Meeting #44

When: Sunday May 4th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Terry T,

Official minutes were not written for this session. In their place, I'm posting the relevant entry from my diary:

During the circle, we played Bicycling to Afghanistan through several times. One time we played it three times in a row. We seemed to do 'better' at faster tempos. It's one of those pieces, where your analytical mind can really get in the way. Victor rearranged the circle slightly, and it seemed to help. We did a little circulation, which was a welcome contrast. We looped sections. I asked Victor about dealing with distractions. He had a few ideas, but in the end he said it all boiled down to focus, and suggested that some of the exercises discussed in the last Bennett meeting might be the answer. I forgot to ask for a volunteer for the minutes.

GH

Meeting #43

When: Sunday April 27th, 7:00 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T,

David's wife Jessica sat in as an audient for the about the first half hour of the session.

We began our evening with a run through of Bicycling to Afghanistan. The results of this prompted some studied work on the Eb section, then the C. Once Victor appeared satisfied with this, we began work on looping the Eb/C. It only felt like forever.

After about 20 minutes, the Eb/C peters out. Victor says, "I didn't say to stop". 1, 2, 3, we start again.

At this point, Terry arrives to join the fun.

A brief discussion about left hand (started by the author), how to release and bring lightness. Two of our company play the C section staccato, which for the author, produces a much different, and lighter quality in the hand. We can work to have the fingerings available to us as we play (this is but one of the many benefits of the First Primary).

An observation from Victor that this is easier than we make it out to be. This piece is not any more difficult than the other pieces we have attempted, and in some ways is somewhat easier. Sometimes our head takes the pain of the work as the work. Sometimes our mind knows it can be easy, but the body won't let go. A suggestion for the author is made to take a 4 hour continuous session, once every week or once every two weeks, with this type of exercise to help train the body and mind that this is possible.

Mention is made of the nine parts: head of the head, hands of the head, heart of the head, etc. This work with primaries and fingerings could be considered the head of the hands.

A return to Eb/C and then to an A, F#, Eb, C, Midtro loop.

We stand briefly to stretch our bodies, curling down from the neck, through to our lower back and waist, and back up again. We raise our arms and hands to shoulder height, and stretch outward. Finally, a Tai Chi exercise, allowing our bodies and arms to swing freely about.

We complete the meeting by honorably playing the whole piece through twice, the first with Victor playing with the leads, the second with Victor supporting the basses.

As we exit, Victor asks that we maintain containment, and that we use only necessary talking as we leave.

A.L.

Meeting #42

When: Sunday April 20th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B, Glenn H, Victor M, Dave T,

Tonight, we worked almost exclusively on Bicycling to Afghanistan.  First, we looped the A and F# sections separately then together. We looped various combinations of basses (Dave, Martin) and First and Second leads (Glen and Victor). We then moved on to the Eb sections again looping the section. This seemes to be the hardest section to loop. Then we worked on the first C section noting the alternate line for the bases on the 4th, 6th and 8th bars and that for the second time through (not looped) the alternate line would occur on the 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th bars. We then worked on the ending and then the midtro to the ending looping this before a short break.  Victor showed us a portion of  "Vulcanization"  a precursor to BtA that starts off with 5's vs 6's then, 6's vs 7's progressing up to 13's vs 14's. This requires 6 people committed to learn and Victor said maybe this could be for another project.
 
After the break Victor did some technical work on our right hands as the group was small. We cycled the 4th primary and Victor worked with each of us on our right hand position and execution. Some general comments were:
-         The grip of the pick should come from within the hand
-         The down stroke should be a release, the upstroke the opposite
-         There is a greater grip at the moment the pick contacts the string. Victor related a story of Roberts were he tested this by asking someone to try to remove the pick from his grip with pliers and they were unable to.
-         Focus should include the fullness of the wrist and the alignment and length of the hand
 
We then stood and Victor led us through a stretching exercise that and Alexander instructor had shown him. This was introduced as great exercise for prolonged practice sessions. First Victor said you should stand comfortably with you hands by your side and shoulders relaxed. The first part of the exercise which we didn't perform is the classic bending down from the head, forward allowing the head to lead and the spine to curve forward one vertebra at a time, down and back up to get the spine in a correct position.  The second part of the exercise which we performed consists of raising the arms with hand palm down, imagining the hands are repelling each other. At the point that the hands are parallel to the floor, each digit is stretched away for each other, one set at a time, pinkies, rings, middles and indexes each time to gain a millimeter or so more stretch apart. When reaching the thumbs the hand is rotated 90 deg. So the thumb is on top of the hand for its stretch. After the thumbs are stretched the arms a lowered back down to the relaxed position by the sides.

MGB

Meeting #41

When: Sunday April 13th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B,Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T

Tonight, we worked exclusively on Bicycling to Afghanistan. First, we worked on the intro, into the A and F# sections, then just looping the A and F# sections. We broke down each section, listening to individual parts. Terry arrived. Victor then showed us the endings, both 'standard' and 'new' versions. We continued working through the song, looping the Eb and C sections into the mid-tro, then looping the mid-tro into back into the A section (as if it were the beginning of the song: mid-tro, A, F#, A, F#, Eb, C, Eb C etc.) Glenn asked a question about how to keep our knowledge of the other pieces from atrophying while working so much on this piece. Victor said the answer is fairly individual, but that one principal is to allow yourself to reexamine how you play pieces you already 'know' in light of where you are playing from now, rather than playing them the way you always have played them. Some people practice their musicianship, other practice just playing the pieces. We will be meeting next week.

GH

Meeting #40
When: Sunday, April 6th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T

We continued Bicycling to Aghanistan (and boy were our arms tired ;-)

We ran through all the individual sections together, and adding transitions and adjacent sections. When there were particular trouble spots for people, the other parts were asked to drop-out (and sometimes the other person in the section as well). We also learned the overall form of the piece:

Intro

A, F#, A, F#
Eb, C, Eb, C (with variation for the leads on the second C; not sure if basses have a variation)

Midtro

A, F#

Extro (We didn't all learn the entire Extro - we all learned the "-tro" and the unison descending line. The 2nd leads need to be shown how to get into the descent, but they learned an ascending line leading up to it).

The basic form of the descending line is, beginning at the 17th fret:

Amin (using fingers 4,3,2) - same chord as in 3rd Relation, using different fingers
Gmin (down a whole step, using fingers 4,2,1)
Big Afghanistan chord, starting on 12th fret
Little Afghanistan chord (starting on 10th fret.)
6ths (using fingers 4,3,2,1 starting a 5th down from start of Little Afghanistan - the pinky starts on the same fret the middle finger was just on alternating on the E and A strings, each note being 1 fret lower then the previous note))
Amin (starting at 5th fret using fingers 4,2,1 an octave down from previous Amin)
and then the following notes:

G (3rd fret), Bb (1st fret)
Bb (3rd fret), F (1st fret), Bb (1st fret)
A (5th fret)

DK