The entire performance section of the repertoire project began at Thacher Montessori School on 18 April and wrapped in Easthampton, CT on 4 May, 2014. A more detailed series of posts will follow soon; in the mean time, here are the setlists for each performance.
Thacher Montessori, 18 April, 9am
Circulation/Improv
49 Notes
Overworld II
Third Relation --> Thrak
J. S. Bach Fugue in C Maj
Where is the Nurse?
Batrachomyomachy
Calliope
Improv --> Asturias
Gallery 263, 25 April, 8pm (WiS opening, GCNE on at 8:30)
Eye of the Needle
Where is the Nurse?
J. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C Maj
Improv
Thrak
Morning Has Broken (arr. Hughes)
Third Relation
Blockhead
49 Notes
Improv
Batrachomyomachy
Overworld II
Calliope --> Flying Home
Improv --> Asturias
Royalston Town Hall, 26 April, 6:30 pm
Circulation/Improv
Eye of the Needle
Where is the Nurse?
J. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C Maj
Voices of Ancient Children
Improv
Thrak
Morning Has Broken
Third Relation
Blockhead
Questions and Answers
49 Notes
Batrachomyomachy
Overworld
Calliope --> Flying Home
Improv --> Asturias
Unplugged: Circulation - Growing Circle - Circulation
Encore:
Circulation
Askesis
Bean and Leaf, 27 April, 6:30 pm
Circulation/Improv
Eye of the Needle
Where is the Nurse?
J. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C Maj
Improv
Thrak
Voices of Ancient Children
Third Relation
Blockhead
49 Notes
Batrachomyomachy
Overworld II
Calliope --> Flying Home
Improv --> Asturias
House Party at the Paquette household, 4 May, 3pm
Circulation/Improv
Eye of the Needle
Where is the Nurse?
J. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C Maj
Voices of Ancient Children
Morning Has Broken (arr. Hughes)
Third Relation
Blockhead
49 Notes
Improv
Batrachomyomachy
Overworld
Calliope --> Flying Home --> Improv --> Asturias
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Rick's House, 04-10-2014
rehearsal @ rick's - very anecdotal
chris, scott, rick, already working when brad and dev arrive
a bit of discussion, moving to half circle, "what do you do in the 10 secs before the first note?" various answers, from practical to honest
setlist (with omissions):
circulation/improv
eye of the needle
3rd relation
improv
voices of ancient children
flying home
circulation
morning has broken
thrak
blockhead
calliope
improv
asturias
circulation
afterward, observations. fatigue set in at different points of the set. too much tension in flying home, rick blew out a pick. various bits about dealing with day's energies and events during performance. i had a few moments where i was aware of 'wearing' victor. also had a very clear moment of seeing i was tense, releasing the tension, bricking a note because i was doing that, but playing better afterward.
formal end to the rehearsal when chris leaves. various chatting after. rick adjusts dev's guitar, and we take off.
chris, scott, rick, already working when brad and dev arrive
a bit of discussion, moving to half circle, "what do you do in the 10 secs before the first note?" various answers, from practical to honest
setlist (with omissions):
circulation/improv
eye of the needle
3rd relation
improv
voices of ancient children
flying home
circulation
morning has broken
thrak
blockhead
calliope
improv
asturias
circulation
afterward, observations. fatigue set in at different points of the set. too much tension in flying home, rick blew out a pick. various bits about dealing with day's energies and events during performance. i had a few moments where i was aware of 'wearing' victor. also had a very clear moment of seeing i was tense, releasing the tension, bricking a note because i was doing that, but playing better afterward.
formal end to the rehearsal when chris leaves. various chatting after. rick adjusts dev's guitar, and we take off.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Sunday Meeting at Thacher
3/23/14
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad, Scott
Beginning with a revisit of Dev's circulating in semiquavers to a metronome exercise. Several observations are made regarding the knowing of where a person's note is placed on the grid. Not all are certain of this and a comment is made that "if you don't know where to place your note, we'll never be able to accomplish the exercise."
On to several pieces we've been working on to ready them for performance in a few weeks. Bach's Prelude and Fugue from WTC, Overworld and Morning Has Broken getting equal time. With MHB a suggestion to try it as fast as we can without showing our mistakes in our facial expressions is given and attempted. Several comments made about the quality the song has when played that fast, in spite of the many wrong notes.
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad, Scott
Beginning with a revisit of Dev's circulating in semiquavers to a metronome exercise. Several observations are made regarding the knowing of where a person's note is placed on the grid. Not all are certain of this and a comment is made that "if you don't know where to place your note, we'll never be able to accomplish the exercise."
On to several pieces we've been working on to ready them for performance in a few weeks. Bach's Prelude and Fugue from WTC, Overworld and Morning Has Broken getting equal time. With MHB a suggestion to try it as fast as we can without showing our mistakes in our facial expressions is given and attempted. Several comments made about the quality the song has when played that fast, in spite of the many wrong notes.
Mid-week Meeting at RM's
3/20/14
Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad
Configured in a tight circle we begin with a circulation and an improv. The prevailing comment afterwards was in the form of a question: "Why can't we do that each time we improv?" Suspecting that the tight seating arrangement is a factor we spread ourselves out in the largest arc we can fit into the room and begin again. The overall consensus is that this was not as good but perhaps partly because we were trying to recreate something that was good rather than seeing what is available.
Reseated we begin work on the Fugue and others in preparation for the performances a few weeks ahead. Dev teaches Rick the bass line to 49 Notes and this gets several run throughs as does Blockhead and Morning Has Broken. The Prelude is passed over until next time.
Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad
Configured in a tight circle we begin with a circulation and an improv. The prevailing comment afterwards was in the form of a question: "Why can't we do that each time we improv?" Suspecting that the tight seating arrangement is a factor we spread ourselves out in the largest arc we can fit into the room and begin again. The overall consensus is that this was not as good but perhaps partly because we were trying to recreate something that was good rather than seeing what is available.
Reseated we begin work on the Fugue and others in preparation for the performances a few weeks ahead. Dev teaches Rick the bass line to 49 Notes and this gets several run throughs as does Blockhead and Morning Has Broken. The Prelude is passed over until next time.
Sunday Meeting at Thacher
3/16/14
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad
We begin by playing an exercise of Dev's to circulate along to a metronome playing ever finely subdivided groupings of notes (whole, half, quarter, eights, etc). This proves difficult for the team and several approches are tried and re-tried. Improv.
We then move into sharing our observations, noticing and comments on the experience of performing and also the listen back to the recording of the Cafe 939 gig. General comments are made before moving into detailed comments on each aspect/piece performed. One personal situation between two of the members that some believe is affecting the group is brought to the forefront and addressed, even if only in general terms. After much discussion, a closing circulation and improv.
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad
We begin by playing an exercise of Dev's to circulate along to a metronome playing ever finely subdivided groupings of notes (whole, half, quarter, eights, etc). This proves difficult for the team and several approches are tried and re-tried. Improv.
We then move into sharing our observations, noticing and comments on the experience of performing and also the listen back to the recording of the Cafe 939 gig. General comments are made before moving into detailed comments on each aspect/piece performed. One personal situation between two of the members that some believe is affecting the group is brought to the forefront and addressed, even if only in general terms. After much discussion, a closing circulation and improv.
Warm-up Gig at Cafe 939
3/9/14
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad, Scott
Victor, Dev, Chris, Rick, Brad, Scott
Arrival and set-up of the performance space at Cafe 939 by 19:05. After setting up, getting aquainted with the space, wrestling with the lights and soundchecking we are ready to begin. 3 people, all friends of a few members of the team, are in attendance. A 35 minute performance is given followed by an un-fisting. A comment is made since there never was a proper fisting before the show that perhaps we should un-fist twice. Post performance chatting and listening back on the luxurious Cafe 939 sound system before restoring the space and departing into the night.
Sunday Meeting at RM's
3/2/14
Dev, Rick, Chris, Brad, Scott
Dev presents an account of his time on the recent course as well as the second secondary as taught by RF in Mexico. Continued working on pieces for performance. The Fugue up to bar 14 proves beyond the team at this time. Most other pieces are given run throughs including Flying Home. Comments are that the pieces seem to sound much better than they had in the recent past. Eye of the Needle has a few mistakes that the team acknowledges that we should be past. Commitments are made to rectify these and this along with the improvements of Flying home seems to add encouragement to the team.
Dev, Rick, Chris, Brad, Scott
Dev presents an account of his time on the recent course as well as the second secondary as taught by RF in Mexico. Continued working on pieces for performance. The Fugue up to bar 14 proves beyond the team at this time. Most other pieces are given run throughs including Flying Home. Comments are that the pieces seem to sound much better than they had in the recent past. Eye of the Needle has a few mistakes that the team acknowledges that we should be past. Commitments are made to rectify these and this along with the improvements of Flying home seems to add encouragement to the team.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Sun. 2/23/14 - Thacher Music Room
Victor, Rick, Chris, Scott, Brad
We arrive and plug in. We are in "horse shoe" formation, opposite the speakers and board.
At 8:00, Rick, Chris, Scott and Brad begin with one or two circulations and play Eye of the Needle, as Victor mixes.
Victor has a couple observations about the playing.
First, there are stupid mistakes. Stupid mistakes have the characteristic of lacking innocence: we should know the material, the parts, but something is surfacing and causing a disruption. This "something" is probably different for everyone, related to personality. Auxiliary to this first point is that the group is surprised when these mistakes occur, so the disruption is two-fold.
Victor's second observation, he says, is more important. He sees a lack of "bond" in the group playing, as though we were five musicians playing in a room ("guys on a subway"), rather than a group experiencing a common moment. It is a tricky obstacle to overcome, but it must be overcome, or the group's efforts will result in wasted time--life or death. No amount of detail work will compensate.
With this, Victor joins and we begin another circulation and imrpov. This is followed by some relatively brisk (but productive) repertoire work: a resounding of Eye of the Needle, then Where's the Nurse, Calliope, and Thrak. One note is made about the demand of the music during section changes and transitions, and the difference between hands that move with the demand and those that "get there".
A break around 8:50, with some discussion about repertoire and booking performances.
After a few minutes, we return to Morning Has Broken, which is more new to the set. After a play-through we spend some time on the accentuation, counting and dynamics of the chords, and address some discrepancies between the chord players.
The minute-keeper leaves around 9:30.
We arrive and plug in. We are in "horse shoe" formation, opposite the speakers and board.
At 8:00, Rick, Chris, Scott and Brad begin with one or two circulations and play Eye of the Needle, as Victor mixes.
Victor has a couple observations about the playing.
First, there are stupid mistakes. Stupid mistakes have the characteristic of lacking innocence: we should know the material, the parts, but something is surfacing and causing a disruption. This "something" is probably different for everyone, related to personality. Auxiliary to this first point is that the group is surprised when these mistakes occur, so the disruption is two-fold.
Victor's second observation, he says, is more important. He sees a lack of "bond" in the group playing, as though we were five musicians playing in a room ("guys on a subway"), rather than a group experiencing a common moment. It is a tricky obstacle to overcome, but it must be overcome, or the group's efforts will result in wasted time--life or death. No amount of detail work will compensate.
With this, Victor joins and we begin another circulation and imrpov. This is followed by some relatively brisk (but productive) repertoire work: a resounding of Eye of the Needle, then Where's the Nurse, Calliope, and Thrak. One note is made about the demand of the music during section changes and transitions, and the difference between hands that move with the demand and those that "get there".
A break around 8:50, with some discussion about repertoire and booking performances.
After a few minutes, we return to Morning Has Broken, which is more new to the set. After a play-through we spend some time on the accentuation, counting and dynamics of the chords, and address some discrepancies between the chord players.
The minute-keeper leaves around 9:30.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Tues. 2/11/14 - Rick's House
Rick, Chris, Scott
8:25
Circulation and improvisation to begin.
Rick provides a run-down of the closing of Sunday's rehearsal for Chris, which leads to work on Thrak. On further inspection, the three guitar parts that make up the piece are perfect for rotation and exploration in the trio format, and we spend time trading parts in different sections. Apropos to this is the usefulness of counting, foot-tapping and "feeling" in playing the rhythms. Returning back to the re-intro, there are a few surprises.
Rick teaches Scott the melody for Morning Has Broken, and we play the first verse as a loop to help him get the hang of it; Rick suggests that once the basic melody is understood, then the further variations which occur throughout the piece can be taught. We also run through Where's the Nurse, two leads and one bass.
Some talk about repertoire, and a final circulation to end the meeting.
8:25
Circulation and improvisation to begin.
Rick provides a run-down of the closing of Sunday's rehearsal for Chris, which leads to work on Thrak. On further inspection, the three guitar parts that make up the piece are perfect for rotation and exploration in the trio format, and we spend time trading parts in different sections. Apropos to this is the usefulness of counting, foot-tapping and "feeling" in playing the rhythms. Returning back to the re-intro, there are a few surprises.
Rick teaches Scott the melody for Morning Has Broken, and we play the first verse as a loop to help him get the hang of it; Rick suggests that once the basic melody is understood, then the further variations which occur throughout the piece can be taught. We also run through Where's the Nurse, two leads and one bass.
Some talk about repertoire, and a final circulation to end the meeting.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Sun. 2/9/14 - Thacher
Victor, Brad, Chris, Rick, Scott, Dev
7:30
Plug in. We run Voices of Ancient Children and an improv to test sound.
At 7:50, Rick leads calisthenics with a set of exercises: the first one is based on playing accelerating subdivisions against a click--whole notes, half note triplets, half notes, etc., up to sixteenths. There is some confusion regarding the longer triplet patterns which fall over the bar line, so we let go of this exercise and work with some changing primary #1 patterns for an extended length. After this, we work a little with a staccato/legato articulation exercise.
We begin running repertoire around 8:15 with Calliope at a slightly slower tempo than performance. Victor observes that the "sections" (bass, lead) are listening to themselves, but not to each other equally as well: it takes a few bars for "group intelligence" to establish itself with each section change, whereupon the feeling becomes overall good. We take it again a few times at a quicker tempo: more stable, but a bit sloppier. Some section work for the leads segues into Where's the Nurse.
During the break, there is some discussion regarding finalizing the repertoire for the upcoming performances in April/May. Chris departs before an encouraging sounding of Flying Home; hereafter, Victor taking up the part of the drummer to help keep the tempo solid. Thrak is the final bit of repertoire before the meeting ends.
7:30
Plug in. We run Voices of Ancient Children and an improv to test sound.
At 7:50, Rick leads calisthenics with a set of exercises: the first one is based on playing accelerating subdivisions against a click--whole notes, half note triplets, half notes, etc., up to sixteenths. There is some confusion regarding the longer triplet patterns which fall over the bar line, so we let go of this exercise and work with some changing primary #1 patterns for an extended length. After this, we work a little with a staccato/legato articulation exercise.
We begin running repertoire around 8:15 with Calliope at a slightly slower tempo than performance. Victor observes that the "sections" (bass, lead) are listening to themselves, but not to each other equally as well: it takes a few bars for "group intelligence" to establish itself with each section change, whereupon the feeling becomes overall good. We take it again a few times at a quicker tempo: more stable, but a bit sloppier. Some section work for the leads segues into Where's the Nurse.
During the break, there is some discussion regarding finalizing the repertoire for the upcoming performances in April/May. Chris departs before an encouraging sounding of Flying Home; hereafter, Victor taking up the part of the drummer to help keep the tempo solid. Thrak is the final bit of repertoire before the meeting ends.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Sun. 2/2/14 - Thacher
Victor, Brad, Chris, Rick, Dev
Beginning with one-on-one detail work, with Victor leading and others offering contributions. The "details" are aspects of our individual playing that we have the freedom to make choices about, but for whatever reason, don't; they simply "happen"--for instance, hearing "phrasing" of groups of notes, or using the range of timbre on a given instrument, or overlooking technically challenging parts where mistakes regularly occur. Having this freedom, Victor says, is much more desirable than a pointillistic approach to detail, because musical decisions require an ongoing sense of adjustment to the needs of the moment. We play with these ideas for a little while before Dev arrives.
We play Eye of the Needle, followed by a few comments regarding arrangement and tuning. This segues into our first rehearsal of BWV 846 for four guitars. The small team work through the first nine bars of the fugue, repeating and making small personal adjustments. Eventually, the music begins to arrive at relative coherence, and an additional section for rehearsal is decided upon for next week (up to the '1' o bar 14); whereupon, the preceding prelude with five guitars is given a truncated recital, and deemed "possible" for performance.
The final bit of guitar work for the meeting is a couple play-throughs of Morning Has Broken, without and with written aids. This one has a little rust and there are gaffs from all corners, but the players know their homework. There is some closing discussion of booking performances for April, how the team might about it in a way which makes both practical sense and is in alignment with the aim of the project, opening acts, press, etc., before the minute-keeper departs.
Beginning with one-on-one detail work, with Victor leading and others offering contributions. The "details" are aspects of our individual playing that we have the freedom to make choices about, but for whatever reason, don't; they simply "happen"--for instance, hearing "phrasing" of groups of notes, or using the range of timbre on a given instrument, or overlooking technically challenging parts where mistakes regularly occur. Having this freedom, Victor says, is much more desirable than a pointillistic approach to detail, because musical decisions require an ongoing sense of adjustment to the needs of the moment. We play with these ideas for a little while before Dev arrives.
We play Eye of the Needle, followed by a few comments regarding arrangement and tuning. This segues into our first rehearsal of BWV 846 for four guitars. The small team work through the first nine bars of the fugue, repeating and making small personal adjustments. Eventually, the music begins to arrive at relative coherence, and an additional section for rehearsal is decided upon for next week (up to the '1' o bar 14); whereupon, the preceding prelude with five guitars is given a truncated recital, and deemed "possible" for performance.
The final bit of guitar work for the meeting is a couple play-throughs of Morning Has Broken, without and with written aids. This one has a little rust and there are gaffs from all corners, but the players know their homework. There is some closing discussion of booking performances for April, how the team might about it in a way which makes both practical sense and is in alignment with the aim of the project, opening acts, press, etc., before the minute-keeper departs.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Thacher Music Room, 01-25-2014
Attending: Rick, Dev, Brad, Chris, Victor, Scott
Dev and Scott are each running a bit late, so the meeting begins with Victor leading a simple warm-up: playing Flying Home, but only playing one bar of each section before moving to the next. The tempo is set to "slowish", and the direction is for light and equal touch, and very staccato. Three runs through, with the exercise establishing itself, and then moving to a slightly faster tempo. Two more runs, and then we are fairly close to performance tempo, with one or two more runthroughs.
Moving to Calliope, with the same approach, but we have to reconfigure the sections to figure out what the bar counts will be. This ends up becoming:
- half of the intro
- 2 bars of CMaj
- 2 bars of EMaj/C#Min
- 2 bars of CMaj
- The entirety of the "Chinese" section,
and then the same for the second half of the chart, subbing the bars of EMaj/C#Min with DMin.
We begin in roughly the same fashion: a slowish tempo, and gradually increasing to looping at concert tempo. Enough work comes out of this that we find ourselves really digging in and refining different parts of this; this is also a challenging enough piece that we begin to tire, though this is also because this moves from becoming a warmup to a good 40 minutes of intensive work. Dev arrives during this time, and we fold him into the proceedings. Scott comes in as well, and we break about the time he shows up, as we've been working for some time.
Post break, there's a bit of discussion of work that Dev, Chris, and Brad did during the previous meeting, and what the next push might need to be. Dev reveals that he might have a few ideas, and the discussion gets a little tangential; it comes back, though, and Dev suggests that we film ourselves tonight, to see where we are from a visual standpoint. Rick has brought a camera for this, and we quickly set the room.
With camera now running, we choose to do the whole bit, with an entry from the hallway, and then play a short set.
Eye of the Needle
Circulation
Voices of Ancient Children
Where is the Nurse?
Improv
Flying Home
After Flying Home, we decide to stop here and watch the footage, so that Chris will have enough time to see this and then head home.
Lots of comments as we watch the footage; some of the moments are genuinely funny ("I look like a prairie dog!"), but there is some good music that happens. There are also some moments that are clearly instructive. Dev's general impression is that we look better than he had expected, but there is also a general feeling that we're still moving a bit as six disparate people, and not quite as a group. There is some discussion about how to work with this, as well as some of the necessary musical points that need to be made.
As we're tearing down, there's a bit of discussion about bringing Fugue no. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier back into the fold; Chris has reconfigured this as simply 4 voices playing 4 parts. Parts are assigned, and there is a promise to e-mail measure assignments for next week. Some post-meeting discussion and joking, and we all head into the night.
Dev and Scott are each running a bit late, so the meeting begins with Victor leading a simple warm-up: playing Flying Home, but only playing one bar of each section before moving to the next. The tempo is set to "slowish", and the direction is for light and equal touch, and very staccato. Three runs through, with the exercise establishing itself, and then moving to a slightly faster tempo. Two more runs, and then we are fairly close to performance tempo, with one or two more runthroughs.
Moving to Calliope, with the same approach, but we have to reconfigure the sections to figure out what the bar counts will be. This ends up becoming:
- half of the intro
- 2 bars of CMaj
- 2 bars of EMaj/C#Min
- 2 bars of CMaj
- The entirety of the "Chinese" section,
and then the same for the second half of the chart, subbing the bars of EMaj/C#Min with DMin.
We begin in roughly the same fashion: a slowish tempo, and gradually increasing to looping at concert tempo. Enough work comes out of this that we find ourselves really digging in and refining different parts of this; this is also a challenging enough piece that we begin to tire, though this is also because this moves from becoming a warmup to a good 40 minutes of intensive work. Dev arrives during this time, and we fold him into the proceedings. Scott comes in as well, and we break about the time he shows up, as we've been working for some time.
Post break, there's a bit of discussion of work that Dev, Chris, and Brad did during the previous meeting, and what the next push might need to be. Dev reveals that he might have a few ideas, and the discussion gets a little tangential; it comes back, though, and Dev suggests that we film ourselves tonight, to see where we are from a visual standpoint. Rick has brought a camera for this, and we quickly set the room.
With camera now running, we choose to do the whole bit, with an entry from the hallway, and then play a short set.
Eye of the Needle
Circulation
Voices of Ancient Children
Where is the Nurse?
Improv
Flying Home
After Flying Home, we decide to stop here and watch the footage, so that Chris will have enough time to see this and then head home.
Lots of comments as we watch the footage; some of the moments are genuinely funny ("I look like a prairie dog!"), but there is some good music that happens. There are also some moments that are clearly instructive. Dev's general impression is that we look better than he had expected, but there is also a general feeling that we're still moving a bit as six disparate people, and not quite as a group. There is some discussion about how to work with this, as well as some of the necessary musical points that need to be made.
As we're tearing down, there's a bit of discussion about bringing Fugue no. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier back into the fold; Chris has reconfigured this as simply 4 voices playing 4 parts. Parts are assigned, and there is a promise to e-mail measure assignments for next week. Some post-meeting discussion and joking, and we all head into the night.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Brad's House, 01-22-2014
Attending: Brad, Dev, Chris
Chris arrives first, a few minutes ahead of Dev. Down through the basement, and up the back to the top floor; as Chris is inspecting the new place and situating himself, Dev arrives. A bit of preemptive chatting, and some espresso for Brad and Dev. Sitting down roughly 6:25ish.
Opening circulation, leading to a spirited and adventurous improv. Afterward, Dev mentions wishing we'd recorded it, but that's the nature of spirit of the moment. He also notes that it's often easier to hear and work when one only has to hear three people, instead of six, but that's the challenge of a larger group.
Moving to calisthenics, Brad asks to lead these. Working with the same First Primary principles as the other day, we work with 'Developing Variations' of these (inspired by correspondence with Tony G), and doing this on the fly. Simply put, the formula is simply to take a permutation of the First Primary, and instead of working with the pair-hi-lo formula, to simply move the first note of a sequence to the back of a sequence. Thus:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
2 - 3 - 4 - 1
3 - 4 - 1 - 2
4 - 1 - 2 - 3
This becomes more difficult with the less intuitive permutations. (See the comments below for the two complete sets we work through.) Challenging stuff.
Following this, we find ourselves moving into a discussion about melody, how developing variations is an extension of contrapuntal technique, as well as the twelve-tone method, and how even some of the more adventurous serialism often has a melodic side. A surprising and interesting conversation.
Moving on to repertoire, and notably lacking most of the circle, we run through Voices of Ancient Children, with a pretty straightforward reading of the piece. Dev then suggests that we each learn the melody and the basics of the counting (Chris typically plays the 'pulse', and Brad plays the 'claw'). We then take an opportunity to each be reminded of the other parts, and then play through twice more, switching parts as necessary (Dev 'claw', Chris 'melody', Brad 'pulse'; Dev 'pulse, Chris 'claw', Brad 'melody').
A break with some conversation, and Brad tending to necessities in the house.
Back in the circle, and another circulation and improv. Even more spirited, with many different spaces, and a cued ending.
We go over the list of other potential pieces that we have listed for this project, and choose to bring out a couple of old ones to take a look at them: Morning Has Broken, and Bicycling to Afghanistan.
Morning needs to be seriously dusted off, and we spend several minutes remembering the different variations in each verse. One aborted run, and then one full one with a reboot in the middle. This will need work.
Bicycling is much the same. A few minutes of reviewing bits, a halfrun, and then a full run. Could be dropped, could be kept--at this point, it's up in the air, but it's good to look at them. The consensus is that the project is about performing with quality, but there is also an acknowledgment that as we continue to bring quality to our playing, that quality will spread around to the rest of the music we're approaching.
With this, Brad notes that it's probably best to call it a night, out of respect to the neighbors. There is a little more discussion, some packing up, and Chris and Dev head off into the frigid night.
Chris arrives first, a few minutes ahead of Dev. Down through the basement, and up the back to the top floor; as Chris is inspecting the new place and situating himself, Dev arrives. A bit of preemptive chatting, and some espresso for Brad and Dev. Sitting down roughly 6:25ish.
Opening circulation, leading to a spirited and adventurous improv. Afterward, Dev mentions wishing we'd recorded it, but that's the nature of spirit of the moment. He also notes that it's often easier to hear and work when one only has to hear three people, instead of six, but that's the challenge of a larger group.
Moving to calisthenics, Brad asks to lead these. Working with the same First Primary principles as the other day, we work with 'Developing Variations' of these (inspired by correspondence with Tony G), and doing this on the fly. Simply put, the formula is simply to take a permutation of the First Primary, and instead of working with the pair-hi-lo formula, to simply move the first note of a sequence to the back of a sequence. Thus:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
2 - 3 - 4 - 1
3 - 4 - 1 - 2
4 - 1 - 2 - 3
This becomes more difficult with the less intuitive permutations. (See the comments below for the two complete sets we work through.) Challenging stuff.
Following this, we find ourselves moving into a discussion about melody, how developing variations is an extension of contrapuntal technique, as well as the twelve-tone method, and how even some of the more adventurous serialism often has a melodic side. A surprising and interesting conversation.
Moving on to repertoire, and notably lacking most of the circle, we run through Voices of Ancient Children, with a pretty straightforward reading of the piece. Dev then suggests that we each learn the melody and the basics of the counting (Chris typically plays the 'pulse', and Brad plays the 'claw'). We then take an opportunity to each be reminded of the other parts, and then play through twice more, switching parts as necessary (Dev 'claw', Chris 'melody', Brad 'pulse'; Dev 'pulse, Chris 'claw', Brad 'melody').
A break with some conversation, and Brad tending to necessities in the house.
Back in the circle, and another circulation and improv. Even more spirited, with many different spaces, and a cued ending.
We go over the list of other potential pieces that we have listed for this project, and choose to bring out a couple of old ones to take a look at them: Morning Has Broken, and Bicycling to Afghanistan.
Morning needs to be seriously dusted off, and we spend several minutes remembering the different variations in each verse. One aborted run, and then one full one with a reboot in the middle. This will need work.
Bicycling is much the same. A few minutes of reviewing bits, a halfrun, and then a full run. Could be dropped, could be kept--at this point, it's up in the air, but it's good to look at them. The consensus is that the project is about performing with quality, but there is also an acknowledgment that as we continue to bring quality to our playing, that quality will spread around to the rest of the music we're approaching.
With this, Brad notes that it's probably best to call it a night, out of respect to the neighbors. There is a little more discussion, some packing up, and Chris and Dev head off into the frigid night.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Rick's House, 01-19-2014
Attending: Rick, Dev, Chris, Scott, Brad
Dev and Brad arrive to Rick's first, with Dev offering consolation for the Pats' loss. A little generic conversation regarding the AutoTune culture. Scott arrives next, shortly followed by Chris. A little more chatting, and then down to business.
In the circle, Dev takes on calisthenics. The directive is to cycle through the permutations of the First primary while ascending and descending the neck, with one permutation per fret. Cycling through is done via the Tony G method of pairs-hi-lo:
With 4 digits (1 2 3 4), one takes one pair of digits, and then takes the remaining two digits and adds them in hi-lo or lo-hi, depending on the permutation. With this, all permutation of the first finger would be:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
1 - 2 - 4 - 3
1 - 3 - 2 - 4
1 - 3 - 4 - 2
1 - 4 - 2 - 3
1 - 4 - 3 - 2
And so on. With the metronome at 72, we take our first pass at it. A break down somewhere in the middle, so we reset and come back down. A second pass shows that we may have made a mistake, and a third pass confirms that we made a mistake but fixed it the second time round. Several useful observations, most of which seem to center around 'getting back on the horse as fast as possible'.
Moving on to repertoire, a bit of discussion about what we had worked on the previous week, and the week before that. Eye of the Needle, sans a primary lead. A couple of very minor blips, but otherwise quite good. Voices of Ancient Children. One false start, and then one good start, with a half-intentional tempo push in the intro from Rick and Brad; both acknowledged that it was a bit too much, but that it had felt a hair slow, and so the tempo got notched up a bit. Flying Home, which also got a goosing; this one benefits from constant oiling.
To the current three. Where is the Nurse? One runthrough. Dev asks Brad and Scott to please play through the part, to which Scott replies that he still hasn't been able to learn the entire bass part. Brad and Scott set to working on the bass soli intro, specifically bars 13-16 (the F section). As they work on this, Dev takes Chris and Rick into another room for spot work in the leads. Brad makes sure to point out to Scott, as much as for himself, that learning the counting for this piece is crucial, especially in this section.
After maybe 10 minutes of this, Dev checks in, and then the leads come back in. A full runthrough of the piece again, with a very confident Scott to boot. Good stuff.
A bit of a bathroom break, and we move on to Calliope. Largely touching on the work from the previous week, with some tempo surprises from Rick built in as well. The "Chinese" section gets some needed attention, and there is a reminder to relax during work on the intro.
Finally, some work on Asturias, which primarily focuses on the twinkle section: what the three twinkles are, the basic structure, what needs to stay and what doesn't, and a note about allowing the spaces to breathe (my words). One play through, with some clear adapting of instructions, but some nice music happening as well.
A final circulation turns to an improvisation which goes through several different areas in the space of 5 minutes. We miss the ending by about 12 seconds, and Dev brings this up, but otherwise there are some good moments.
All are on the road by about 9:45ish.
Dev and Brad arrive to Rick's first, with Dev offering consolation for the Pats' loss. A little generic conversation regarding the AutoTune culture. Scott arrives next, shortly followed by Chris. A little more chatting, and then down to business.
In the circle, Dev takes on calisthenics. The directive is to cycle through the permutations of the First primary while ascending and descending the neck, with one permutation per fret. Cycling through is done via the Tony G method of pairs-hi-lo:
With 4 digits (1 2 3 4), one takes one pair of digits, and then takes the remaining two digits and adds them in hi-lo or lo-hi, depending on the permutation. With this, all permutation of the first finger would be:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4
1 - 2 - 4 - 3
1 - 3 - 2 - 4
1 - 3 - 4 - 2
1 - 4 - 2 - 3
1 - 4 - 3 - 2
And so on. With the metronome at 72, we take our first pass at it. A break down somewhere in the middle, so we reset and come back down. A second pass shows that we may have made a mistake, and a third pass confirms that we made a mistake but fixed it the second time round. Several useful observations, most of which seem to center around 'getting back on the horse as fast as possible'.
Moving on to repertoire, a bit of discussion about what we had worked on the previous week, and the week before that. Eye of the Needle, sans a primary lead. A couple of very minor blips, but otherwise quite good. Voices of Ancient Children. One false start, and then one good start, with a half-intentional tempo push in the intro from Rick and Brad; both acknowledged that it was a bit too much, but that it had felt a hair slow, and so the tempo got notched up a bit. Flying Home, which also got a goosing; this one benefits from constant oiling.
To the current three. Where is the Nurse? One runthrough. Dev asks Brad and Scott to please play through the part, to which Scott replies that he still hasn't been able to learn the entire bass part. Brad and Scott set to working on the bass soli intro, specifically bars 13-16 (the F section). As they work on this, Dev takes Chris and Rick into another room for spot work in the leads. Brad makes sure to point out to Scott, as much as for himself, that learning the counting for this piece is crucial, especially in this section.
After maybe 10 minutes of this, Dev checks in, and then the leads come back in. A full runthrough of the piece again, with a very confident Scott to boot. Good stuff.
A bit of a bathroom break, and we move on to Calliope. Largely touching on the work from the previous week, with some tempo surprises from Rick built in as well. The "Chinese" section gets some needed attention, and there is a reminder to relax during work on the intro.
Finally, some work on Asturias, which primarily focuses on the twinkle section: what the three twinkles are, the basic structure, what needs to stay and what doesn't, and a note about allowing the spaces to breathe (my words). One play through, with some clear adapting of instructions, but some nice music happening as well.
A final circulation turns to an improvisation which goes through several different areas in the space of 5 minutes. We miss the ending by about 12 seconds, and Dev brings this up, but otherwise there are some good moments.
All are on the road by about 9:45ish.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Thacher Music Room, 01-12-2014
Attending: Chris, Dev, Victor, Rick, Brad
Opening the meeting at 7:15 with a circulation that moves to improv. Clouds, a few blues licks, and some different areas explored.
After a pause, Calliope gets called, but is held for a moment while we retune. Brad counts off, roughly around performance tempo, and it takes off from there. Victor directs us to play it again at the same tempo, which we do.
Our work moves to King Metronome, and we play with a couple of different tempi, trying different things out, but we really dig in when Victor begins to have us dissecting the intro into beats, looping sections with rests, and really focusing on relaxing in the rests. Moving from the first 5 notes of the intro (1 whole beat plus a downbeat), followed by a rest, and extending up to 9 notes, then 3 full beats, and then the entire intro.
The same thing comes about with the main melody in C. This is potent work.
A break.
Digging back in, and then playing the entire piece several more times. This is also looking to be our homework for the week.
Some final words for the night, and we take our leave around 9:30.
Opening the meeting at 7:15 with a circulation that moves to improv. Clouds, a few blues licks, and some different areas explored.
After a pause, Calliope gets called, but is held for a moment while we retune. Brad counts off, roughly around performance tempo, and it takes off from there. Victor directs us to play it again at the same tempo, which we do.
Our work moves to King Metronome, and we play with a couple of different tempi, trying different things out, but we really dig in when Victor begins to have us dissecting the intro into beats, looping sections with rests, and really focusing on relaxing in the rests. Moving from the first 5 notes of the intro (1 whole beat plus a downbeat), followed by a rest, and extending up to 9 notes, then 3 full beats, and then the entire intro.
The same thing comes about with the main melody in C. This is potent work.
A break.
Digging back in, and then playing the entire piece several more times. This is also looking to be our homework for the week.
Some final words for the night, and we take our leave around 9:30.
Thacher Music Room, 01-05-2014
Attending: Victor, Chris, Brad, Scott
First meeting of the new year.
Victor leading calisthenics: starting with picking an open A, then passing this around the circle as 1 beat (then 2 beats) per person, playing 16th notes. Some words about playing as it travels round the circle. After a bit of this, Victor moves to doing the same thing with nonsense syllables. The next step is then combining the two: Victor begins by playing 4 beats on the guitar, then passes it to Chris. As Chris passes the note to Brad, Victor then improvises 4 beats in sixteenths of nonsense syllables, and then passes that to Chris, while Brad passes the guitar notes to Scott. This continues for a while--when it really locks in, it's palpable.
From here, we move to running the repertoire we've been working on for this project, while recording at the same time. Eye of the Needle, Voices of Ancient Children, Flying Home, Calliope, Where is the Nurse?, Asturias. A short mini-set, with some commentary throughout.
A break for the bums in the room, and we listen back; Victor plays around with some reverb on the recording specifically to highlight some points of interest in our playing. Some good moments, and good discussion. This ends the night for us, for this week.
First meeting of the new year.
Victor leading calisthenics: starting with picking an open A, then passing this around the circle as 1 beat (then 2 beats) per person, playing 16th notes. Some words about playing as it travels round the circle. After a bit of this, Victor moves to doing the same thing with nonsense syllables. The next step is then combining the two: Victor begins by playing 4 beats on the guitar, then passes it to Chris. As Chris passes the note to Brad, Victor then improvises 4 beats in sixteenths of nonsense syllables, and then passes that to Chris, while Brad passes the guitar notes to Scott. This continues for a while--when it really locks in, it's palpable.
From here, we move to running the repertoire we've been working on for this project, while recording at the same time. Eye of the Needle, Voices of Ancient Children, Flying Home, Calliope, Where is the Nurse?, Asturias. A short mini-set, with some commentary throughout.
A break for the bums in the room, and we listen back; Victor plays around with some reverb on the recording specifically to highlight some points of interest in our playing. Some good moments, and good discussion. This ends the night for us, for this week.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Thacher Music Room, 12-8-2013
Attending: Rick, Brad, Victor, Scott, Chris, Rick, Dev
Scribe: Scott
Scribe: Scott
- Brad led calithenics
- had us strike the a string 1 through 8 times, then the first primary with an ascending pattern of 2134 to the 12th and a descending pattern of 3412
- Repertoire
- Calliope
- - some section work
- Break
- Where is the Nurse?
- played once through
- section work
- Chris leaves
- Voices of Ancient Children
- Improv/ circulation
- Meeting ends
Thacher Music Room, 12-01-2013
Attending: Victor, Dev, Chris, Brad, Rick, Scott
Scribe: Scott
Scribe: Scott
- The meeting started without Victor
- Dev started a circulation, which led into a 10 minute improv
- Chris led calisthenics. Had us play the D major scale spanning from the lowest D to the highest, ascending and descending. We played it very slowly at first, so we were familiar with the tetrachords, then increased the bpm. Chris noted that we seemed to be having trouble with the last 2 octaves of the scale, and had us loop ascending and descending from the F# on the 2nd string to the highest E.
- Repertoire started with "Where the Nurse". Played through it once, then Basses did sectional work.
- Victor shows up. More sectional work by both parts
- Flying Home
- Chris leaves
- Break
- Calliope
- section work
- Asturias, which started with improv.
- Procession chord
- End of meeting
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