GCNE Meeting on 9/20/04
The Hughes Residence, Somerville, MA
Martin B, Glenn H, Mary Beth A H, David K, Dev R

We arrived between 8:15 and 8:30.We all had a cup tea and a bit of a political discussion and then got down to business. We circled and began with David’s suggestion of running a piece to warm up. We played EotN with Glenn on High Harmony Lead, MB on burbles and the surprisingly in tune David, Dev and Martin on bass.

Glenn then showed us the first half of Hammerhead (Fripp/Geballe) and we worked on each of the sections until we were tried to play it completely, with varied levels of attainment but enough for us to begin work on this piece.

After this we began to work on the new composition. We started as Victor had suggested by doing and embroidery and then stopping and looping various part with each other so that melodies, bass, etc could be developed. Glenn came up with a melody that worked well with a chordal progression from Dev, David and Martin combined a chordal part and a melody part together for the first section. Glenn came up with a second section and David and Martin came up with a counter melody. Dev commented that it sounded like a Level 1 composition and Glenn said he felt that was indicative of group composition. I sensed the group worked well in out first group composition effort.

After recoding the various sections for posting the web/future work, we completed the meeting with a circulation, which I felt had some very nice things happening in it.

MGB

GCNE Performance
Noreascon (Sci Fi gig)
Saturday Sept 4th, first set 5 PM, second set 6:30 PM,
Hynes Convention Center, Boston MA
Martin B, David K, Glenn H, Alex L, Victor M, Terry T

GH

Guitar Circle New England Meeting

When: Sat Sept 4th, 12:30 PM
Where: Victors House, Roslindale MA
Attendees – Glenn H, Martin B, Alex L, Victor M

Those that could make it met for a pre-Sci-Fi gig rehearsal at Victor’s House. Glenn, Alex and Victor worked on Bicycling to Afghanistan (slow version), and some circulation. Martin arrived. We ran through both Flying Home and B2A slowly then at our faster tempo. In B2A the basses were having problems with the chording section before the midtro. We did a circulation, then a fast circulation ala Hope with three circulators and then a fast circulation with four circulators. We tired speeding up the circulation but the rhythm between the upbeats and the down beats got herky jerky. Victor commented that we could only play as fast as we had space enough for the notes and that we must hear all the notes to effectively speed up.

Martin B

GCNE Sub-group meeting
Thursday Sept 2nd, 10:20 PM
Terry T's Apt
David K, Glenn H, Victor M, Terry T

We ran through some of our repertoire in anticipation of the upcomming Sci Fi gig.

Sunday August 29, 2004 In attendance: Mary Beth A H, Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Alex L, Victor M

The meeting began with Mary Beth, Martin, David and Victor present. Victor began playing the Aspiration theme, and we joined in. We were asked to count 4 groups of 3 notes out loud. We played like this for a while. We then switched to counting 3 groups of 4 notes. Glenn arrived and joined in. We played like this for a while, then we stopped vocalizing the count and continued playing. After we stopped I mentioned that when we stopped counting and continued playing, the piece had a very different feel (I was feeling the upbeats more instead of the "usual" way I feel it as: 1-and-uh, 2-and-uh, etc). Victor said we should spend at least 2 minutes every day on this kind of exercise, as it's one of thre very basic skills, and that if we can do it, a lot of other things will just be there.

Victor did not have the tuning forks, so we relied on those of us with tuners on our guitars to tune, and give notes to the others.

We next worked on various bass parts of Flying Home, Mary Beth being show the main D section. We played slowly and counted 7 groups of 4 notes while we looped this. We then moved to the E section, again counting 7 groups of 4 notes.

Victor asked for observations on the Luau performance. Martin mentioned we had gotten a lot of good comments, including from a jazz DJ friend of his who saw us at both Luau's and said we had gotten better. Glenn said he enjoyed playing more the year before. Victor said he thought we weren't needing to work as hard this year. I said that I felt somewhat disappointed, but also felt that the previous year was about the best that group could have accomplished, while this did not feel like our best, hence the difference.

We spoke a bit about the upcoming Worldcon/Noreascon gig. Alex arrived and we began running through the available repertoire. We played Eye of the Needle (Victor reminds not to rush the last notes), Third Relation, Flying Home - We looped the F section, for quite some time, trying to pay attention to keeping a strict grid. Victor said that this was a good one to practice for endurance. Glenn gave Martin a suggestion on left hand positioning, Bicycling to Afghanistan - we worked a lot on the C -> midtro section, Larks Thrak (Victor told me to play quieter during Larks as a way to help with speed and do less work. This did make a difference the second time through), the Bartok piece, Israel, and Hope. I had flubbed a part of unaccompanied arpeggios, stopped, and picked up near where I left off and asked Victor what one should do in that kind of situation. Victor said you can find a place to pick up as if you were beginning again and to bring that feel to it,and also to remember that everyone is on your side.We played an 'embroidery.' Victor said to think in terms of voices and harmonies when playing as opposed to individuals.

We decided to meet at Terry's on Saturday morning at 10:30am to practice, and meet at Worldcon at 3:30pm.

We had a discussion about the website, where it was decided that since we are not yet at the stage to actively present ourselves, we should not be spending a lot of time on it. So we should keep it mostly as-is, but add a link to a web calendar, which I will be keeping up to date.

DK

GCNE Performance
When: Saturday August 21st , 5 PM
Where: Lake Mishnock, West Greenwich RI, Martin and Laurie’s 12th Annual Luau
Attendees – David K, Glenn H, Mary Beth AH, Martin B, Terry T, Victor M, Melisande G

The rain was already in full swing as the GCNE personnel trickled in. We were behind schedule with the music and everyone reported the traveling was difficult. Discussions were had as to the safety of performing, as even under the big tent it was very moist. The rain was forecast to stop later on so the delay in starting was beneficial.

We assembled on the second floor in the dormer that is still under construction, but there was enough room for us to form a circle. We did some awareness work and ran through most of the repertoire and did an embroidery.  We were without Dev and Alex who was supposed to join us did not. Victor asked Glen if he could play bass on B2A but he declined. Victor asked us to focus on what this performance was for us and what our goals for the performance were.

We hastily assembled a small PA as the band that was supposed to bring on did not show. The PA gave us some starts but it was finally set up and we sound checked and want right into playing. This seemed to be the agreed upon course of action due to the delay. We started with a circulation of which we did 2, we covered most of the other repertoire and performed Bartok’s “Hommage a JSB” and John Carisi’s “Israel”. The latter sounded very fitting in the moist air of the evening. We did not play Calliope. The crowd was quite appreciative and young Noah K seemed particularly animated by the whole proceeding. I have never had a baby so close in the audience and it lent a special feel to the audience response, which was reciprocated in dad David’s smiling countenance. Having my sister in the audience was also a treat for me as she had never heard us play before. The foot tapping on the hollow plywood was quite noticeable and when I realized how loud I was I restrained it somewhat.

We finished and exited the stage and circled on the porch to acknowledge the performance and give thanks. Victor, Terry and Melisande reassembled for a “acoustic” Sweepers set that was wonderful. 

All in all it felt like a quiet but, steady evening of music assembled and performed under not the most ideal conditions. There was good reactions and comment for audience members following the performance.

Martin B

GCNE Rehearsal,
August 14, 2004,
Terry T's apartment, Boston MA
In attendance: Glenn H, Mary Beth AH, Martin B, Terry T, Victor M, Melisande G

Were scheduled to begin at 9:30 AM, but we didn't actually get underway until about 10. We had a good rehearsal, in preparation for next week's luau, with one break, working on Third Relation, Eye of the Needle, Bicycling to Afghanistan (which I sat out), 'Embroidery', Homage to J.S., Israel, and Flying Home. Victor asked, which of us thought we were good guitarists. The meeting concluded about 1 PM.

GH

GCNE Meeting
Dojo, South Boston

Minutes for August 8th written on August 31st and revised further on September 9th, 2004

Attendees definitely included Victor, Dev, and Mary Beth. Possibly David and Martin. I don’t think Terry was there. Glenn was away at a music workshop.

We played Israel. Dev hadn’t learned the main parts of Israel (due to being away) and played the bass line with me. He jazzed that up….instead of playing once for each note, he played a “ba-bum” for each note. I picked up on that trick and played “ba-bums” as well.

We played other pieces in our repertoire, but I can’t remember which ones. I made a note of how we sounded without Glenn. It seems that he fills in the sound when he is in the group.

Because we struggled with our sound and rhythm during out meeting, Victor led us in some exercises where we each got a beat or an “and” of a beat. I was the “and of 3” – the last before we began with “1” again. We practiced clapping on our part. At one point, I clapped on the “and of 3” twice in a row all by myself because I imagined that we had begun the count. This happened because I had my eyes closed and excited focus on the counts, but had lost touch with what the group was doing.

Minutes submitted by MBAH

GCNE Meeting, Boston Commons

Sunday July 25, 2004

In attendance: Martin B, Glenn H, David K, Victor M, Dev R

Victor sent an email in the morning saying that we were to play the park, and to meet at the ususal time at the Blue Man Group theater. Due to the Democratic National Convention, downtown was very crowded and hard to find parking. When I arrived, Glenn and Martin were already there, and Victor poked his head out. No one had heard from Dev, so we figured he was probably on his way or already at South Boston. Using TT as a lifeline, Victor reached Dev and told him where to meet us. We walked over to the public gardens, met Dev, and decided to set up on the bridge, leading to the Horse's Ass. We played a few numbers (Bicycling (3-piece), Calliope, Third Relation, Lark's Thrak, Embroidery) and were then told by a very polite and sincere-sounding mounted police officer that we were setting a beautiful tone for the space, but his captain was asking him to make us go somewhere else. It seems musical instruments are not allowed in the Public Gardens, but we were free to go over to the Commons instead (I had visions of being chased back and forth all night).

So over to the Commons we went, and we set up at a crossroads. We had a fairly permanent audience consisting of a drunk man in a wheelchair and a man with with no arms (though we did lose them by the end of the night). We again played a number of our pieces (all of the above, plus Homage a JSB).

Some comments from the audience that night:

"This is some complicated stuff" (after Bicycling) "Don't take this the wrong way, but this is the kind of music I use to fall asleep" - coming from the drunk guy, that was a fine compliment "Have you ever considered writing Nintendo music?"

During our final Embroidery, fireworks for the DNC started going off, seemingly in time with our playing.

DK

Sunday July 18, 2004
In attendance: Martin B, David K, Glenn H, Mary Beth A H, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T

The group worked on Israel and review different parts for people who weren't here last week.  Then we went over the melody part for Israel.  We had slight trouble with the quarter note triplet in one bar of the melody section.  This became a homework assignment for the members to figure out and get a feel for it.

The group took a quick break.
We came back and visited the following pieces,
Bicycling to Afghanistan
Third Relation
Flying Home
Calliope
Bartok's Hommage to JSB
Eye of the Needle

We talked about other possibilities of music that the circle could perform.  Victor suggested something fast like 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' and other Guitar Craft pieces such as 'Driving Force' and 'Moving Force'.  We also talked about possible dates for the NE Circle retreat...possibly in September.  It was also suggested that there should some sort of a concert or porformance at the end of the retreat.

Next meeting is Sunday July 25.

TT

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
Sunday July 11 2004, 8:20 PM
In attendance: David K, Glenn H, Mary Beth A H, Terry T

We worked on Israel for most of the night, beginning with the full chord forms, then moving onto the arpeggiations and base-line. MB held down the bass for most of the night. Once David and Terry had the arpeggiations going, I played the melody over top for several rounds.

At the end of the night, we slowly review the lead part of Flying Home. We left at about 10:30. An early night.

GH

Guitar Circle New England Meeting

When: Sunday June 27th, 8:25 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees &Mac246; David K, Dev R, Glen H, Mary Beth AH, Martin B, Terry T, Victor M

Victor gave us the task of picking one thing to work on for about and hour and then presenting it to the group. The one thing was supposed to be something that you were somewhat close to getting right, but just haven't yet. People then moved off on their own finding a niche to practice. After a little over and hour (and Victor coming by once or twice to people to observe and make comments), we reconvened and each person presented their work.

After everyone had presented, Victor spoke about preparation and concentration. He spoke about five parts of preparation:

1. knowing the rhythm of the piece
2. connection of the body
3. connection of the hands
4. knowing how it is supposed to sound
5. knowing how it is supposed to look

He then spoke about concentration, and mentioned four parts:

1. Information
2. Emotion
3. Feeling
4. Meaning

After the discussion, Glenn presented a new jazz piece and played it for us twice. Victor decided it was too much work for us to take on at the moment since it was already a bit late.

DR

Victor had the following to add:

There are two distinct (somewhat interpenetrating) stages that we need to address. (though one could add four others which would include completion.)

Preparation is important before we manifest performance. This stage can take place very quickly, but on some level we need to have contact with all the relevant sensory functions (kinesthetic auditory visual) (and I'm subdividing kinesthetic because for a guitar player both the full body and the hands are relevant perspectives, and I'm adding a sense of rhythm which is a more complex perception which is strongly associated with the kinesthetic sense). This much is basic.

There are in addition to this other seats of experiencing which one can have a deeper and deeper connection with, which have to do with the form of a piece or performance, the emotional quality, the meaning of a piece or performance. There are perhaps more (the social significance, the psychic significance, the spiritual significance) but this is enough for now.

It's a general rule that the quality of preparation will effect the quality of the beginning, which will in turn effect the middle and the end. (though, thank god, this isn't always so). If one observes closely, one see in oneself or in another, which aspects of preparation a performer is strong in and which are weak. Sometimes, only one aspect needs to be overlooked for there to be disruption in the performance, so this is why especially in the beginning of our musicianship it is important to be thorough about the stage of preparation.

One other thing to mention here is the transition from preparation into action can require some letting go. Sometimes we over prepare, or we find that the medium we are launching into isn't quite what we expected. We must also be strong at Adaptation.

Concentration is equally important. Concentration gives us the ability to focus on the relevant and maintain the execution of what we have prepared. Concentration is used here more to do with attention, which functions on all centers than with the intellect, which is perhaps in our culture where we first encounter the idea. We concentrate on a book. We can also concentrate on our hand, or our love for our parents. A performer has contact with a wholeness which contains these many categories mentioned above and maintains an adaptable focus on that, much the same way as while I am writing this to you I'm maintaining a sense of what I'm trying to say, how I'm going to say it, and more or less successfully typing it too.

Again with concentration, one can observe which categories one has a hard time maintaining focus on. These categories with practice can be slowly and gently brought to attention, and included in the wholeness of one's focus, so that their activity does not distract or fragment one's attention.

One needs to explore one's own experience of these categories and their wholeness. My seeing is not another's seeing, my hearing is not another's hearing. The aim is to arrive a rich and deep wholeness which gives us access to the variety of ways that we might be perceived by different people, and to the profoundly diversified unity of the creative world.

Guitar Circle New England Meeting

When: Sunday June 20th, 8:25 PM
Where: Ultimate Self Defense Studio, South Boston, MA
Attendees – David K, Dev R, Glen H, Mary Beth AH, Martin B, Terry T, Victor M

Martin and Victor were already there when everyone else arrived. We sat without guitars and Victor stated that he would like to go through the Master exercise once more. Victor said that he felt that the inner work from this exercise was very beneficial for those who we able to work with it. Victor asked if anyone had questions on the exercise and a short discussion ensued. Victor made a comment about bringing attention to a specific part of the exercise at least once a day. We began and completed the exercise with David explaining that he had to lie on the floor as he was about to pass out. The exercise seemed to me to be more powerful this time.
The rest of the meeting we discussed plans for future gig possibilities, work weekends (inc possibly one with Tony G) current and future repertoire. Victor talked about analyzing a piece to see if it’s right for the group and our individual strengths.

MB

(10:20 AM) Circulation - improvisation - circulation, Eye of the Needle.
Hope. During the offering. A rocky start, but then it fell in place.
Bartok Homáge as a 'Benediction Response.'
Third Relation as 'exit music.'

Only a couple of people listened to 3rd Rel, as it was drowned out by talking. However, the response from the audience members afterwards went beyond the polite, and well into the enthusiastic.

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
May 16th 2004

Attendees: Victor M., David K., Melisande G-F., Martin B., Mary Beth A.H., Glenn H.,Terry T.

We started the meeting without guitars with some relaxation exercices. First we did one that helps relaxing the whole body but especially the arms and shoulders (knees bent, back and forth rotation of the upper body!). Then we bent over paying attention to the spine and the movement of each vertebra. We sat down and we put our attention in all the parts of our body starting with our feet. While we were in a relaxed state we did some visualization of numbers, 2 bars of 4 with the "and" moving from the left. We tapped our feet and clapped on the first 2 and the second 4. Standing up we did the march tapping the 16 notes with our hands (this way it was easier to not speed up) and we vocalized the 2 and 3 of the first measure and the 1, the and of the 2 and the and of the 4 of the second measure... we did 3 bars of those 2 measures and 1 bar of improv keeping the and of the 4 of the second measure. Victor talked about the importance of knowing and feeling the role of each beat in a measure

We put our guitars on and we tuned. We played Eye Of The Needle, I liked that version I think we played it well. Then we played Larks and Thrak, I couldn't remember my part which was weird to me and I played "random" like David said. After refreshing our memories (mostly mine!) we played it again. Glenn showed us Hope and we looped it few times. Then it was the Bartok piece (which I still need to learn), the circle played the known part of it for a while and it ended up sounding pretty nice :-)

Moment of silence and we concluded around 10:30pm.
I was lucky enough to get a ride home with Glenn, thanks :-)

MGF

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
Sunday May 9th. South Boston.
Attendees: David K. Méli G. Mary Beth A H. Glenn H. Victor M. Terry T.

We began the meeting working on Circulations.
Next, Victor asked us to visualize a 16 point grid. We worked with tapping our feet to mark time, while visualizing our place in the grid. Then we added the clapping of some syncopated rhythms. I found this difficult, and commented that the rooms in the mansion (visual and rhythmic) didn't seem to have much connection. Victor said he was trying to do a little rewiring. We continued this work standing up and marching in place.

A little talking after we sat down. We committed to a date for the OCBC gig (June 13).

I presented the first two sections of Hope, and we all worked on the cross-picking a bit.

Next, we worked on the Bartok piece, playing through the first 8 bars. This was the first time most of us had heard both voices.

GH

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
May 2nd, 2004
Attendees: David K., Victor M., Dev R., Terry T.

The meeting began by the members putting the guitars away. We began the "master" exercise (a sitting exercise presented at the Bennett meeting).

Next, Victor presented a clapping exercise with the clave. Victor asked us to tap our feet and visualize the count while Victor tapped out a clave pattern. The challenge for us was to clap the same pattern. It's important that the group should be able to listen to a riff of music and identify the points of rhythm of the riff. It is also important to be able to notice the different quality of the upbeats and the downbeats which should help in our playing.

The group visited Calliope. Victor worked on the basses for a bit. Victor also suggested that the all four of us should make a commitment to practice at least 1 minute a day. The 30 seconds of the 1 minute practice should be devoted to the rhythm exercises presented previously in the meeting.

The meeting ended early. Dev will be in India for the next 2 weeks.

TT

Guitar Circle New England Minutes for April 25th, 2004

Attendees: Victor, David, Glenn, and Mary Beth

Pre-meeting….David practiced some guitar in front of the dojo, Victor saw MB eating pizza through the window of a South Boston local deli, Glenn went to get cash….then, all convened. Upon gathering, it was determined that Martin was in Montreal, Meli was also in Canada, Dev was not able to come. We thought Terry would arrive…but later we determined he might be recuperating from a tough week of exams.

Therefore, it was three plus Victor. Victor admitted that his plans for the evening were a bit de-railed because of the smallness of the group.

We started with a bit of quiet and then launched into EotN. Victor asked of MB was ready to play the burbles alone. She replied that only if we went at her current play-able speed of 60. So, that speed was agreed to.

We got off to that nice comfortable start. The first run revealed the trouble spots: (1) making the long transition from the first to the second part of the melody to the burbles, and (2) then getting from the second round of “13” to the burble line played starting on the 7th fret. The group supported MB in working on these things…and progress was made.

Victor talked of the importance of working backward or inside out to address trouble spots. He mentioned that Tony Levine…according to Robert F…only made mistakes once (heart sank here)….but then Robert F said that it was infuriating (a bit of hope here).

In the end, we played EotN three times, then Victor presented us with a one-page song to learn (a tribute to J. S. B.). Glenn and MB are to learn the treble clef part and David and Victor will learn the bass clef. This will be a song that the whole circle learns in the next month or so.

We then did circulations. Victor said we did pretty well on these and suggested we tried for perfection. Before beginning again, MB asked about the art of releasing notes. Victor responded that knowing when to release a note depends on experience, and with experience comes skill at choosing the sound desired for the finish of a note.

After the second, good-but-not-perfect round of circulations, we took a break.

After the break, Victor worked with us on beats….feet keeping time R-L-R-L with hands tapping quadruple time compared to the feet, but representing 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and.

We practiced accenting the 2, 4, 3, and 1. Then, we practiced accenting the “ands.”

Victor told a story about the secret of funk being the “and” of three! More song/music references were made as we hit upon each sound accent. Glenn broke into song at one point (what was that song? what was the accent?). We did some improv with the beats. Then, we sat down and Victor asked us if we had questions about playing the guitar.

David mentioned that he was having trouble with the stretching required during parts of Bicycling to Afghanistan. Victor noted that an extra “eighth of an inch” could be achieved by properly placing your thumb on the back of the neck of the guitar. He suggested that we often think only of our fingers instead of the whole hand.

The thumb should act like a pivot point allowing enough rotation so that the hand can move as needed especially when there is a big stretch for the fingers.

Glenn mentioned relaxing the hand…feeling like he needs to relax his hand more and that once he does that, the mind will follow. Victor began a discussion about the interdependence of physical relaxation and mental relaxation. He pointed out that relaxation does not mean “soft.” I interpreted relaxation to be between soft and hard. In addition, Victor mentioned that when you are playing fast…there is a lot of activity...so there must be a certain amount of action in the hands (and head, I suppose), so you cannot be completely relaxed in our common sense of the word. This led to Victor mentioning that our society has the one word “relaxation,” whereas other cultures have many words for relaxation. As a thumbnail of our culture—“relaxation seems to mean grabbing a beer and sitting in front of the TV.”

As a final take home note…perhaps a theme for this part of the meeting…you really need to find your own answers and this may not mean using your intellect.

Well…another set of minutes accomplished. I always take this role begrudgingly unless I have planned to do the minutes--thinking way in advance of the meeting, “I will do the minutes tonight.” It is hard for my brain to accept a To Do list item on a Sunday evening when looking toward the week…but this is an area where I need to place my attention.

However, the act of doing the minutes is always fun and a good exercise in beating the “Curve of Forgetting” (http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infocs/Study/Curve.html), and I always enjoy writing…obviously.

Minutes respectfully submitted by M. B. A. Hughes

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
April 18th 2004

Attendees: Martin B., Glenn H., Mary Beth A.H., David K., Dev R., Terry T.

No Victor this week, but Glenn was given stuff by him for us to work on.

We began around 8:30pm with the Practice of Doing Nothing With Guitars for 15
minutes.

We then worked on some right-hand calisthenics, with special attention being
paid to upstrokes. We started with just downstrokes at a fairly fast tempo,
then just upstrokes, then a pattern of 4 downstrokes followed by 4 upstrokes,
then 4 downstrokes (8th notes), 4 alternate picking pairs (16th notes), 4
upstrokes (8th notes), 4 alternate picking pairs (16th notes).

We then split up into sections with metronomes to work on the bass and lead of
Calliope, with Mery Beth working by herself on Eye of the Needle lead and
burbles. We were to pay special attention to transitions and to play at a
tempo where we could play well. We then re-joined and played Eye of the Needle
with the metronome. We looped the intro, attempting to count in 13. We then
played the piece through again. We then worked on Calliope with the metronome
also looping cowboy and main section. We noticed a big improvement as we went
along in terms of staying with the metronome.

A suggestion was shared that when doing a transition that invloves a big leap,
if you need to look, look at where you need to go, not where you are coming
from.

We then took a short break.

We re-convened standing up without guitars, but with a soccer ball to work on an
exercise Mary Beth shared with us from her Pilobolus work, which involved
circultaing the soccer ball; standing close in a circle with both hands palm
up, and trying to keep the ball moving arond the circle smoothly. Then same
thing with direction changes, again trying to keep the movement smooth.

We then went back to the stools with the guitars and did some circulating.
First with the metronome, playing on the upbeats. Then two interlocking
triangles, one of which ciruclated ont he downbeats, the other on the upbeats.
Then putting down the guitars, we circulated clapping saying the person's name
you were passing to, then saying the person's name you received from, then
saying the name two people over in the opposite direction you were passing to
(so if passing to the left, say person's name two to your right).

We finished up with some quick message-relaying from Victor to hold off on
de-briefing about the Skybar gig until we were all present, and for the
Performance Team to start thinking about promotion, booking and repertoire. We
had a brief discussion about trying Asturias, Invocation, and worked briefly on
the first two bars of the main section of Hope.

We concluded around 11:30pm.

DK

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
April 4th 2004

Attendees: Martin B.,Glenn H., Mary Beth A.H.,Victor M., Terry T.
(later Dev R.)

The meeting started around 8:20 PM.
Setting up mats in a semi-circle. Tuning up.

It's nice to have heat in our work-space. Martin suggested it's perhaps too much. We worked on Aspiration, going over the form. Then Eye of the Needle. Since we were a little short-handed, we took the opportunity to do some detail work on the bass-lead interaction, looping the intro. We played Bicycling to Afghanistan two or three times, Victor taking the mid lead. Dev showed up.

Work on circulation, playing, clapping, counting out loud, etc. We talked about the balance between sensing your point in the ongoing flow, and remaining available to tempo shifts. Lark's Thrak. The intro was a bit sloppy as always, but the 'body' was tight. Terry broke a string. We talked about the music, musician, audience triad. Glenn asked a question about relaxing the wrist, which led to Victor into a long and valuable discussion on one's relationship to the body.

GH

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
March 28th 2004

Attendees: Martin B., Mélisande G, David K., Glenn H., Mary Beth A.H.,Victor M., Dev R., Terry T.

The meeting started around 8:20 PM.
Setting up mats in a circle. Tuning up.

We began without Terry and Victor asked us to chose a note from the following (I don’t remember what they were). Then we heard Terry coming so we waited. Victor asked Terry how he got in and someone said they left the door ajar. Victor asked Terry to close it and commented that if he was not smart he would be locked out. Terry was smart and returned to the circle.
We began with a circulation, then ran the repertoire pieces Eye, Third, BtA, Calliope and Larks Thraak with 2 runs through Eye, Larks Thraak and multiple runs through BTA. People seemed to be struggling with Larks and we looped sections of BtA, the A & F# sections and the C & Eb sections. Glen is now playing the base part on BtA
We put down the guitars and moved the mats for some movement/ visualization exercises. We moved around the room attempting to keep the most space around us the when Victor called stop, we tried to form as symmetrical a circle as we could. It took a long time to make the circles and the first one was not very circular. The second was better. While in the circle we held out hands up palm towards the person next to us at shoulder level and then did a mirror hand exercise, following with the left and mirroring with the right and then reversing this. We ended these exercises with the visualization of a sphere that filled the circle and that we all had out hand moving on the outside of. We shrunk this sphere inward till it was a foot or so in diameter then on a count released it by throwing it upward.
We re-circled with guitars and added the visualization of a sphere at the center of the circle as a starting focal point then moving to looking at the person across the circle from you. Victor noted that even thought you may have to look at your guitar the awareness of the other person should not go away.
We completed the meeting with an improv and circulations. The circulations seemed better tempo wise but Victor indicated that we still not using all that we know. We need to work on recognizing the tonal centers of the circulations and not theorizing or guessing at which notes to play.  To that end Victor assigned us the homework of singing while playing a C major scale starting at the root and moving up the octave note for note returning to the root after each ascending note then starting at the upper octave and repeating the pattern in a descending scale. Victor also sated that next week will be our dress and that we should have all the rep ready to go, including a having Larks either ready or if not resigning to not play it during the performance.

MGB

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
March 21, 2004

Attendees: Martin B., David K., Glenn H., Mary Beth A.H.,Victor M., Dev R., Terry T.

Formal minutes were not kept for this session. Here is an extract from my diary:

Played through our repertoire, spending the longest time on Thrak.
MB and Meli picked up some parts.
Quit a lot of circulating also. Not bad, given we haven't played this material together since last August.
Glenn signed up to learn the Bicycling to Afghanistan bass-line for next weekend.
Flying Home was dropped for now.
We were instructed to have the pieces up to performance tempo for next meeting.

GH

Guitar Circle New England Meeting
March 14, 2004

Attendees: Martin B., David K., Glenn H., Mary Beth A.H.,Victor M., Dev R., Terry T.

The meeting started around 7:30 PM.
Setting up mats in a circle. Tuning up.

Started with Circulation in C major. Going fast but had some difficulty with tempo.
Switched to clapping, starting the six counts with Glenn. Pause after Victor. We sounded like a popcorn popper. Our objective was to hit and stick to the rhythm. We held on for a while. Observation by Martin: holding hands apart eliminated the delay in clapping right after the person before you. I discovered I was better at this with my eyes closed than open.

Terry arrived soon after making us “7.” We did circulations with chords. Laid groundwork for a new hit single.

Did circulations by counting out loud (1 – 7) and clapping on every other count. Discovery during process…this meant that evens got a clap the first time around but no clap the second time around.

Additional variations of circulating. Example: two rounds of 1-7 in sequence, two rounds of skipping every other person, two rounds of every third person, then two rounds of every fourth, etc. Geometric patterns arise while doing this.

Exercise in exploring the presence of other people. Guitar off to the side for awhile. First, moved about the dojo trying to stay far away from others and the walls. Then, one person was “it” … that person had to move closer to people while the rest of us tried to move farther away. Periodically, Victor had us “freeze” and visualize where everyone was.

Circulations and the presence of others:
(1) Know who is sending you the note (most important).
(2) Know where you are sending the note.
(3) Have an awareness of everyone else in the circle.

Back to chord circulations…in sequence and counting at your turn. Then, counting your count when the person to your left played. Example, I played 4th, but said “4” when the 5th person played. Then, the next time around, I played 4th, but said “4” when the 6th person played, etc. We did this until we were saying our number when we played. Then, we repeated from the top. We got in a few successful rounds of this.

More circulations with single notes and changing directions. As we were wrapping up, Martin asked how we could develop skill at doing circulations. Victor’s response was to play while listening to a metronome, play your notes between the clicks.

Performance team is a go. First performance will be April 13th at the Sky Bar. Warm up act for the Sweepers. Bring friends. If there is a problem with paying the $5 cover, tell Victor and he will take care of that. Good to have friends in the audience.

Eight pieces from the performance project will be played. Practice those.

Assignments: (1) send Victor an email about what parts you can play – encouragement to play the parts you played during the performance project, and (2) continue to think about your aim for the performance team. Next meeting, 3/21/04 will be for the performance team. Expect to see the aftermath of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade next week.

MBAH

GCNE "everybody-in meeting"
Meeting #1
March 7, 2004
In attendance: Martin B, Mary Beth H, Glenn H, Victor M, Dev R, Terry T.
Place: Victor's Loft

The meeting began with a sitting exercise. An analogy of the horse, the carriage and the rider was presented along with the exercise. The carriage is the body, the physical center. The horse is the emotional center that pull the person in certain direction. The rider is the intellectual center that navigates the unit.

After the sitting exercise, everyone picked up their guitars and we began to tune.

Our first activity with guitar is circulation. the members are asked to choose any note, but choose the right note.

The second activity was Eye of the Needle. We only looped a certain parts.

The third activity was thrak. Victor diviided the group in to two; one group plays in 5 and the other plays in 7. Victor reminded us that we need to maintain the several qualities that we use to practice thrak (eg. tapping the hands in 5 against 7, tapping hands in 5 while count in 7, and vise versa).

The fourth activity was a vamping exercise in A minor. Victor began passing out parts to each of us. The challenge of the exercise was to maintain the pulse while tapping left and right foot.

The fifth and last activity was a circulation in C major. The challenge was to maintain a fluidity and the briskness of the pulse with a certain consistency. Victor gave a suggestion that it could be helpful to pay attention not only to the note that your playing but every other notes that are passing around. It is as if we are playing every note of the circulation.

The next meeting is scheduled for Sunday March 14 after the Ben Bennett meeting.

TT