Meeting #49

When: Sunday June 29th, 2003. 8:15 pm
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B., Glenn H., David K., Alex L., Victor M., Dev R., Dave
T., Terry T.

This is the first week in a while that everyone is here. Victor asked the group to arrange ourselves in an arc. After everyone is settled, Victor struck the tuning forks. We played the set as follow; Circulation, Eye of the Needle, Third Relation, Calliope, Flying Home, Larks' Thrak, Bicycling to Afghanistan.

Afterwards we took a break. Victor asked for a volunteer to help him set up the recording equipments. Victor informed the group that there will only be one take. The began playing the set with Aspiration as the last piece. After the set was performed, Victor asked that we perform Flying Home again.

Victor suggested that the group are ready to perform all pieces in 2 weeks. The next meeting will be Sunday June 6th.

Terry Tungjunyatham

Monday, June 16th, 2003

Happy Birthday, NE GC Repertoire Project!

Meeting #48

When: Sunday June 15th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Glenn H, David K, Victor M, Dev R (15 minute man), Terry T.

The meeting began without Dev.

We began with the 16 Bar exercise for about 10 minutes. Victor then had us stay on the C (middle finger). We were to try to play as evenly as possible. Victor told us to relax, and the immediate tendency was to play quieter; we were told to still play at the previous volume but relaxed. Victor then had us play quiter, then quieter still, then louder, then louder still, then back to medium. Victor then said he would call out a person's name, and the rest of the group would follow that person through volume changes. David lead, then Glenn, then Terry. Victor then had us follow him, this time varying speed as well as volume. Finally, we followed Victor through changes in timbre, speed and volume. We stopped for a moment, and then went back to the 16 Bar exercise.

Next we moved onto the "set".
We played Eye of the Needle.
We played Third Relation.
We worked on the Rock and Roll section of Thrak. It was tough going for a while with all the missing players. We finally got to the point where it could be played honorably. Victor told Terry and I to push the G chord on the 5, but make sure not to push the tritone chord on the 2. Likewise, Glenn was to push the 3. We worked on this some more (with Victor throwing in a few alternate voicings for his section). We then played Larks/Thrak. We went back to work on the Rock and Roll section. This time we were to play "chugging" the 1/8th note pulse while also playing the chords, and to gradually move to just the chords, but to keep the feel of the 1/8th note pulse. We then played through Larks/Thrak again.
We then played Flying Home (after a false start). David got some clarification on the transition from the intro/midtro to the D. We played it through again, and it was a bit better.
We then played Calliope three times through (the third time just to piss Terry off).
We then took a break.
Dev arrives.
We played Bicycling to Afghanistan, twice. Dev mentioned that for a brief moment in the F# section, he felt a feeling of bliss. David noticed it also. Victor warns that bliss can be bad, in the sense that you don't want to lose yourself in it. It's important to stay grounded, though the bliss threatens to transcend the physical reality of the playing. If one were to practice 6-8 hours a day for a few years, one might be able to simultaneously be in both places. Better to save the bliss until after the performance, but even then a musician should be ready and available to what will happen next, so being caught up in the emotion is not necessarily good. In large groups, often the more experienced members sacrifice much to stay grounded and keep the larger whole stable. Victor has often seen Robert do this.
We played Bicycling one more time. Dev asked if we played it slower, Victor says no. David comments that it felt in fact faster.

Victor tells us to keep working on the set as a whole, keepnig focus through the entire set. If we only have time to do (say) three peices, don't always do the first 3. Another option is to play the first and last section of each piece, whcih will compress the time for which to keep focus. Glenn asked if we could run the set backwards sometime. Glenn said that he finds when he gets to Afghanistan with the group, he is listening in a different way, as if it takes time to "tune" the listening. Victor suggests to ponder this idea and the idea of playing the set backwards. David asks where in the set is Circulation. Victor says that Circulation (including "choose a note") and Aspiration aer flexible as to where they may appear.

DK

When: Sunday June 8th, 8:15 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA

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

The meeting began with us bringing part of our attention to our left hand. We then played Eye of the Needle. Martin was late to the meeting and after he was situated we brought attention to our left hand again.We played Third Relation, Calliope, Flying Home. There was some discussion about the feasibility of playing Calliope with accented picking in the leads. We chose to stick with it. Flying Home was very rough and speed up the first attempt, Victor called to leave it. The second attempt was a little better but again we speeded up and Victor called to leave it. The third attempt was at a better more consistent tempo and while not the high point of the evening we were able to make it through. We then played Bicycling and did fairly well until the outro. Victor called to run it from the last A section till the end. We played Larks Thrak. Many people seemed to drop out in Larks, but Thrak (not at a drastic tempo change!) was executed with only minor disturbances going into the second R&R section.

We performed a circulation. Victor asked us to bring attention to our left hand and mental center at the same time. He asked how well we were in contact with our thoughts. Keeping this in mind we circulated again. Victor asked us to bring attention to our left hand and emotional center at the same time. He asked how deep our contact with our emotions and feelings was. Keeping this in mind we circulated again. Victor said how this played out was “textbook” but that we could go further and deeper with this, bringing a freedom to our playing. We are free because we are in contact with our thoughts, emotions, and fingers. He said that taking our playing to the next level is really just a matter of being more sensitive and in touch with our centers.

We played Third, Bicycling, Calliope and Flying home again. We took a break.

Victor asked us to give him a schedule for the summer. We discussed what that meant for each of us.Victor  spoke about the end of the project. We each know what we must to, how high we must individually set the bar and what we can take from this project. The outcome will have ramifications with respect to the circle, future project and each of our involvement in such. Victor said we had created this baby and it was up to us to polish it up to its final state. Victor said he believed that there we also implications for this project with respect to its effect on the world, however intangible it might appear to us. Victor said that at this point in the process we can really start to get a sense of the reality of what the end will be like, and therefor we can plan accordingly. If you try to do this too early on it is almost impossible, since the view of the end is too foggy. Victor spoke about how like the ennegram and how a certain point the future can effect the past as in the case of techniques such as Visualization. Victor used the analogue of a meal. During its preparation we may visualize the complete-served meal in order to facilitate correct preparations to get there. Victor said he would like us to do something (perform) these pieces rather that just running them in the room, but he wasn't averse to that either.

We must each examine what it is we need to do in order to complete this course, and then plan accordingly. It's really pretty straightforward at this point.

Victor said, "You can forget everything else I have said, as long as you remember what I said about being courteous."

MB, GH

Meeting #46

When: Sunday May 18th, 8:30 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T.

The meeting began with a short circulation.

We played Bicycling to Afghanistan.

Victor gave us some dynamic suggestions, mostly for the two lead parts.
Intro: Same relative dynamic
A: Lead 1 comes forward, Lead 2 plays as softly as possible still being heard
F# (first half): Lead 2 comes forward, Lead 1 plays as softly as possible stil being heard.
F# (second half): Switch (Lead 1 in front, Lead 2 in back)
A, F# same as first time.
Eb: Drop down in volume, both about the same relative loudness.
C: Lead 1 comes to the front, Lead 2 stay at the same level of the Eb section.
Eb, C same as frist time
Reintro same as intro.
A F# same as first time.
Outro, same as intro.
The second C section could be thought of as the dynamic peak of the piece.

We played Bicycling to Afghanistan two more times. Terry feels that these times were much faster than any times previous. Victor raised a question to the group, "do we all know our parts internally?" In another words can we hear our own parts in our head? We did an exercise of playing our parts in our mind and then clapping on the last note. We counted off, clapped on the first note in unison, then there was almost-silence for about 4 minutes. Did we clap at the same time? No.

Victor asked if we all had the experience during the 'clap at the end exercise' of fading out, then needing to decide where we were in the piece and continue. We all nodded. He said that this is really the thing that we need to work on.

Victor said that there is part of your mind which is supposed to be distracted. It's the part of your mind which is trying to figure out 'is that branch a snake' or 'can I trust this person' or 'does this person think I'm weird.'

Victor asked, If you walking down the street, how do you know that you've had your attention in your hand the whole time? How do you know you drove hear tonight? How do we know we sat down on our stools? Glenn said that the first question was different from the others, because in the other questions there were external methods of verification. Victor called the physicals results of a process 'residue.' Later on he asked, How do we know we played Bicycling to Afghanistan tonight, there's no residue? He said there's part of you that is always watching the rest of you operate.

Musicians must play from a point of synthesis. Most of us approach it the wrong way around. Playing from a point of synthesis means that if you need to apply a little of your analytical mind to the piece at a certain moment, that you can do so without losing your center.

Victor said that working on playing from synthesis, or playing from the ever watchful place within, is where the metaphor of 'working on one's musicianship is the same as working on oneself' begins to make practical sense.

What it comes down to is applying your musicianship to a piece of music. That's really all we're trying to do. You could try to say that analytically, but then there would be several sub-components to each of those terms. Can I bring my musicianship into the circle, and apply it continually to the entire moment of the piece?

He said that you can't actually be in contact with every moment of the piece simultaneously, but you can hold the whole piece in your mind. He gave us an example of how we might think about each section of Bicycling to Afghanistan, thinking about our strengths and weaknesses, and mapping out how we were going to approach each section.

The original derivation of the word "understanding" was standing under your experience.

He said he wished that the minutes were a little more verbatim what he said. There were some comments about taping the meetings. Glenn quipped that perhaps Victor would like to write the minutes. Victor said that a teacher that he knew once said that most students can recall only about 10% of what is presented.

Victor brought up the fact that Glenn has been trying to play Eye of the Needle 'note for note perfect' for quite some time, and failing. Glenn felt that the problem was in right hand. Victor asked if was his hands or his head. Glenn said he wasn't sure, but it was a lack of precision, that somewhere in the flow of notes, a slight mistake always crept in. Victor said that saying it was a lack of precision was stating the obvious, since if it were precise there wouldn't be any mistakes. He also mentioned how masters sometimes hide a mistake on purpose in an otherwise perfect piece of art. He made sure to point out he wasn't talking about himself here. Victor said that we actually practice 'making mistakes.' Someone asked if we should stop when we make a mistake or keep going. Victor said it almost doesn't matter, as long as we interrupt the mental habit that caused the mistake.

After the discussion we played Eye of the Needle. At this point, the group has not played the piece in months. A comment was made that our sense of pulse was much better than when we began the project back in July of last year. Victor agreed.

Victor gave us an exercise in applying our imagination. For practice the next three weeks, before and after we play each piece, we are to see ourselves as being the person who plays the piece without mistakes. Victor mentioned that this was a good aspect of using imagination but there was a dangerous side as well.

Really try to play with attention in the hands the entire piece as well as attention to where you are in the piece as a whole, being in touch with past and future parts through the piece.

Victor said that we should think to the person in us who can play the piece that we are doing all this practicing for them. In other words, dedicate our efforts to our higher selves.

Glenn said that he was doing the practice for the person who can't play the piece in hopes that they might play the piece some day.

Victor said for the sake of this exercise, we should think that the person who can't play the piece never will be able to play the piece.

He said the funny think about imagining that we are the person that can play the piece is that the person doing the imagining actually doesn't exist, and the person being imagined (our higher selves) is the only thing that is real.

Victor said that we need to take responsibility for being powerful spiritual beings.

There will be no meeting next week. The week after is Bennett weekend so there will be no Circle meeting. The meeting will resume the week after (June 8th).

GH DK TT

Meeting #45

When: Sunday May 11th, 8:20 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees: Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M, Dev R, Dave T

We arranged our stools in a circle. Victor called out Bicycling To Afghanistan. We ran it. Then we tried to play it again, but it broke down. This happened a few times, but we finally were able to run it two more times. Each subsequent run-through was slower in tempo. Victor talked about playing it more on the staccato side, and that we have yet to err on the staccato side like we do on the legato side.

Victor then asked Dave, Alex, and David what they thought about our work on this piece so far, and what they thought the problems were, etc.

Glenn brought up the point that our transition from the second half of the F# section to the Eb section was weak, and that we had not spent much time working that transition. We then looped those two, noting that it felt very, wrong to go from the Eb to F#.

We then ran the piece once more through, and then took a break at about 10pm.

After the break we played The Third Relation, and then Thrak. We worked on the second polyrhythm of Thrak for a little bit. Victor then spoke about reviewing the older pieces and keeping them up to date with the newer pieces. We talked about upcoming weekends and rehearsals, noting that next week The Sweepers have a gig at All Asia at 6pm. Due to that performance, we are moving the rehearsal next week to 8:30pm. We talked about the Bennett retreat, which looks like it's going to be the last weekend in May, and that if we're going to miss any rehearsals from until the end of the project, we need to let Victor know as far in advance as possible.

We ran Bicycling once more. Victor then spoke about how we are working our hands too hard. We should be able to play for one hour straight without any breaks and not have our hands get tired. Victor emphasized practicing for one straight four-hour session once a week if possible. He also spoke about keeping up with the primaries every day, and being able to count each piece. Having the automatic foot-tapping response is not enough any more.

DR