel taking part. Then the second mini-set: Brasil, Ikada Jima and the Turkish Trilogy. For the trilogy, I took a step inward toward the audience, and the rest of the team eventually caught on and followed. Being closer together makes the quick stuff easier to hear and coordinate. Joel later mentioned that the way we stepped in looked kind of ominous, so we need to take a look at “how we are” when we move.

A break. Jaxie and I talked to the House Manager, and we added chairs, looking at how we will deal with larger crowds. The second half of the rehearsal was conducted with this larger audience arrangement.

Trapiche was next, complete with Joel jumping in on the “Cloud of Unknowing”. Bill took a few minutes to work with Joel on finding sounds and patches that blend with the full team.

Jaxie had some thoughts about circulation strategies as well as some other movement-oriented concepts, which we tried, all to the enthusiastic approval of the team sitting in the audience space. Circulating in a spiral through the audience was a particular stunning. A gentle pulsing C Harmonic Minor over Joel’s opening improv, leading into Voices, with gently turning guitarists – killer!

We ended with the next mini-set – Sigh and a Kiss, Twilight and My Precious Dream – and then on to breakdown. Managed to get everything stowed in the storage space. So far, so good.

Christina made this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70dPOKdt8S0

Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday April 5, 2010 – Performance Team Rehearsal at the Wilsons

We were still two down, with Taylor and Mary Beth out of town. They will return Wednesday, just in time for the final dress/tech rehearsal at Fremont Abbey on Thursday.

We began with a bit of circulation in C Harmonic Minor. From there we moved on to Batrachomyomachy, on which Jaxie is picking up the lead part. For tonight we focused on the canon section, which is where the greatest need is at this stage. The first section will benefit from an 4th player, but is not so critical in terms of dynamics and balance; plus, it involves some tricky bits and a couple of very quick passages. More on that in due time.

Most of the evening was dedicated to work on A Day In The Life. Jaxie and I are on the bass, which means learning McCartney’s part, note for note and rhythmic quirk for rhythmic quirk. Tonight that meant a whole lot of sight reading. Chris and Bob are taking on the melody/vocal lines. For them it will largely come down to establishing consensus on the feel and interpretation of the phrasing. Wishing for whammy bars. Travis, who will be playing the basic acoustic guitar strumming part, worked with Ian and Howard on the voicings they will be using for the “piano” part. Mary Beth and/or Taylor will be joining this section. The part has not been “written” yet, so they went into one of the side rooms to work it out, and Travis will notate the decisions this week. Pretty fun stuff. Both easier and more difficult than one might imagine.

For the final half hour we looked at Trapiche, for the first time in quite some time, with the idea of asking Joel to join in on the “Cloud of Unknowing” section in the middle. I suffered from a right hand not yet up to the task. We ended with a once-through on Tony’s Turkish trilogy Batrachomyomachy – Not My Sharona – Where Is The Nurse? Much fun.

A quick discussion of the plan for the upcoming week:

• Thursday – full tech/dress rehearsal. Lights. Sound system. Front of house set up. Audience arrangement. Everything as though it was a performance. Gathering at Fremont Abbey at 6:30. Travis and Chris will transport the sound system. I will visit the storage space to pick up the lighting system and all of the house gear.
• Saturday – performance team rehearsal at Fremont Abbey from 9:30-12:30.
• Monday – performance team rehearsal at the Wilsons from 8:30-10:30.
• Thursday – opening night.

Monthly Open Circle and Tuning the Air Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Saturday April 4, 2010 – Monthly Open Circle and Tuning the Air Rehearsal

Back in the groove. Morning sitting at my place. We then migrated over to Fremont Abbey for the Monthly Open Circle. Very good turnout. Three players who have been to the Open Circle before, two first-timers, and the Tuning the Air team. Sixteen in all sitting in the circle at the beginning (one of the first-timers arrived somewhat later), with me and Frank on our feet. With newcomers, Frank took a couple of minutes to introduce himself and talk a little about AT before we began, giving the first-timers explicit permission to opt out if they preferred. I then gave the “when ready, begin”, phrased in the more specific “choose one note…” form for the benefit of those who had never been in a circle before. This first improv was nearly blissful, a clear G major chord sounding from around the room, and everything that followed delicately supporting this opening chord. It was a short improv, but afterward I was fully prepared to say “thank you, let’s go home.” The second first-timer arrived during this improv, so when it was complete we made room for him and the circle expanded to seventeen. A second improv, this one with the simple “when ready, please begin” instruction. Somewhat longer and not quite as satisfying as the first, musically, but a bit of playfulness and circulating emerged, and I had the distinct experience that the Circle was instructing the newcomers directly, without my interference.

From there we moved to a bit of directed circulation work, with assigned notes. It was at this point that I realized that the 2 newcomers were still in standard tuning. That explained much to me, in terms of what I had been hearing from them in the improvs – a kind of familiar autopilot noodling.

At the break I had the strong feeling that the group needed to get very deliberately into our bodies. I asked Howard and Travis to talk to the new guys about their tuning, and get that straightened out. I gather this came as something of a surprise to them. I rarely get the opportunity to talk to first-timers after a Circle, so my impressions tend to be from a distance and no doubt largely subjective interpretations.

For the second half I had everyone on their feet, stepping left-right-left-right in a comfortable cadence, as if walking. We began clapping rhythms, as I organized the circle into 5 small groups. Once we were fairly comfortable with this, we moved to playing power chords on our assigned beats, cobbling together a pretty convincing rock and roll groove. It took us about 45 minutes to get there, which is a pretty long time go be walking in place – a little music/aerobic combo. I never stop being surprised and how difficult it is for people to keep a steady and easy walking cadence while playing guitar. I understand that it must be difficult, since so few people seem to be able to do it with ease, but I honestly don’t get why. My failing.

With the energy and physical engagement of the rock and roll exercise still buzzing, we closed the day once again sitting, doing a simple exercise in playing quietly pulsing triads together, modulating in major thirds, from C Maj to Ab Maj back to C Maj to E Major, and repeating. For me this had a kind of meditative effect, gathering in and banking the energy generated from the earlier week.

We closed, and the performance team moved fairly quickly to my apartment for the afternoon rehearsal. Bob joined us there, but Mary Beth and Taylor are still out of town and will be until next Wednesday. Continuing from Thursday evening’s meeting, we looked at the array of staging concepts open to us, and hammered out a plan for how we would begin our tech rehearsal on Thursday, involving amplification, players standing rather than sitting on the risers, and a slight reconfiguration of the audience’s seating. Subject to whatever we discover and changes we decide to make on Thursday, this will be our beginning strategy for the season. Part of the strategy will be to allow this to evolve as the season unfolds, rather than nailing it down.

After a short break, lots of guitar playing. We ran through the readily available repertoire and determined what, if any, tweaks were necessary. I realized that I hadn’t practiced Sigh and a Kiss since about the second day of the course, and that this is not going to get the job done. Other than that, the composed repertoire feels pretty solid – needs to be played in order to shake off the dust and oil some of the moving parts, but nothing severe. The improvs, working Joel’s contribution into the mix, and determining how best to “write” a setlist that isn’t actually written but still flows musically – this remains our primary challenge.

Next rehearsal, Monday evening at the Wilsons.

Guitar Craft Course Recapitulation Meeting

A Tuning the Air Journal

Thursday April 1, 2010 – Guitar Craft Course Recapitulation Meeting

In place of our usual pre-season Thursday evening rehearsal – Fremont Abbey was booked tonight, and besides many of us were jet lagging heavily having just arrived from Italy within the past 48 hours – we met at the Wilsons to recapitulate the course. Mary Beth, Taylor and Bill were still out of town. But the rest of the team, both those who travelled to Italy and those who participated at a distance crowded into the living room. It was pretty free-form, with impressions and particular memories presented as they arose, sometimes radically different takes on the same experience, with very little narrative structure. A little like a jigsaw puzzle, after a time a picture of the course began to emerge. Four of the AAD team had met on a number of occasions to work together on guitar, with a focus on chord voicings and inversions, and they filled us in on that work as well.

We took a break, and enjoyed the stupendous cheesecake that House Manager Charles brought with him.

For the final part of the meeting, the Italy team brought the home team up to date on the meeting we had with Robert. Chris was formally introduced as the new Music Director for the 2010 season, and the discussion moved on to some of the challenges and aims for the upcoming season, including a reminder that we have two weeks – 5 rehearsals including next Thursday’s full tech rehearsal at Fremont Abbey – before opening night.