Word
A report by Alessandro Bruno.
D.L.F. Bologna, 13/05/2006
8 of us: Adriano Clera, Stefano Simioni, Roberto Duse, Filippo Guerini, Aldo Garuti, Roberto Deiana, Alessandro Papa, myself.
Attilio Songia, who’s been a steady member of the Italian Circle for the past two years, didn’t make it, and he told us he won’t be able to participate to this upcoming project: a real pity.
11:00 – we walked into the conference room I hired for the porpoise, set it up quickly and, at
11:30 – we sit in a circle with the guitars in tune.
– Warm up with the first 3 chords of “Fratres” arpeggiating in a slow motion.
– C Harmonic minor – The scale – The scale played using the “slide” – Circulation C Harm. Min.
– Presenting the new Theme R. introduced in Lunlunta.
12:45 – we put the guitars in the cases, then back in the circle where we begun a long talking meeting.
I introduced to the team the TTA AAD mainly by referring what has been said about it in Lunlunta, and reading/translating the info posted on the GC and TTA web sites, the email exchange between me and the TTA AAD production team, and, finally, the latest post on the website “Introduction to Tuning The Air At-A-Distance”.
The first question you suggested: “do you see yourself as part of this project?” everybody felt they already answered by being there. So we quickly went to the second.
My leadership is confirmed and I offered my proposal for a possible (in terms of commitment) scenario to be discussed, giving everybody a copy of a spreadsheet where I listed:
1 – The names of the members (organised in 2 subgroups, one centred in Rome, the other in Venice)
2 – The list of the pieces (with a priority code) of the repertoire (actual and potential) assigning the voices to the players in a way that both small and big groups can practice/rehears/perform them (there’s still room for fine tune here).
3 – A list of possible dates for meetings of both small and big groups.
14:00 – Lunch break: an opportunity to feed ourselves and to let the whole load of information to sink in…
15:30 – Back in the circle for the actual discussion about What, How and When.
The idea of the 2 subgroups seems to be ok; we then have a look at the calendar to fix few milestones:
1 – The main site for this project will be Rome (which means that all the full circle’s meeting/performances will take place in Rome)
2 – The format will be somehow in between the two extremes (weekly-location-based-performances or a one-big-shot of a week-long-tour/lbp toward the completion of the project); that is:
I) – a first weekend on June 16th/18th featuring Ken Lawton who’s by chance in Rome for holidays, for whom we’ll perform on Sat. the 17th, and with a slight chance to have R. for few hours on Sun the 18th (I still have to ask him)
II) – it seems all of us will be is S.Cugat in August for few days during R. staying (A. Papa will attend the whole L3); so we’ll possibly meet there, rehearse and perform for the house
III) – a 4-5 days project with Curt to be set up between September and October, according also to his necessities and availability, (there might also be some other circles or individuals attending the course in Europe who would like to have a go with Curt and we could arrange it to make it worth it for him and for us)
IV) – A Final Big One: a long weekend (4-5 days) in Rome performing every day or even twice a day (venue still to be found), as culmination/highest point of the whole course, with proper promotion and produced with the experience gained during the previous six months.
3 – Two more full group weekend meeting can be placed in July (21-22-23, A. Papa won’t make it for this one since he’ll be in S.Cugat) and September or October (as distinct from the project with Curt).
4 – Then we have all the meetings (with possible performance) of the small groups (actually 2 quartets) which can be one day long, there will be 6 of them at least, they still need to be arranged but they really represent the “bricks to build the house”.
Recapitulating: in terms of meetings/performances our commitment will be:
3 long weekends (S. Cugat, Curt, and Final Big One – Full group)
3 weekends (Rome – Full group)
6 one-day-long-meetings (Rome/Venice – Quartets)
Also, at a personal level, we set a minimum standard: Morning Sitting – one hour guitar practice – circulation of the limbs – marking beginning and completion of the day by a Salutation in the morning and a recapitulation in the evening – visualising the other members of the team sending them good will.
About the locations we might go in the direction of having several different places: S. Cugat is one, then we’ll need one in Venice for the Northern Quartet (it could be Adriano’s living room), one in Roma for the Southern Quartet (again my living room, maybe), one for the full Circle, and another one, still in Rome, for the Final Big One.
At the moment I just met a group of people who run a music school/rehearsal place in Rome, (it’s the same place where R.F. & The LCG will rehearse the day before the beginning of the tour), they are interested and available to support us, so we’re going to use their facility during our first full group weekend in June and we’ll hopefully understand by then what kind of collaboration will be possible with them (have a look: http://www.centrottava.it/page.php?NAV_id=2); potentially we could use one of the big rooms they use for clinics and workshops for our full group meetings/performances (having the exclusive use of it for the whole weekend); then, as our relationship will evolve, they might even help us to find and run a more suitable place for Final Big One, but the whole issue of the location(s) still needs to be properly addressed and investigated.
Another issue still to be defined is the “form” which could work best for us: at the moment the only form we could think of is very much like yours (acoustic guitars in a circle with the audience in the middle), this also might change as we’ll understand a bit better for us What and How.
At the moment we’re still a bunch of Crafties with a shaky GC repertoire and a wobbly technique to perform it… Then we’re Italian…
So, we’re 8 people all in all (there’s A. Papa’s situation who’ll be also attending the L3 from mid July to end of August, but he’s really willing to participate to this one and we need him… !); we’ll pay as a group and in one shot (PayPal) taking advantage of any possible discount.
Also a potential for future participation of one or more members of the family of some of us, might come up, but that’s more in the future…