Meeting Notes #24
Sunday, December 1, 2002
Attendees: Martin B., Glenn H., David K., Victor M., Dev R., Terry T.
Place: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

We entered the room to discover the floor covered with new floor mats.
Notes to those who were not here tonight, please use a scrap piece of foam
(which can be found in the room) for the stool to prevent scratching or
marking the mats.

We began tonight's meeting by bringing attention to the soles of our feet,
then moved up to the sitting bones that are connected to our lower back. At
the same time, releasing the unnecessary tension from those parts of the
body.

We began 16 bar exercise while paying attention to the same places that we
did a while ago and releasing unnecessary tensions.

After the 16 bar exercise, Victor asked the group to stretching our arms up
and then lower the arms back down without moving the torso. While we retain
our body in that position we moved our arms and hands to the playing
position and played 'Third Relation'. For me, it was the first time I felt
comfortable playing the piece.

Martin pointed out that we were rushing, so a discussion was raised on why
we played it faster. One of us mentioned that he was trying to stay with
the group so we would sound coherent. Other observations were made as well.

We played 'Third Relation' again, this time with our attention to the
tempo. The group felt that this round was much better than the previous
one. There were some points where parts were not coherent but they were
more "musical" rather than technical mistakes. So it became apparent to us
that we should be paying attention to the tempo along with other qualities
discussed in previous weeks.

The group then worked on 'Calliope'. We discussed the arrangements of
different sections and I learned the rest of the mirror parts. Calliope
will be our main focus for next week. Side note, Victor mentioned that if
we were presented with a piece by other GC teacher, then we should learn it
the way it is being taught.

Break

The group played 'Eye of the Needle'. Afterwards, Victor made an
observation that the burble section at the end of the piece is louder than
the preceding sections. Dev mentioned that it might have been him because
he was instructed to do so at the Germany performance project. According to
him, there was a cello player, so the guitarists had to play louder
especially at the burble section. So a discussion was raised to whether or
not crescendo the burble section. We did not come up with an answer but if
we were to crescendo the burble section then we have to start the section
really soft.

Next, 'Larks Thrak'. Victor mentioned that the group should practice the
rock 'n roll section so that it would be really "tight". Victor also
suggested that in addition to working on the new pieces, we should have all
other pieces (learned so far) readily available. This lead to a discussion
on the performance last week. Glenn and Dev were nervous but not David.
Another issue of discussion was eye contact with audience, which victor will
address some time in the future. A question was raised regarding practicing
the circulation. Glenn suggested three exercises, one, sing what you play,
two, play what you sing, three, sing while positioning the fingers on the
fret board where the notes would be.

Meeting next week will begin at 7.30 pm right after the Bennett meeting.

TT

Meeting Notes #23

Who: Glenn H, David K, Victor M, Dev R, Dave T
When: Sunday, November 24, 2002, 8:15 PM
Where:Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

At the beginning of the meeting, Victor reminded himself, and us, of who was in attendance the previous week. He then restated the question from two weeks prior, about why it is that we pay attention to the quality of our playing past the point that it has an impact on the sound of our performance. There were several possible answers to this raised: not resting on one's laurels, consistently giving up bad habits and acquiring good habits within the larger context of one's life, and so on. Victor asked us to look at the triad of [music, audience, musician] from the music's point of view. We talked about this for some time. How would the music view the musician? Why would the music favor a musician that had the quality of aspiration, over one that had the quality of attainment? These are questions worth pondering.

We tuned, then began work on Calliope. We learned the entire form and the leads learned the "tag section," and after working through the first and second half separately, we ran through the entire song once. Some members were having trouble with the accented picking. Victor said that it is a requirement that we play this piece while tapping our feet to the underlying pulse. There was some discussion about why accented picking is a technique worth learning.

A banging was heard from above. Someone at the door. Victor said something to the effect that, the audience had arrived. Or rather, our audient.
We performed, for our unsuspecting, and gracious listener:
Circulation (wound up being mostly in C Maj)
Eye of the Needle
3rd Relation
Circulation (started in C, wandered off into chromatic land)
Lark's Thrak
Aspiration

We were then treated to the sound of one man's two hands clapping.
Our guest had a couple of questions:
"What was that thing where you passed the notes around, and was it composed?"
"How long have you been working together?"
"How many of you are there in total?"
We received a compliment:
"I found I wasn't really paying attention to who might be better than the others, but was just listening to the sound as a whole, almost as if you were a single instrument."

Victor said that this was our first, possibly of many, performances. So we should always be prepared.

The meeting was adjourned.
We are on for next week.

GH

Meeting Notes #22

Who: Alex L, Martin B, Dev R, Victor M, David K
When: November 17, 2002, 19:30
Where:Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

We began as a trio (Dev, Victor and Alex), as we were already in the studio from
the Bennett meeting. Three-fork-tuning, followed by delving
further into Calliope. At this point David arrived, and after tuning
him in, we began work on the last two bits of the bass for Calliope.
We had nearly worked our way through the first one (D), when Martin arrived. We
tuned Martin in, and continued with this part, breaking it down into sub-sections,
gradually growing them until they became the whole. After this, we
took a break.

Upon return from our break, we worked on the next part of the Bass, with its mirrors.
Once the concept for the part was grasped, we worked on the form of the piece
with four Basses (Alex, Martin, Dev and David) and one lead (Victor). Two bits
of info for working on the piece: we are looking towards 92 bpm as a tempo; we
may be learning it strictly alternate picked, as accented picked at tempo will
be an extreme challenge.

Next, we looked at the first chord of Lark's. Victor used this as a place to
review hands, and offer observations for what work could be done for each of us.

To conclude the meeting, various questions regarding the repertoire and practice
were asked and answered.

AL

Meeting Notes #21

Sunday, November 10th, 2002, 8:15pm
Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

Attendees – Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Dave T, Terry T
Full House

The meeting started with Victor asking us to think about why and how we do the minutes. What are they good for? We discussed possible different ways of choosing who would do the minutes on a given week. Victor wanted us to be sure we don't confuse the minutes with what actually happened. He said that while they have their uses for us as a group, they might even be detrimental to those outside the group, because one person's synopses might be mistaken for the actuality. "Like learning Guitar Craft pieces from a CD." In the end, we decided to leave the process of recording the minutes more or less as it is now. Glenn stated that he is happy to make additions or corrections.

Victor then asked us to answer the question "why do we start sessions by putting our attention in one of our hands?" Some of the answers included:
"as a way to begin"
"for focus"
"to establish a relationship with my hands"
"as a first step in releasing tension"
"as a way to clear out the mental clutter"
He asked us to answer the question "and why do we need that?" There were several different answers, most of which boiled down to: this is necessary.

We tuned our guitars with the "three forks" method. After tuning, Victor said that he would like us to use tuning in the circle only as "fine tuning": that we should be very close before we sit down.

Eye of the Needle. We played this piece fairly well.

Third Relation. We rushed quite a bit during this piece. We need to relax.

Lark's Thrak. Several of us dropped out during the intro. When we came to the end of the piece, Victor commented that we need to work on our speed.

Victor said that some of the pieces we were going to be learning are going to require that we have better control of our speed, and the ability to play at higher tempos. Terry asked if we could play 3rd Relation again, so we did. "This one is for Terry" Then, Victor had us all stand up, and loop part of 3rd Relation while marching (bars 17 through 36).

We talked a little more about practice. Victor said that past a certain point, it gets easier to get better. Then, the main thing stopping you is your approach, in that you come at your practice the way you always have, rather than just letting it happen. He said that this process has already begun for some of the members of our team.

We learned the first two sections of Calliope. We split into groups to work on our parts. We came back to the circle, and played the parts together. The concept of accented picking was introduced. Victor said "we are so not ready for this..." Later on, Alex reminded us of the rule governing picking: "An up stroke is followed by a down stroke is followed by an up stroke... except when it isn't."

Then we took a short break.

After the break, we learned one more part of Calliope (the 'cowboy section'). This including Victor trying to make Dave laugh with his singing cow-poke imitation ("I've got spurs that jingle jangle jingle...") and showing Terry the (mind bending) mirror part. We decided it was enough material for this session.

Victor talked a little about Aspiration, and went over the things to be aware of in the right hand: economy of motion, relaxation, moving in a plane, not digging into the instrument, not swooping, softness of the hand... We should all have the right hand technique required to play this piece by now.

Victor said he had a nightmare in which Robert would come and ask Victor to show him the progress we had been making. "I just keep telling you this stuff, so that if that happens, I can say 'Well, I TOLD them!'" He then posed us with a couple more questions: Why is the thought of how we are doing in Robert's estimation important? and Why is it that in Guitar Craft, we pay attention to how we are using the hands, past the point where it has an impact on the sound of the piece?

GH

Meeting Notes #20

Sunday, November 3rd, 2002, 8:15pm
Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

Attendees – Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Dave T, Terry T
Full House

The meeting began by arranging the stools in a semi-circle and tuning using the three fork method. We began with the second melody of Aspiration. Victor went around the semi-circle giving individual adjustments.

Next we moved onto looping bars 9 – 13 from Third Relation. At first we played with no instructions. Then Victor asked us to put attention in our, left and right elbows, then our right forearm releasing any tension. Then our left hand onto our pinky. What was it doing? What it was supposed to be doing. Then attention was brought to the left thumb and palm trying to achieve a balance between the two. While keeping our attention on our left had we were asked to bring attention to the left hand of the person to out left. Then we played the entire Third Relation at a fast tempo. We then played it again at a slower tempo and were asked to place no focus on out own playing only that of the rest of the group. We did not play very well this time. We then were asked what things did we thing were important from the viewpoint of group focus and what was important for individual focus.

Some of the attributes relevant to individual attention:

Fingering and Position
Correct hand Position
Intonation
Sense of place within the piece
Relaxation
Actively generating goodwill towards fellow musicians

Some of the attributes relevant to group attention:

Timing
Timbre
Group Posture
Tempo
Message of the piece
Environment/Space/Acoustics
The Audience

This led to a discussion about the energy dynamics of playing.
While playing some energy is consumed, this causes fatigue. Some physical energy may also be generated. Higher level energy may be generated as well.
This higher energy can be, wasted, released, or passed on to the next performance.

Glenn commented that he wasn't sure that "bottling up" the energy generated by playing was a useful strategy. Victor said that "bottling up" wasn't exactly how it works. There is a level at which we operate that is finer than the energy that is created, and that part of us can put this energy to use, in ways that are perhaps less self centered than we normally conceptualize. Being present to the energy and not just blowing it allows it to be put to use.

We played Third Relation again and were asked to concentrate on some of the group items of importance. People said they initially seemed to have problems maintaining the balance between being aware of themselves, and of putting attention on the group, but that as the piece progressed this seemed to get easier. It was noted that some people were annoyed by the way that they played, and others were annoyed by what they heard in the playing around them.

We did three circulations at successively faster tempos counting and playing 8th notes in 4/4.

(Count, play and count, count all but only play your number, play with out counting.)

This worked out evenly as there were 8 participants.

We too a short break.,retuned (three forks) Victor told us a Zen parable.

“One Day while while Nan-ch’uan was living in a hut in the mountains a strange monk visited him. Nan-ch’uan greeted him saying , “Please make yourself at home” and then left to work in the fields. He worked hard all day and came home hungry and tired.

The stranger had cooked a big meal for himself, threw out the leftovers food and broke the utensils, and went to sleep. When Nan-ch’uan stretched himself out to sleep the monk got up and left.

Years later Nan-ch’uan told this story to his disciples, commenting “He was such a good monk, I miss him even now”

We played Thrak, then just looping the G part of the Rock and Roll Section .

We started but failed to complete Larks Thraak.Then we played through Larks Thrak twice. We finished up with Aspiration. Victor spoke about the parts in Aspiration. He also said we should be ready to perform maybe even next week.

MB, GH