sunday 16th oct

MB, Glenn, David and Victor at the sbsdapc dojo.

We spent a good bit of time opening with a basic sensation exercise, filling the body with sensation from foot to head. We focussed a bit on eye of the needle and time, and then going over parts for askesis. We put down the guitars and stood facing each other marching in step. we then clapped the 3 voices of the rock section of thrack for 4 bars each in succession. when we could do this we moved divided the 3 voices among the 4 of us and rotated the voices every 4 bars. Some time was spent discussing the upcoming course. The meeting ended a little early because everyone was so tired.

Sunday October 23rd 2005, Circle Meeting Minutes

South Boston, Guitar Circle (New England) meeting. Victor, David, Martin, Mary Beth and Glenn present. We worked on Askesis, running the piece a couple of times. Victor asked if everyone had a good mental map of the piece. We did a verbal walk-through of the structure. After running it again, MB said that the only way she could approach it was by feeling she was happy playing the piece. Victor said that, as you might be enjoying driving, knowing where you were going (having a map sitting on the seat next to you), would actually help you enjoy the drive even more. Thrak. This was improved from where we were a couple of weeks ago. There was some discussion about playing ahead of, or behind, the beat. We moved on to Intergalactic Boogie Express. Victor asked me to learn the lead part. David MB and I stayed in the main room to work on the lead, while Victor and Martin went next door to work on the bass. I worked with a bit with David and MB on the main 7 note pattern. MB went off to work on it on her own while David and I worked on counting. I got a drink of water. We all moved on to working at the 'Spriglet' rhythm. This was very good work, and I felt we made significant progress. Victor came in and played the bass line along with our clapping. Martin returned as well, and we all circled up, working through the first three sections of the piece. We are all to look at our tab for next time. Another run of Askesis. Some talk about the upcoming course.

Past two Sundays

Sunday, 9/25
Attenddees: Victor and Mary Beth, so the evening became a lesson.

Highlight: Victor led exercises in how to learn music quickly. He uses three strategies: (1) seeing the pattern on the fret board, (2) hearing if the notes are low an high, (3) getting the pattern by grouping the notes in 2's and 3's.

He played me (MB) a series of notes. I had to determine the groupins. I got better at doing this with practice.

Minutes for Sunday, 10/2:
Attendees – Victor, Martin, Glenn, David, Mary Beth, Terry.
Place – Victor’s basement studio

We circulated for a while.

Then, started with EotN for Bridge before he went to bed. Moving from that, we played Growing Circle. V suggested that MB learn the lead line but not for the event on Oct 8th. We played the following songs to go over what we can play for 10/8 – the Bach piece, Third Relation, Bicycling to Afganistan (with Victor, Terry, and Glenn), Moving Force. We also played worked on Thrak. Rhythm trouble led to clapping exercises. We did four sets each of clapping on 1 & 4, then clapping on 1 & 3, and then clapping to 2 & 5. This exercise led to some improvement. Then we went back to playing Thrak. V made the very helpful comment about keeping up the count even when you are not playing. Otherwise, the song drags.

We talked about a three-week circulation course. This would be led by Victor and have a format of 8 hours per day of work with participants staying locally in houses.

We may or may have an official meeting next Sunday.