Word
Roma, 19/11/2009 (by Alessandro Bruno)
I arrive at Roberto’s around 8 p.m., I find there Adriano who has just arrived too, Massimo Di Giacomo and Alessandro Papa who are here since the afternoon to help Roberto with shopping/preparation; so, as Duse can’t make it, we’re just waiting for Filippo and Michele to join us.
Massimo takes on responsibility for the kitchen, and dinner preparation begins. As dinner is served, just after 21:00, Filippo is at the door; we eat and chat. Michele calls and Roberto goes to pick him up at the metro station. While the kitchen is being done Michele eats the food we left for him, and by 22:30 we are ready for our inaugural meeting.
As the personal aims are declared quite few indications emerge to show us the different aspects of our work for the weekend: AAD material, repertoire, circulations.
I also inform them that next Saturday evening a life-friend of mine (Sergio) who turns 50, invited us to play at his party.
Then we acknowledge that Massimo won’t be part of the performance team as he’s not ready yet, and because his main need now is to become able to follow the AAD work; so he’s going to be part of the Circle except when we rehearse the repertoire; during those sessions he’s going to do some personal work on the AAD material that Al, Adriano and Filippo will show him.
At 23:30 we decide to leave the beginning of our work with guitars for the following morning, so I leave and drive my scooter back home.
Roma 20/11/09 (by Michele Agazzi)
7.00: Rise
7.30: Sitting
8.00: breakfast
9.00: Warm-up:
Adriano leads the right hand exercise. We play and counting on 4/4 bars 60 bpm, 16esimi 1 note, 2 notes. 3 notes, 4 notes, 5 notes, 6 notes, 7 notes and return.
Filippo leads the left hand exercise. We play with two finger, 3 notes each string (5th and 4th string) at 100 bpm. It seems “frame by frame” pattern.
10.00: We play “Are you able?”. We begin with chords circulations, then we play the arpeggio with final harmonic and then we assemble the parts.
11.00: Alessandro Bruno joins us. He leads the circulation work and we play different circulations with 2 notes of our choice.
12.00: Personal practice – Lunch preparation
13.00: Lunch.
We speak about the mail that Robert sent to Al and the related diary entry, the Sassoferrato organisation in march 2010 and the economic contribution to the people from Argentina in this situation.
14.30: Back in the Circle – Lark’s circulation. Alessandro Bruno leading: he prepared scores about the parts.
15.30: Filippo leads the scales exercises – we play C maj and G maj, first position on the fretboard.
16.30: Tea time
17.30: AAD exercises: Vrooom arpeggio with 1 and 2 strings and count; division of attention pattern in 4/4, counting bars in 3/4, 5/4, 7/4, developing variation pattern – counting bars.
18.30: Roberto Deiana and Massimo di Giacomo have their AAD recording exercise to complete and post. Adriano, Alessandro Papa and Michele work with a division of attention exercise and also play “Revive the world” with help of GP5 software.
19.30: Dinner
21.00: Repertoire. We play standing, as we’re going to stand tomorrow for the performance.
We play:
Askesis
Cutting Branches
Fireplace
Calliope
Starving Moon
Se Solo Sapessi
Thrak
Blockhead
The Quails play:
The Construction of Light
Quails over America
Airs a fair fuir
All together again:
Are you able?
Revive the world
Massimo Di Giacomo is next door practicing the AAD material: Developing Variations. As we complete the repertoire session he joins us for some more Circle work.
Roma 21/11/2009 (by Alessandro Papa)
07.00: Rise
07.30: Sitting (all the people that stayed in the house were ready to begin, but we decided to wait a bit for Al because he was in late, coming from his house. We formally begun at 07.40)
08.15: Breakfast
09.00: Warm-up. Adriano guided the Circle for the right hand, and Filippo for the left hand, introducing the Hammer-on and the Pull-off technique.
10.00: Massimo goes next door: he has quite some material to struggle with.
Repertoire Rehearsal – standing:
– Askesis
– Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter
– Fireplace
– Calliope
– Starving Moon
– Se solo sapessi
– Thrak
– Blockhead
– Are you able
– Quails over America
– Airs a fair fuir
– Asturias
– Revive the world
11.00: Massimo joins us back – Circulations in Cmaj (video recorded):
– Basic form to the right
– Basic form 3 skip 1
– Basic form 4 skip 1
– Basic form from right and return and from left and return
– Variegated form 3 minus 1
– Variegated form 4 minus 1
13.00: Lunch – Risotto with mushroom and salad.
14.00: Circulations in Cmaj (video recorded) part.2:
– Basic form with addition – left plus 1
– Basic form right minus 1
– Basic form right 3 skip 1
– Basic form left 3 skip 1
– Weeze (single note than magic chords, single round and round-trip)
– Free circulation
15.30: Run through
16.30: Tea time
17.30: Quiet time
18.00: Are you able for the circulators
18.30: Small groups (QOA – Blockhead)
19.00: House work
19.30: Personal preparation for the performance
20.00: Departure from the house. We decide to do the Rotation of the Limbs every 30 min.
21.30: Party, Performance, Departure
A note from Al:
As we collect ourselves just before leaving the house I suggest that, on top of the exercise we already set, during the travel we do only necessary talking and focus on memorizing the set list.
We drive with 2 cars and a scooter, to go from Roberto’s to Sergio’s we cross the town, and it’s Saturday evening too! It takes almost 90 minutes, but we manage to stay focused and connected to an acceptable degree; then the parking: mission impossible…
We collect ourselves downstairs and go up all together, as we open the door we’re presented with the “terror of the situation”: heat, lots of people in small groups, eating, drinking, chatting, hi-fi system set to “pretty loud” pumping sound into an already filled room: a party, what else could have been? As we stand there a question mark on all our faces saying: “How can be possible for a bunch of people like us to present our work in such a context?”
The question stays with us for over an hour, during this time we socialize, eat little food and keep a constant contact among ourselves. Then Sergio gives me the sign and indicates me the space where we should stand: our stage…
We move into our green room where we stay for about 15 minutes; we tune, go through the set list, collect ourselves. I ask for help, knowing that only a miracle could save us.
We walk in a different place: most of people sit on the floor facing the now empty space we’re aiming to; we take the stage, go through our procedure (acknowledging ourselves, the group, and then the audience) while the last chatters would calm down, and then begin.
We agreed with Sergio for a short set of about half an hour so our shorten se list:
C maj circulation
Askesis
Cutting Branches
Calliope
Airs a fair fuir
Starving moon
Se Solo Sapessi
Fireplace
Quails Over America
Thrak
Anchors:
Are You Abel?
Blockhead
We played mistakes of various categories, we also had highlights; in terms of audience we got them (with the exception of a bunch of teenagers being wild in a room next to ours on the left wing of the house), they were also benevolent…
Massimo assisted us in various ways, some visible some less visible, but all crucial for us; so, although I saw a couple people looking at him in an unsettled way as if they were asking: “What the hell is this short-dark-guy-with beard-and-woolly-hat doing in here???”, it was a great support for all of us…
Three performance related things to remember:
1 – The situation was such that we didn’t even know where we were going to play, we couldn’t take the space-hold it-protect it; we had to pay for that.
2 – Due to the necessities of Are You Abel? Circulation, we had to move Adriano from the centre of the horseshoe (where he’s always been) to the left next to Filippo, as a result we had a weak centre and two unbalanced wings, the small group pieces were also affected by this arrangement.
3 – We decided an adjustment in the final part of Fireplace’s circulation without rehearsing it: although it didn’t take us into a major crash, it sounded neither tight nor precise, and unintentional.
By no doubts this unlikely situation (I have personal responsibility to have accepted Sergio’s invitation, of course) will contribute to build up our body of performance experience; may we learn from it.
00.40: Back to the house and completion of the performance.
Roma, 22/11/2009 (by Filippo Guerini)
Chez Deiana.
7:30: Rise (later than the previous days for returning home late the night before).
8:00: Sitting
8:45: Breakfast (three people in charge to be quicker: Roberto, Massimo and Filippo).
9:15: Guitar practice, beginning later than scheduled. Having only one hour, the idea was to explore all five aspects of practising.
Chalistenic. Right hand: open A string with rhythmic variations, and cross picking; left hand: hammer-on & pull-off, and an endurance exercise.
Fingerboard. Cmaj and Gmaj scales in open position.
Repertoire. Introduction to Revive The World.
Ear-training. Listen to a note from the Cmaj scale (first octave) played by the person on your left, then re-play it.
Play: Improvisation on Sartori in Tangier!
10:20: Comments on yesterday’s performance, generally seen as done in a logistically hard situation, but for a well receiving audience.
11:00: We saw the video from our performance in Roma during our last meeting, on 27th September. We played, and looked, better than we are generally capable of.
12:00: final meeting, discussing the Road to Sassoferrato, and the near future in general.
The weekend was completed at 12:23. A quick lunch, then those who had an early train left the house, while the others stayed to complete the kitchen and house work.