march 9 art loft

dev chris david alex victor elan
we arrived at the new earlier time. after setting up and some quick individual warm up we began our work with elan. we began with some talking about what we were do when we sit quietly just before begin, this gave elan some sense of where we are each at. he presented a sitting exercise and worked with applying the work of the exercise into the playing of the instrument. it was also suggested we take 30 seconds or so at noon to revisit this work during the day. after we finished up with elan we began a 15 minute warm up on the right hand, working at first on the 2nd primary and through the 3 note ostinato variations of the 2nd primary. we began to do section work focusing on askesis with the click track at various speeds. after running into various walls we began to look more individually at what we are doing that makes playing for extended periods of time so difficult. elan will not be at the next meeting but looks forward to a series of ongoing meetings after that.

march 2nd art loft

dev, chris, glenn, alex, victor

after the successful completion of our performance challenge, we've decided to undertake a short recording project. there was some discussion of practicalities. the pieces on the list are: flying home, askesis, passage, love is green, invention 1, lifelight, and chrysanthemum.

we worked on flying home with the click track. notes given were for bass players to play the last A before dropping down to the dmin section, be sure the first C is good loud, and that the last C is also well nailed and properly muted when returning up to the re-intros. leads should learn to also hear the phrasing of the notes at the bottom of the arpeggios. also, the piece should be easily counted by all.

askesis also saw some click track work. it was suggested to study one's relationship with the metronome regarding time feel. as an experiment we asked the basses to shift to playing slightly ahead of the beat during the 15/8 section. there were a couple of cycles of clear success in this, and it had the effect of moving the bass to the front of the soundstage. there was some discussion of what it might take to develop skill in playing in front of, or behind the beat. there were noticable open string ringing from poor use of the left hand in some of the intro and tricky part arpeggios. it's critical for recording that there be no extraneous noise, especially as we are going to be recording to open mics. again the whole piece should be easily counted by all.