Supplemental Practice 7/5

GCNE
2012-07-05, 1345-1531
Dev, Brad and Rick

Once Rick arrives and chairs are arranged the meeting begins. An opening circulation centered on "C" and "G" with several changes of direction and a few double-time shifts morphs into improv about halfway in. Then a revisiting of a recent exercise tentatively called "step on your buddies' toes" circulation with more direction changes, stacatto/legato/sostenuto as well as timbral variances and a few fits of laughing.

Dev needs to take an aspirin break at 1423.

Back at 1428 and after a brief discussion on what might be played at the coming "Movie Night" gig, the team works on Askesis; the first run through is aborted and deemed too fast, the second is taken all the way through with the team agreeing that the mistakes might be due to lack of warm-up.

At 1445 Rick takes a phone call of necessity.

Resuming work at 1450 the subject of the future of GCNE comes up in discussion but the suggestion that this is saved for the upcoming meeting with the full team is adopted. The team then plays Third Relation twice. The first time through many mistakes are apparent to the team so Rick makes a suggestion of attempting to show no emotional or physical reaction to mistakes and it is applied to a second run through.

A play-through of Intergalactic Boogie Express is next at 1520. Brad offers the opinion that this is one of the group's better-played pieces while Dev offer's the advice not to "ham the ending." Then Where is The Nurse is played once though and an observation is made that this is also a piece that the team plays well.

Dev takes a few minutes to review the "Rock and Roll 5's" in THRAK and then it is given some attention; first in sections and them once through complete. The team is less critical of the outcome of the play through given that Dev is playing a less familiar part but it is agreed upon that being able to play multiple parts in repertoire gives the team added flexibility and is a challenge that might be worth exploring.

A final circulation revisits most of the strategies employed during the opening 2 circulations.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday July 8th.

This meeting is adjourned at 1531.

small group meeting 7/1

Chris, Brad, Wayne, Scott in attendance
Brad's pad

Chris, Brad and Wayne meet on the grass and begin at 8:00 with a circulation. to warm up, they take four first primary patterns in a sequence that alternates when changing direction on the neck to ascending or descending (with the 13th position as the pivot), in sixteenth notes at 80 BPM. Scott arrives shortly after this work begins, and the group retakes the exercise; a small adjustment in tempo is made.

next, the group splits off into pairs to work on Growing Circle - Brad teaching Scott the bass part, and Chris teaching Wayne the intro and main section of the lead. as it begins to get dark, the group reconvenes and relocates upstairs for some ensemble practice: two takes of just the intro and main section, to get the new players' feet wet; then, a couple takes counting the bars while playing. 

this latter work leads to some ideas for division of attention practice, and to a counting exercise using the main theme from Invocation. Brad prefaces this with the suggestion that we should be working to expand our capacity to do this kind of work for greater lengths of time, e.g. to be able to divide attention for ten or fifteen minutes, or more. tonight the egg timer is set for eight minutes. Wayne departs shortly after this at 9:31, on family-related business.

Chris gives an exposition on a C Major exercise he has been working with based on closed triads on the top three strings. some of the chords are difficult, and the group winds up taking the 3rd inversion sequence for actual work, visualizing moving fragments of C Major across three strings. Chris even demonstrates how such fragments can be incorporated into dance music.

a final circulation to close the meeting, shortly after 10:00.  

Dev's House

6/24/2012


In Attendance:  Dev Ray, Scott Dozier, Victor McSurely, Rick McCarthy, Wayne Wylupski, Brad Hogg

Beginning around 8 pm with Dev, Scott, Brad, and Wayne.  An opening circulation, going round the circle, followed by another circulation that begins with intentional passing across the circle and grows quickly into a full improvisation.

Dev comments on the newness seems to be coming from Wayne; this prompts a discussion about where Wayne had left off in the beginning years of Guitar Craft, and where we are as a circle.

Circulation pattern work; first a review of +2 -1, and then some stretching.  Brad suggests a pattern of +2 -1 +1 -1, while counting in 5 (1 2 3 1 2).  The big help here seems to be looking the way that you are passing.  Once we get that under our hands, Dev mixes it up and suggests playing a rest on the 1, while still having the spot in the pattern "played" by the circulation (so the rest would happen on a person's slot, and they would get the note, but wouldn't actually play anything).  This proves to be a good challenge.  Some playing with this, and then quick observations (noticing startles, difficulties with the gap of the rest) and a note that this particular pattern ends up with a ping pong that shifts on each bar of 5.  Another run of the pattern with this in mind makes it much easier to play, but also makes it too easy to think of the ping pong and just play that.  After a few minutes of this, we take a short break that ends up running longer—some discussion of various topics, during which Rick arrives.

With Rick in the circle, we take a moment to collect, and then a circulation and improv.  Nice stuff.

Back in with the circulation work.  We review what we’d been doing with Rick, run that for a moment, and then Brad puts forward a different pattern:  forward 3, reverse 2, and then begin again to the right of the player that finishes the pattern.  So, with an order of Dev – Brad – Wayne – Rick – Scott, it would look like:

Dev – Brad – Wayne – Rick – Wayne – Brad

Wayne – Rick – Scott – Dev – Scott – Rick

Scott – Dev – Brad – Wayne – Brad – Dev

Brad – Wayne – Rick – Scott – Rick – Wayne

Rick – Scott – Dev – Brad – Dev – Scott

Once we have our fingernails latched onto this, Rick ups the ante:  count out loud in 5.  This we do, and then bump it up just a touch more with a footstomp when the six-note pattern shifts.  A couple of attempts result in peals of laughter, and then we begin to get the hang of it.  At about this time, Victor arrives.

A short circulation to incorporate Victor, and then a short discussion of what we’ve been doing, to bring him up to speed.  At his request, a short report on what is going on with the AAD course.  Some more discussion follows of upcoming performances and work we have coming our way.

Back with the for3-rev2 circulation we’d been working with, sans stomping or counting.  Victor adds an extra step that we hadn’t thought of:  using the two non-playing circulators in the circuit, playing on the &s of 1 and 4.  This looks like this:

Rick (Wayne) Victor – Scott – Dev (Brad) Scott – Victor

Scott (Victor) Dev – Brad – Wayne (Rick) Brad – Dev

Fun work.

At this point, Victor takes a moment to talk about Orchestra work, and presents two exercises that we should be working with:  The Guitarist Inside work, and Division of Attention.  We run this last one for about 8 minutes or so.  Some final words, a final circulation, and we call it a night. 

Small Group (regular Sunday), Glenn's House

Attending:  Glenn, Scott, Rick, Brad.

Jumping straight in with CMaj work, and circulating up and down 3 octaves; different permutations of this, including a revisit to +2 -1 while maintaining tertiary motion.  Per a suggestion from Rick, we move to the E diminished scale (half-whole), and then the E whole-tone scale.  Different strategies being used throughout.

A break while we move upstairs for noshing, courtesy of Scarlet's kitchen work.  Many thanks.

Back to the basement.  Some general calisthenics work--Scott has been working with the Hammerhead exercise, so we run that for a bit.  A couple of different interpretations of the anchor exercise (the 4th primary) are presented.  Glenn re-presents the 16 bar exercise, reminding everyone that the focus of the exercise is not in the hands.

A final circulation/improvisation to close the night.

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.

GCNE on Transmission Hour

This morning, GCNE will be taping about an hour's worth of music for a local music show that has been around for a little while, "Transmission Hour", produced by Low Budget Records.  Along with the recently completed 3rd season of weekly performances, the Camp Caravan course (which included an Orchestra-style performance for the MREC community), as well as the opportunities that have begun coming up for us, we've had no shortage of work available to us.

Chris and Brad arrive first to the studio at 8:50 a.m., followed shortly by the film crew, then Rick, Glenn, Dev, Scott and his girlfriend Shaelyn (who is serving as an auxiliary photographer of the proceedings), and Victor.  We stick to staying out of the way of the film/sound crew and choose to spend our time warming up as they prepare the space for shooting.  Truth be told, this is a welcome change for us, and our technical involvement is limited to a few suggestions on mics from Victor and some minor points.

Set-up completed, and we filter in and sit down on our respective stools; a couple of adjustments are made, a few minutes of soundcheck, and we find ourselves 10 minutes ahead of schedule, affording a few more minutes to change shirts as necessary and collect ourselves.

Back into the studio, sitting down, and cameras and audio begin to roll.

Circulation

Growing Circle

Eye of the Needle

Askesis

3rd Relation

"When ready, begin."

Overworld II

Voices of Ancient Children

Hommage a J.S.B.

Intergalactic Boogie Express

THRAK

Where Is The Nurse?

Circulation/Improv

Love Is Green

Flying Home

Peaches en Regalia

Prelude no. 1 in C Major

Batrachomyomachy

Asturias

This was slightly abbreviated from the setlist we had walked in with, due to time constraints and a couple of false starts.  Also, the second "Circulation/Improv" may be in a different spot.

The tape runs out just barely after we complete the set.  A quick tear-down, and we reconvene in the green room for a quick logistics meeting (discussing the very near future and the new/possibly returning members and bringing them into the fold in true GCNE fashion).  We complete this, complete the endeavor as a whole, and take our leave of the studio.

Inside Out rehearsal #11

Victor's House, 4 - 23 - 12, 8:00 - 11:30 PM

**Victor, Rick, Chris (scribe), Brad, Dev, and Scott in attendance.

**we begin with circulation. after a few limp passes, Victor makes two notes on listening while circulating: 1) to hear 'in space'; 2) to hear 'direction in terms of intentionality'. these suggestions seem to open a door which leads to a longer and more satisfying circulation; this is followed by some observations from the group.

**approaching 6/7th's of Fugue no.1 from the WTK without a spoken count or click. before long, we are shedding at a maximum performance tempo of about 76 BPM. next comes the work of combining two performances into one: the Prelude into Fugue. Prelude requires some attention of its own during this process, specifically flow and timing; some of the earlier work with circulation resurfaces in regard to this.

**after a break, we take a few moments to address some structural points in Voices of Ancient Children.

**a few passes through Peaches en Regalia. much time is devoted to detail work, including dynamics and phrasing of voices for specific sections. another task is to articulate the bass voice's special role as "drummer" for the five-guitar arrangement.

**a play-through of Overworld 2, followed by the introduction of a special underscore to be used on specific occasions.