Course Journal: 8/14 through 8/16
Tuesday, August 14 2007
Camp Caravan
10:22
Beautiful day so far. Gorgeous. Sunny, just warm w/ a cool breeze. MarkB (the elder) played again at breakfast, one piece with the loop setup, one piece acoustic. Nose ran during the sitting – right on down to my lip. The sittings have all been around 40 minutes so far, this was closer to 45.
Learned a bit of that DiMeola pice ? Sunrise, with Collin Chris, and MarkB (the younger).
21:10
Cold. Maybe in the 50s now? low 60s, at least.
Tone Clock: 12 seats, C, C#, etc, through B. Note goes w/ the seat. Circulate any scale / chord via leaving out the seats not in it. Today, with this in the inner circle, similar but extended in the outer. C, G, D, Db major scales in 2 octaves, on/off beat inner/outer circles. This morning: full circle, Variegation Victor One (VV1). Didn't happen -> 12 "high flyers" in the middle to demonstrate, volunteered. Then, what became the Tone Clock by assigning chromatic notes. Primary Triads – I, IV, V. in C, F, G, Db. I was G#/Ab, so didn't play much.
Dinner: tofu and portabello. So-so. Side of carrots and orange squash – better. Side of white squash and peppers – even better. Dessert: chocolate peach soufflé. Amazing. REALLY amazing.
Lots of discussion at dinner. Back ached. Will be meeting w/ RF in the Movements Hall [formerly the Ballroom, renamed as this is what it really is, a hall where Movements are practiced] at 22:15 for those "functionally proficient" in C major over 4 octaves. Others can be there w/o guitar, or can always work independently elsewhere.
Cleaned bathrooms w/ Chris P today.
Lunch: Hummus! w/ pita, cukes, celer, olives. ymmy.
Noticed feelings and thoughts aimed back towards Seattle, and some similar ones focused locally. Trying not to analyze them. Still concerned about all of the above however.
23:17
Almost everybody w/ guitars was at the circle. First: 12 inside, 13 outside. Chromatic notes assigned inside. Victor was the "joker" outside, without a note. Chromatics assigned to the rest of us (outside circle). I had A. Circulation in C, G, D, A, in/out/in/outer. Inside: EOTN melody (4/4 form). Rough, took some time, slowly w/ R playing along. Outside: play the same thing. One false start, then we had it.
Next: rearrange to a big circle of 25. Magic chords assigned, chromatically w/ shifts fo accommodate the limited fretboard (mine would have been E, was reassigned to C 4 frets lower, hmm – E C# G# D -> C A E Db? ). Three groups: whiz and return. Trading off in sequence. Then, 2 groups, one 11 (jax to Bob) the other 14 (MB to ?) incl. me. Competition: try to overtake the other group. I have absolutely no idea if we did. Fun. The audience (KT mostly, in the center) laughing. Finally, one group L w/ return, R w/ return, etc.
Before that, walked around a bit outside. Had a tea and talked w/ MB for a few minutes.
Jax mentioned at dinner a feeling of "unhinged" (my word) energy, and hazard. Meant to me it was time for a good ol' Thrak session. The magic-chord whizzes in the circle fit the bill. Some folks are playing Askesis – well, practicing at slow tempo. Interesting, my first impulse was to avoid it – energy leak. But it sounds like real work. Still, enough for me today.
Oh – spent some time w/ Collin and Chris workin on Red. Also, the Zepplin medley. Heard them playing it as I got out of the shower, went to grab my guitar. Fun to revisit that for a bit. Would've like to have played it at a meal, but without Igor and Travis, wouldn't have been right.
Wednesday, August 15 2007
6:50
The gys in the next room are talking about baseball right now. WTF?
15:05
Breakfast, tai chi. Tone Clock in the "bell tower", the top room in the house, at 11. Curt led for 1 hour. Major scales in various keys, modulating from major to Aeolian, then melodic minor (both asc. and desc. forms). Oh – people in the key were standing as they played. So, modulation meant people standing and sitting quickly, in sync. Fun. Break at 12, then I led us through modes from major down to Locrian. Then Lydian. Added droning Cs on the offbeats (played by the non-standing folks). Rob suggested Lydian Dominant – Ahhhh. Then Bill: Lyd. ascending, L. Dom descending. Wonderful. Tony – the Sharona scale, aka "The Whole-Tony scale". Me: the Miserlou / KFAD scale. Added the Miserlou rhythm – so from ChrisP around to Jaxie and back as far as Christina, w/ that group as it was. Tony added C circulations by the sitting folks, on the (syncopated) off-beats. Pretty cool. Finally – the same, with the off-beat circulators playing their respective former chromatic notes. Insane. Rob – "If loving that's wrong, I don't wan't to be right". Chris – "Dick Dale meets Shoenberg".
Lunch: black bean soup w/ some salsa and cheese garnish. Yummy. Not enough of it though. Also some bread / scone things. Can't remember exactly the flavor – like cornbread, but orange in color and no discernable corn.
Elan Sicroff visited for lunch. Some questions for him. TomR – "How do you visualize a major scale?" -> long talk on the "process" a major scale represents. A few mor deep questions and answers. Was very uncomfortable sitting there, hard to appreciate the answers. MarkB on my left – twitch city, constantly incroaching on my space. Ugh.
Worked dish cleanup w/ BR, LH, GH. Thought we had it done in 40 minutes, but the bread-prep pots and pans were off to the side. 55 minutes total.
20:30
Dinner. Linguine alfredo. Light on the sauce. Not bad. Salad on the side. Baked pear for dessert. Long silence. ChrisP (aka Chris the Younger) described a lot of what a lot of us have experienced: worry about relaxing, too concerned w/ playing the right note, wandering thoughts during the sitting, including "I don't want to be here". Everyone laughed. Jaxie said "Raise your hand if you know exactly what he's talking about!" – almost every hand went up. More laughter at that. He said, "I'm serious!". Everyone else said, "So are we!". David S. talked about "learning to whiz". Next to me, TomR, and MB got the giggles at this. I sat there thankful I didn't, and then someone mentioned "four people whizzing together" and I got the giggles.
Before that: tai chi, before that: AT, short lesson. Before: circle w/ Victor leading his Various Variegation Variations. Three minus one, reverse three plus one, etc. Two at a time, on opposite sides of the circle, skipping seats. Odd number of seats, so you'd do both. We did surprisingly well given the complexity. Only a few consistently "stuck" / afk people. [my pen ran out here] Ah, thanks to Jonathan for a fresh pen.
Victor called me Glenn once during the circle. MB was sitting on my left, so maybe that's what triggered it.
Meeting at 21:45 w/ R in the Conservatory. Sitting exercise. He mentioned this the other day – for those that have a "reliable sitting practice". My first thought was "yes". Then self-doubt as to the fact that my M-F sittings are < 5 minutes. But, it is established. So, I will go.
Thursday, August 16 2007
Camp Caravan
6:52
Exercise of last night: Containment. Do for 3-4 weeks and then leave it for 3-4 months.
Seattle group met at Bill's request at 10:30 in the bell tower. Whizz work. SBC there to help / listen. First a C major scale, then a blues scale – C D Eb E F E# G A Bb C w/ the 10 players. Took a while to get CF, DLV, and HH into the groove, but then found it more or less. Really had it by 12. Began w/ Bill at first, then w/ Tony after a while (holding the steady pulse that everyone else built off of).
Chilly last night. Kinda cloudy right now. Thankfully, no loud conversations going on in this building this morning [once, Jonathan said "You and I aren't quite so chatty as the fellows next door, are we?"].
12:41
Scrambled egges w/ dill for breakfast, courtesy of Collin and Chris. Good. Tai chi at 9:45. Full circle w/ R at 10:30. Various Variegations – 321,43,543,65, etc ("5/8 reversed, advances" in R's words, alternating retro 3 + 1, retro 2 + 1 in Victor's). Split into inner and outer circles, on/offbeat. Combo: 5/8 reversed,advances and 7/8 same? there were some "forward, in retreat" type things too.
Mild and breezy. Sitting outside the dining hall now, in the sun. Too bright, but nowhere to sit in th shade.
After circle, did a lie-down for a bit in the Movements Hall. Played Third Relation w/ SP and MB. Showed MB the "Hideyo" part in the beginning of Fragments.
Lunch soon. Ah – fun in the circle. Mark B. got frustrated and left. R sat in his chair. R picked up on the vibrato some people were using on every note, layed it on thick.
Showered after breakfast.
15:39
Chatted w/ MB for a bit after writing that. Sat down on the bench next to me. Talked about TTA and their GCNE performances. She choreographed a Feynman lecture! hah.
Lunch: wraps w/ cuke, spinach, tomato, and cream cheese. Cheese plate, some nuts / dried fruit. Three visitors from the Miller's River group. One is the head of the school – The Village School. K thru 6. Another – Janet – looks like DebraK's younger sister – talked about raising money. Wow. Said "$400,000 is one gift". It will cost them around $200k to fix the "Theater" building here. Small part of the $2m they need for the school to be built out back. In terms of raising money, she's the real deal. Some perspective for us Seattle folks.
Level T – cleaning up the main house bathrooms w/ Robert. Helped me to keep to necessary talking. He said 3 words – "I'll do that" and that was after we were done and getting assigned extra tasks (everybody worked quickly today).
AT lesson at 2:45. A bit of a myster as they often are for me. Not sure if I learned anything [I did].
10:02
R talked about the GC Institute soon-to-be non-profit org. And properties in Pershore. several houses occupied by old ladies w/o much time left – this revelation was an ongoing joke. Then Curt talked about TTA – background, CHAC, money, people. Appealed to people to move to Seattle, or at least come visit.
21:20
Just completed a whirlwind (well, quick but not chaotic) dinner cleanup. Team: me, MB, Martin, Lance, ChrisP. Big circle coming up. Curt will lead I think, he and Victor were rocking some chords in the dining hall as I left.
23:25
Wow. Tough circle. Victor led clapping and playing circulations. VV1 on the offbeat, retro-VV1 [(r5+2),(r3+1)] on the downbeat. Skipping seats. Did some others too but spent 1+ hour on this. Never really took off. Hot and stuffy in the room. R hung out and listened for half, then left. Broke at 11 for a break. Never got around to the rocking chords stuff.
Victor was usually pretty quick to put the kibosh on any attempts for people to explain things amongst themselves. ESPECIALLY any analysis of what went "wrong". That was good. He's quite a character.
A nice hot shower would be nice about now. But no here. So, to bed sticky and icky-feeling.
After tea: tone clock in the MH. Intervals, triads. Then AT. 5 relations, while walking around in the circle. Some interesting things there. Still working to remember what happened w/ my hips in my personal meeting. Releasing muscles at the outside -> torso up and forward. Weight shifts towards the balls of my feet.
Dinner: rice and veggies. Good. Salad was not so hot, lettuce and julienned carrots. ChrisP pontificated about various things –had some good insight early on, now it seems it's gone to his head a bit. Anyway, he's young.
MB was humming as we worked on the dishes.
Camp Caravan
10:22
Beautiful day so far. Gorgeous. Sunny, just warm w/ a cool breeze. MarkB (the elder) played again at breakfast, one piece with the loop setup, one piece acoustic. Nose ran during the sitting – right on down to my lip. The sittings have all been around 40 minutes so far, this was closer to 45.
Learned a bit of that DiMeola pice ? Sunrise, with Collin Chris, and MarkB (the younger).
21:10
Cold. Maybe in the 50s now? low 60s, at least.
Tone Clock: 12 seats, C, C#, etc, through B. Note goes w/ the seat. Circulate any scale / chord via leaving out the seats not in it. Today, with this in the inner circle, similar but extended in the outer. C, G, D, Db major scales in 2 octaves, on/off beat inner/outer circles. This morning: full circle, Variegation Victor One (VV1). Didn't happen -> 12 "high flyers" in the middle to demonstrate, volunteered. Then, what became the Tone Clock by assigning chromatic notes. Primary Triads – I, IV, V. in C, F, G, Db. I was G#/Ab, so didn't play much.
Dinner: tofu and portabello. So-so. Side of carrots and orange squash – better. Side of white squash and peppers – even better. Dessert: chocolate peach soufflé. Amazing. REALLY amazing.
Lots of discussion at dinner. Back ached. Will be meeting w/ RF in the Movements Hall [formerly the Ballroom, renamed as this is what it really is, a hall where Movements are practiced] at 22:15 for those "functionally proficient" in C major over 4 octaves. Others can be there w/o guitar, or can always work independently elsewhere.
Cleaned bathrooms w/ Chris P today.
Lunch: Hummus! w/ pita, cukes, celer, olives. ymmy.
Noticed feelings and thoughts aimed back towards Seattle, and some similar ones focused locally. Trying not to analyze them. Still concerned about all of the above however.
23:17
Almost everybody w/ guitars was at the circle. First: 12 inside, 13 outside. Chromatic notes assigned inside. Victor was the "joker" outside, without a note. Chromatics assigned to the rest of us (outside circle). I had A. Circulation in C, G, D, A, in/out/in/outer. Inside: EOTN melody (4/4 form). Rough, took some time, slowly w/ R playing along. Outside: play the same thing. One false start, then we had it.
Next: rearrange to a big circle of 25. Magic chords assigned, chromatically w/ shifts fo accommodate the limited fretboard (mine would have been E, was reassigned to C 4 frets lower, hmm – E C# G# D -> C A E Db? ). Three groups: whiz and return. Trading off in sequence. Then, 2 groups, one 11 (jax to Bob) the other 14 (MB to ?) incl. me. Competition: try to overtake the other group. I have absolutely no idea if we did. Fun. The audience (KT mostly, in the center) laughing. Finally, one group L w/ return, R w/ return, etc.
Before that, walked around a bit outside. Had a tea and talked w/ MB for a few minutes.
Jax mentioned at dinner a feeling of "unhinged" (my word) energy, and hazard. Meant to me it was time for a good ol' Thrak session. The magic-chord whizzes in the circle fit the bill. Some folks are playing Askesis – well, practicing at slow tempo. Interesting, my first impulse was to avoid it – energy leak. But it sounds like real work. Still, enough for me today.
Oh – spent some time w/ Collin and Chris workin on Red. Also, the Zepplin medley. Heard them playing it as I got out of the shower, went to grab my guitar. Fun to revisit that for a bit. Would've like to have played it at a meal, but without Igor and Travis, wouldn't have been right.
Wednesday, August 15 2007
6:50
The gys in the next room are talking about baseball right now. WTF?
15:05
Breakfast, tai chi. Tone Clock in the "bell tower", the top room in the house, at 11. Curt led for 1 hour. Major scales in various keys, modulating from major to Aeolian, then melodic minor (both asc. and desc. forms). Oh – people in the key were standing as they played. So, modulation meant people standing and sitting quickly, in sync. Fun. Break at 12, then I led us through modes from major down to Locrian. Then Lydian. Added droning Cs on the offbeats (played by the non-standing folks). Rob suggested Lydian Dominant – Ahhhh. Then Bill: Lyd. ascending, L. Dom descending. Wonderful. Tony – the Sharona scale, aka "The Whole-Tony scale". Me: the Miserlou / KFAD scale. Added the Miserlou rhythm – so from ChrisP around to Jaxie and back as far as Christina, w/ that group as it was. Tony added C circulations by the sitting folks, on the (syncopated) off-beats. Pretty cool. Finally – the same, with the off-beat circulators playing their respective former chromatic notes. Insane. Rob – "If loving that's wrong, I don't wan't to be right". Chris – "Dick Dale meets Shoenberg".
Lunch: black bean soup w/ some salsa and cheese garnish. Yummy. Not enough of it though. Also some bread / scone things. Can't remember exactly the flavor – like cornbread, but orange in color and no discernable corn.
Elan Sicroff visited for lunch. Some questions for him. TomR – "How do you visualize a major scale?" -> long talk on the "process" a major scale represents. A few mor deep questions and answers. Was very uncomfortable sitting there, hard to appreciate the answers. MarkB on my left – twitch city, constantly incroaching on my space. Ugh.
Worked dish cleanup w/ BR, LH, GH. Thought we had it done in 40 minutes, but the bread-prep pots and pans were off to the side. 55 minutes total.
20:30
Dinner. Linguine alfredo. Light on the sauce. Not bad. Salad on the side. Baked pear for dessert. Long silence. ChrisP (aka Chris the Younger) described a lot of what a lot of us have experienced: worry about relaxing, too concerned w/ playing the right note, wandering thoughts during the sitting, including "I don't want to be here". Everyone laughed. Jaxie said "Raise your hand if you know exactly what he's talking about!" – almost every hand went up. More laughter at that. He said, "I'm serious!". Everyone else said, "So are we!". David S. talked about "learning to whiz". Next to me, TomR, and MB got the giggles at this. I sat there thankful I didn't, and then someone mentioned "four people whizzing together" and I got the giggles.
Before that: tai chi, before that: AT, short lesson. Before: circle w/ Victor leading his Various Variegation Variations. Three minus one, reverse three plus one, etc. Two at a time, on opposite sides of the circle, skipping seats. Odd number of seats, so you'd do both. We did surprisingly well given the complexity. Only a few consistently "stuck" / afk people. [my pen ran out here] Ah, thanks to Jonathan for a fresh pen.
Victor called me Glenn once during the circle. MB was sitting on my left, so maybe that's what triggered it.
Meeting at 21:45 w/ R in the Conservatory. Sitting exercise. He mentioned this the other day – for those that have a "reliable sitting practice". My first thought was "yes". Then self-doubt as to the fact that my M-F sittings are < 5 minutes. But, it is established. So, I will go.
Thursday, August 16 2007
Camp Caravan
6:52
Exercise of last night: Containment. Do for 3-4 weeks and then leave it for 3-4 months.
Seattle group met at Bill's request at 10:30 in the bell tower. Whizz work. SBC there to help / listen. First a C major scale, then a blues scale – C D Eb E F E# G A Bb C w/ the 10 players. Took a while to get CF, DLV, and HH into the groove, but then found it more or less. Really had it by 12. Began w/ Bill at first, then w/ Tony after a while (holding the steady pulse that everyone else built off of).
Chilly last night. Kinda cloudy right now. Thankfully, no loud conversations going on in this building this morning [once, Jonathan said "You and I aren't quite so chatty as the fellows next door, are we?"].
12:41
Scrambled egges w/ dill for breakfast, courtesy of Collin and Chris. Good. Tai chi at 9:45. Full circle w/ R at 10:30. Various Variegations – 321,43,543,65, etc ("5/8 reversed, advances" in R's words, alternating retro 3 + 1, retro 2 + 1 in Victor's). Split into inner and outer circles, on/offbeat. Combo: 5/8 reversed,advances and 7/8 same? there were some "forward, in retreat" type things too.
Mild and breezy. Sitting outside the dining hall now, in the sun. Too bright, but nowhere to sit in th shade.
After circle, did a lie-down for a bit in the Movements Hall. Played Third Relation w/ SP and MB. Showed MB the "Hideyo" part in the beginning of Fragments.
Lunch soon. Ah – fun in the circle. Mark B. got frustrated and left. R sat in his chair. R picked up on the vibrato some people were using on every note, layed it on thick.
Showered after breakfast.
15:39
Chatted w/ MB for a bit after writing that. Sat down on the bench next to me. Talked about TTA and their GCNE performances. She choreographed a Feynman lecture! hah.
Lunch: wraps w/ cuke, spinach, tomato, and cream cheese. Cheese plate, some nuts / dried fruit. Three visitors from the Miller's River group. One is the head of the school – The Village School. K thru 6. Another – Janet – looks like DebraK's younger sister – talked about raising money. Wow. Said "$400,000 is one gift". It will cost them around $200k to fix the "Theater" building here. Small part of the $2m they need for the school to be built out back. In terms of raising money, she's the real deal. Some perspective for us Seattle folks.
Level T – cleaning up the main house bathrooms w/ Robert. Helped me to keep to necessary talking. He said 3 words – "I'll do that" and that was after we were done and getting assigned extra tasks (everybody worked quickly today).
AT lesson at 2:45. A bit of a myster as they often are for me. Not sure if I learned anything [I did].
10:02
R talked about the GC Institute soon-to-be non-profit org. And properties in Pershore. several houses occupied by old ladies w/o much time left – this revelation was an ongoing joke. Then Curt talked about TTA – background, CHAC, money, people. Appealed to people to move to Seattle, or at least come visit.
21:20
Just completed a whirlwind (well, quick but not chaotic) dinner cleanup. Team: me, MB, Martin, Lance, ChrisP. Big circle coming up. Curt will lead I think, he and Victor were rocking some chords in the dining hall as I left.
23:25
Wow. Tough circle. Victor led clapping and playing circulations. VV1 on the offbeat, retro-VV1 [(r5+2),(r3+1)] on the downbeat. Skipping seats. Did some others too but spent 1+ hour on this. Never really took off. Hot and stuffy in the room. R hung out and listened for half, then left. Broke at 11 for a break. Never got around to the rocking chords stuff.
Victor was usually pretty quick to put the kibosh on any attempts for people to explain things amongst themselves. ESPECIALLY any analysis of what went "wrong". That was good. He's quite a character.
A nice hot shower would be nice about now. But no here. So, to bed sticky and icky-feeling.
After tea: tone clock in the MH. Intervals, triads. Then AT. 5 relations, while walking around in the circle. Some interesting things there. Still working to remember what happened w/ my hips in my personal meeting. Releasing muscles at the outside -> torso up and forward. Weight shifts towards the balls of my feet.
Dinner: rice and veggies. Good. Salad was not so hot, lettuce and julienned carrots. ChrisP pontificated about various things –had some good insight early on, now it seems it's gone to his head a bit. Anyway, he's young.
MB was humming as we worked on the dishes.
posted by taylorsherman at 11:50 PM
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