Flower Communion Service, TPUUC, 6-12-11

Alex and Chris arrive at the Theodore Parker Unitarian Universalist Church in West Roxbury around 9:00 AM. Rick, Victor and Brad are already there setting up equipment, and Dev comes in shortly afterward. Today we will be providing music to accompany a service which is part of a series the church has been holding on the seven UU principles. It will be a different challenge for this group, and we're not fully sure what to anticipate.

We will be playing in quasi-circle form (as opposed to semi-circle) in the alcove of the main hall of the church, behind the pulpit. For this occasion, we will be in stereo, using two of Victor's smaller PA speakers. We take turns playing through the system to get a rough idea of tone, panning and volume in this space, and then tighten it up as a group. Things aren't too buggy and we're able to get our sound quickly.

We touch base with Rev. Lili Nye who will be leading the service and get a rundown of the procession of events from Victor. The focus of the service is the Flower Communion, wherein participants each bring a flower to offer the group and take a flower in turn, symbolizing reciprocity and the interconnectedness of life.

The service begins at 10:30 with an improvised prelude from us as people enter the church (as an interesting sidelight, the prelude form was originally improvisatory and strongly associated with the lute, and served a function similar to this). Once the congregation is more or less assembled, Rev. Lili offers some introductory words and opens the floor for community and personal announcements, followed by a reading from Black Elk Speaks and a prayer offered by some children from the community, and a hymn.

Then, the Flower Communion begins with some improvisation from us. Following the procession, the congregation gathers in a circle around the pews and offers another hymn in the style of a round in two sections. There is then an extended moment of silence for meditation and reflection; eventually, we gently bring the congregation back with some music, and Rev. Lili can begin her sermon. During the offertory, we offer a cool-headed Where's the Nurse. Some final hymns and words to complete the service, and a "postlude" from us while people disperse around noontime.

Since we're all here anyway, we decide to meet & eat after tearing down, and enjoy a spicy lunch at a Thai restaurant.

GCNE Small Meeting, 06-09-2010, Brad's Apartment

In attendance: Rick McCarthy, Chris Paquette, Brad Hogg

Rick arrives earlier, around 11 a.m. Some general chatting and banter for a while, until the need is seen to start warming up. A couple of variations on the "Hammerhead" exercise, mostly involving inverting and reversing the pattern and moving up and down the neck. From there, we revisit Driving Force to get our fingers and minds moving together, taking time to clarify a couple of chiming bits.

Chris eventually arrives, to the joy of circlemates and dog. Some tuning, adjusting, and silence, and a circulation to begin the meeting. Where's the Nurse gets the nod, and it's a pretty in-depth one. We start off with three runs of the piece: once to get ourselves going, again to run over bits that we missed, and then a third slow run (being inspired by the traditional Turkish music that Tony Geballe had played us when he first taught the circle how to play this). From here on, it's all about tiny things: whether to hammer on or pick a note, the picking pattern of a section, whether to legato-fy a single note in the lead part. Small things, but quite illuminating to look at.

At Rick's suggestion, we move back to Driving Force, running the intro and opening Amin/Dmin section. Playing to a click proves to be very difficult at a slow pace (official performance tempo is 130, but we are running parts sub-100 while we are learning the parts), but slightly less difficult at a slightly faster pace. Some bits and bobs about putting the sections together, followed by a necessary break.

Back in the circle, Invocation is reviewed, in the case that it comes up for the church service on Sunday. Following this, we work with a simple chromatic power-chord circulation, from Eb to Eb. The form is simple enough: 3 up, 1 down, repeat (this would read as Eb-E-F-E-F-Gb-F-Gb-G etc.), and the same pattern in reverse on the way down (3 down, 1 up, or Eb-D-Db-D-Db-C etc.). The bugaboo is the shift in the pattern at the top and return to the bottom of the scale*, which throws us for a loop and gives us more work than we had expected. Making it through a few runs, there is a final bit of circulation for Chris, who takes his leave shortly after demonstrating his proficiency at his day job. Rick remains for a short while longer to run over some parts he is teaching Brad, as well as to help workshop a couple of small ideas that Brad is working on, and then takes off himself.

GCNE Meeting, 6-5-11

Around 7:30, and the GCNE-ers begin congregating at their old haunt and rehearsal space for their first formal meeting since the close of the Guitar Circle Sundays performance season. We have had a few weeks off to rest and assimilate our experience undertaking the performance challenge, and are ready to begin discussing the future as circlemate banter wisps about the chilly air.

When we reach the loft upstairs, we arrange ourselves in a circle according to the sequence used for GCS, as opposed to the semi-circle form usually adopted in this space, in a natural way. We have no amplification and will be playing acoustically. We begin with silence. A couple circulations to get us going, brief, and rich with accidentals and a few accidents. A couple baton cues for group chords.

Perhaps following up on some of the possible work hinted at during the prehearsal of our last performance, Victor calls the circulation pattern, "two forward, one back." We pass a note to the person two seats to our right, and that person passes to the player one seat to the left, ad infinitum. This pattern is easy for us to grasp and even takes on some velocity. To mix things up, Victor adds the stipulation that notes being passed to the right are to be played from C minor on the 5th and 6th strings, while notes going to the left will come from A minor on the first and second strings.

A new pattern: two back, three forward. This form is not as compact as the previous one, and is harder for some of the team to visualize happening. As an experiment, we attempt "glance" circulating, which involves looking at the person we are passing to in the eyes without making any sound; this is of course a very odd thing to do, but somehow progress is made with internalizing the pattern. The next game is passing words, using the circulation pattern to form peculiar sentences (this would make for a poignant performance piece on "Bloomsday").

Back to business, and we are a little more confident with the form. Now, it's: "on the downbeats, two forward, one back; on the upbeats, two back, three forward." So, a double circulation with the two forms happening concurrently. When this proves to be difficult, we set aside playing notes and instead circulate the words "down" and "up", corresponding to which form we are passing as part of, while pointing to the next person in that respective pattern. Eventually, we make a complete pass using this method, and after a brief attempt with guitars stop to talk about logistics for Sunday.

We will be taking on a different kind of performance challenge by providing music for a service at a local Unitarian church. Because some portions of the service will be of indeterminate length, we decide that improv and a handful of appropriate pieces are the way to go. Victor refreshes the parts for Invocation with the group.

We take a break, but this turns to necessary talk regarding some possible upcoming Spring projects, GCS season II, and a recording project. The discussion winds up concluding the meeting around 10:30.

GCNE Meeting 06-02-2011, Rick's House

In attendance: Rick McCarthy, Dev Ray, Brad Hogg.

Dev and Brad arrive at Rick's house just after 8pm. After a bit of organizing and collecting ourselves, we sit down and begin with an opening circulation (Dmin?). Some tuning follows, and then we jump in with Askesis (two basses, one lead) as a warm up. At roughly 88 bpm, it's maybe a little fast as a warm up, but no reason to stop now. A moment is taken to clarify an octave double in the bass. 3rd Relation (two basses, one lead) comes next. Still spritely, but we're finding our bearings. This is shaping up to be largely focused on Crafty repertoire.

A bit of talking, and then we give Calliope a shot. Interesting to hear with two basses (no mirror) and mirror lead. Flying Home also gets more than a passing nod (two basses and one straight lead), with a question following about how the lead is played, and incredulity at the answer given. Bicycling to Afghanistan is mentioned, but considered to be currently out of reach. At the urging of one Dev Ray, Moving Force (one bass, one lead) is played instead, to the mock boredom of Rick (only serious players tonight).

After a moment of more gabbing, and following a noodle from Dev, Brad shows Rick the first part of the lead on Driving Force to Rick. This has been bandied about recently, and Glenn has mentioned that he sees this piece being a viable option for this Circle. A couple runs through the section, and stopping before the bridge, gives us a good workout and some useful homework.

A circulation after this, leading into an improv with a fairly energetic and clear ending, followed by a brisk run of Where's the Nurse. Following the Tony Geballe line, we pick up Batrachomyomachy, with Brad jumping ship from bass to lead after the first half of the "mice". Some work with the mice (including several runs of the canon section) closes it out, and we opt for a break from the stools. This leads to a lengthy chat that ends up running longer than our actual playing time, but this is difficult to avoid with gossips such as us. Calling it a night shortly after midnight, we all head our separate ways.