Small Group at Dev's

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

Beginning around half-past for noon, due to a late arrival.

Opening circulation in F Lydian, leading to improvising in A minor-ish.

When work is called for, Rick (or Dev) mention some circulation work that had happened some weeks prior:  +2 -1 in a very small group context.  We revisit this, and then bump it up a notch by assuming 16th-note phrasing (1e&a2e&a3e&a, with an accent on the downbeat), and begin trying something "different" on the downbeat (a low note, or a chord, or a harmonic).

This is challenging but fun, and an off-the-cuff remark ("The next step is doing it in 5") becomes the next step, still retaining the +2 -1 circulation.  Now it gets interesting.  To keep it easy to hear, we use Cmaj pentatonic,  and just using a single octave, to ground the ear.

A full circuit looks like this:

Rick - C
Glenn - D
Brad - E
Glenn - G
Brad - A

Dev - C
Brad - D
Dev - E
Rick - G
Dev - A

Rick - C
Glenn - D
Rick - E
Glenn - G
Brad - A

Glenn - C
Brad - D
Dev - E
Brad - G
Dev - A

Really good work, and a lot of evidence of multiple strategies being used at once.  A suggestion of "developing variations" floats by, but isn't quite taken up.

A break for the bums, with some general chatter in between.  This leads to Rick mentioning a Church of Flying Dreams piece, "Branding Iron", and how the Circle needs to learn this piece.  Glenn begins to play through it, and Dev and Brad immediately strap their guitars on--evidently, the time is now.

Some really good and fun work with this; enthusiasm is not diminished for this piece, and it's very likely that this will move from a solo piece to a Circle piece.

Some associative discussion regarding some of the current AAD course work, and moving into Discipline.  A moment of silence closes the meeting at a little after 2 p.m.