In attendance: Brad, Victor, Dev, Glenn, Chris
- Meeting opening with a reminder of the 5 Relations
- Some basic warming up: Staccato-Legato, circulation
- Ambulation work; the area is slightly reduced to account for fewer people. When Victor kills the lights, we're a bit more open and freer than we were last week.
- Observations afterward. A break, during which Chris and Victor reconstruct the six triads of the 5 Relations, and Brad, Glenn, and Dev talk about movies.
- Repertoire visited includes Where is the Nurse? and Sigh and a Kiss. Glenn uses the time to visit a possible rearrangement of a middle section to the piece; somewhat satisfied. We might see a scratch recording of the changed part.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Thacher Gym, 1/13/2012
In attendance: Victor, Glenn, Brad, Dev, Scott, Chris
Victor and Brad arrive ahead of everyone else; Chris and Dev arrive shortly after at exactly the same time. With word that Glenn and Scott will be arriving a little later, we all head inside to the gym.
After some pick-up basketball between Chris and Dev, and Scott arriving in the meantime, we all find our way to a circle, and begin the meeting by reviewing Sandra Bain Cushman's work on the Five Relations as it was presented last month. Glenn arrives right as we finish up with this, just as we move to warming up the hands with the Staccato-Legato Exercise. Victor brings Glenn up to speed, and then walks everyone through a quick summation of the Five Relations.
This leads into an appropriation of Frank Sheldon's "filling" exercise: with guitars, we endeavour to fill a space as much as possible while constantly remaining in motion, and passing notes around, while also maintaining contact with each other. At one point, a melody gets played across all of us that is just incredible.
This moves to improvisation instead of passing notes. After some time, Victor kills the lights, and we continue to improvise while ambulating. Interestingly, we all know to end at the same time--Victor walks back through the relations, and then brings the lights back up.
Seated back in the circle, we all have some good observations to share. This leads into a discussion that ranges over several topics, including the structure of a process, and how it relates to music. This is followed by a quick break.
Post-break, we talk a bit about repertoire. 49 Notes gets a performance for Victor and Dev, with some useful commentary for everyone. This moves into a discussion about repertoire that would be useful for the Orchestra project coming this May, including a rather bold idea from Victor. This does get somewhat tangential for a bit, but we come back to Where Is The Nurse? and run this 3 times. More discussion follows from this: Victor relates an experience that involved meeting a teacher on a trip to India, and that teacher's complete "ubiquity". The phrase, "How can you hope to see everything if you don't love everything?" makes an appearance.
"Eye of the Needle", once through. On a whim, Victor has us move back to the filling exercise, and we play it again while ambulating in the dark. Some missed notes (due to big jumps and not being able to see), but a useful and informative run.
Back in the circle, and a short completion with the relations, once more.
Victor and Brad arrive ahead of everyone else; Chris and Dev arrive shortly after at exactly the same time. With word that Glenn and Scott will be arriving a little later, we all head inside to the gym.
After some pick-up basketball between Chris and Dev, and Scott arriving in the meantime, we all find our way to a circle, and begin the meeting by reviewing Sandra Bain Cushman's work on the Five Relations as it was presented last month. Glenn arrives right as we finish up with this, just as we move to warming up the hands with the Staccato-Legato Exercise. Victor brings Glenn up to speed, and then walks everyone through a quick summation of the Five Relations.
This leads into an appropriation of Frank Sheldon's "filling" exercise: with guitars, we endeavour to fill a space as much as possible while constantly remaining in motion, and passing notes around, while also maintaining contact with each other. At one point, a melody gets played across all of us that is just incredible.
This moves to improvisation instead of passing notes. After some time, Victor kills the lights, and we continue to improvise while ambulating. Interestingly, we all know to end at the same time--Victor walks back through the relations, and then brings the lights back up.
Seated back in the circle, we all have some good observations to share. This leads into a discussion that ranges over several topics, including the structure of a process, and how it relates to music. This is followed by a quick break.
Post-break, we talk a bit about repertoire. 49 Notes gets a performance for Victor and Dev, with some useful commentary for everyone. This moves into a discussion about repertoire that would be useful for the Orchestra project coming this May, including a rather bold idea from Victor. This does get somewhat tangential for a bit, but we come back to Where Is The Nurse? and run this 3 times. More discussion follows from this: Victor relates an experience that involved meeting a teacher on a trip to India, and that teacher's complete "ubiquity". The phrase, "How can you hope to see everything if you don't love everything?" makes an appearance.
"Eye of the Needle", once through. On a whim, Victor has us move back to the filling exercise, and we play it again while ambulating in the dark. Some missed notes (due to big jumps and not being able to see), but a useful and informative run.
Back in the circle, and a short completion with the relations, once more.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Brad's Apartment, 1/6/2013
In attendance: Glenn, Chris, Scott, Brad
The first meeting of the new year. Opening with a circulation (mostly CMajor-ish) that becomes an improvisation.
Brad mentions RF posting the basic idea of the first Secondary exercise in his online diary, and shows this to the circle; this leads to running the exercise up and down the neck, and then exploring some basic approaches (shifting the notes around, changing the picking approach, et al).
Chris presents 49 Notes. This does not take long, and we have a couple of full runs of the piece in short order.
Back/bum break.
Back in the circle, we run 49 Notes again.
Glenn reviews the basics of Chrysanthemum. After this, we take a short look at Eye of the Needle, to see where Scott stands on this. This produces a good look at the use of the left hand, and what to do about it.
Another circulation that becomes an improvisation (mostly FMajor-ish), ending in harmonics. A final rundown of 49 Notes again, which closes the meeting.
The first meeting of the new year. Opening with a circulation (mostly CMajor-ish) that becomes an improvisation.
Brad mentions RF posting the basic idea of the first Secondary exercise in his online diary, and shows this to the circle; this leads to running the exercise up and down the neck, and then exploring some basic approaches (shifting the notes around, changing the picking approach, et al).
Chris presents 49 Notes. This does not take long, and we have a couple of full runs of the piece in short order.
Back/bum break.
Back in the circle, we run 49 Notes again.
Glenn reviews the basics of Chrysanthemum. After this, we take a short look at Eye of the Needle, to see where Scott stands on this. This produces a good look at the use of the left hand, and what to do about it.
Another circulation that becomes an improvisation (mostly FMajor-ish), ending in harmonics. A final rundown of 49 Notes again, which closes the meeting.
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