Small group at Thatcher 12/16/12

Present: Victor, Chris, Glenn. I arrived about 15 minutes late, and couldn't get anyone's attention for about 20 minutes, so these notes begin at 8:05. Victor told me that he and Chris had been talking about the school shooting in Connecticut. I joined in the conversation as we set up our stools. As the three of us sat waiting for something to drop in, the only thing that seemed right to me was the 28 bars, which was just what Victor suggested. We reviewed it, then played it through. Victor reminded us how to incorporate the Lord's Prayer into the piece, so we played it again doing this as best we could. We talked about what Chris and I had been working on. This led to a discussion about possible large group pieces for the upcoming Orchestra course. An ideal piece would have the following characteristics: 1) Printed score available. 2) Should be able to be practiced in isolation (a MIDI file might help with this). 3) Assuming the players show up knowing their parts, should not require much fine-tuning when they all arrive on the course. In other words, the parts should be played as notated. This led to some discussion of how playing without a conductor is a challenge. We also talked about the pros and cons of regular performance. My idea was that a regular monthly performance, perhaps back at Spontaneous Celebrations, could be productive. Chris and Victor filling me in on some of the related challenges that the team encountered during my absence. We worked on Peaches en Regalia, looping bits where the tempo was uneven, playing slower than usual and paying attention to accuracy and unanimity. We had a bit of a break. Victor played a video clip of one of his students singing and playing piano. We also did a bit of experimenting with the pitched bells that happened to be sitting in an open case on the floor. These are square pitched hollow metal bars with rubber ended clappers on the outside, which are intended to be used in a bell choir. We built some chords and played around with listening to different tones in each ear. I was struck, no pun intended, by how these objects made musical notes seem to have physical form. In the last segment of the evening, I presented some of the piece Chrysanthemum. Chris used the word "architectonic," which was a new one on me and Victor. We wrapped up around 11:30. Glenn writing.