small group meeting, Rick's House, 8-16-11

Rick, Dev, Brad and Chris (scribe). We tread some well-defined tonal space during our opening circulation which leads to a question about listening to tonality as it morphs during a free circulation; then for a warm up, we tackle the "hammerhead" variation of a familiar left hand exercise at a moderate tempo for a few minutes.

For repertoire work, we begin with a take of Eye of the Needle which leads to a comment and retake of the ending. It is here that we turn to our performance the previous Sunday for guidance on what to work on tonight, and Flying Home is first on the chopping block. After one take, Dev says that the biggest problem with our performance of the piece is the basses and leads not being in the pocket together; we then take turns pairing up a lead with a bass (conveniently two of each present) while the remaining players listen and offer performance notes in this regard. It sounds better when we do a full-group take again, and we even give it a shot at concert tempo with fleeting glimpses of success.

The small group takes some time to help Chris with his work on playing fast, offering some pointers and an exercise. As a group, we take on a speed-oriented version of a left hand exercise and have some fun pushing our limits.

After a short break, we return to work with Third Relation. Chris is apparently familiar with a part that makes a full-reading of the piece possible with the present configuration of the group, and that reading is given two hearings and some bass treatment. We play Calliope after some discussion of the fingering of a certain part in the bass, and we work some more on our time feel. Then a take of Bicycling to Afghanistan, Thrak, and an improv to end our work for the night.

small group meeting, Rick's House, 8-9-11

Rick, Dev, Chris (scribe). We begin with a circulation. Dev says he has two things in mind he wants to focus on: Thrak and Morning Has Broken. In Thrak, Dev and Chris take on different parts in the middle section than those they normally play, and time is taken to loop the section and break the part down to its individual components. After this, we approach the piece head-on from the top, but the take falls apart. We bring a metronome in and notice we are losing the time frequently. After some notes and a few more retakes, we remove the metronome and are eventually able to manage a workable rendition.

Dev says that some of the details of the Morning Has Broken main melody, such as phrasing and certain ornaments, are not clear on our recordings of it. We work on putting these things together and get a clearer melody. We follow a similar vein for a trio version of Batrachomyomachy. A closing circulation, and our guitar work is done.

small group meeting, Chateau McCarthy, 8-7-11

Rick, Dev, Brad, Chris (scribe). We begin our meeting with a short circulation, and warm up with a brisk version of Askesis; from this, we gravitate toward moderation on Third Relation.

An upcoming performance poses the question of what a set list would look like for this truncated group. The first piece along these lines to be looked at is Batrachomyomachy, which we approach in two configurations. After the two takes, there is some detail discussion of the melody line which leads to a memetic exercise we explored with the full group about a month earlier. Next we work on Morning Has Broken. We play through once as a trio, after which Dev says he is ready to learn the main melody; we spend some time with this, and give it two takes as a full group. Before the break, we hit Flying Home as an experiment, twice.

We take a moment to write down the set list we generated and also to discuss some logistic items, as well as share thoughts going forward into another performance season. We return to work with guitars with takes of Blockhead and Where's the Nurse. Brad and Chris give Moving Force a shot, and Chris gets some help and suggestions with his part on that piece. The last thing to be looked at before a closing circulation and send-off is Thrak, which also requires some reconfiguring for this group.

Summer recording session #2, 7-31-11

Victor, Rick, Dev, Brad, and Chris (scribe). We are loading in equipment by 6:30. An adjustment is being made to our set up to include a monitor system; we spend some time testing this out, and listen to a few takes and improvs from last week.

We begin our session with four improvisations, and listen back. While we are at it, there is an airing of the remainder of the previously recorded material, with which perspective we decide how to proceed. We return to Eye of the Needle, having not arrived at a satisfactory performance of it last week, and take it twice; then two more takes of Where's the Nurse. Chris, Rick and Brad then give Morning Has Broken a shot as a trio in several retakes, eventually arriving at enough material for a complete performance. We play a false start and two takes of Growing Circle, and Intergalactic Boogie Express for fun, twice.

We tear down, and are once again out around 11:00.