Meeting IV - 8th November 2009

Sunday, 8th November 2009
Lower Sydenham, London.

Meeting IV

In the Circle today: Pawel, Jacek and a new LGC member Mark.



It's the first meeting that begins on time, this makes a difference.

10:00 - The Practice of Doing Nothing.

Guitar session one [10:45 - 11:45]

We acknowledge Tywi and Chris who are not here today. J also speaks for Crafties who forwarded their best wishes for the Circle.

We pay attention to the connection of the feet with the floor, sitting bones on the chair, top of the head, space behind our back, space on our left, right and in front of us.

BPM = 60

2nd Primary: one note every 4, 3, 2 and 1 beats.

Stay with quarter notes - count 3 bars of 4 as a group, then circulate the counting in both directions on top of sometimes steady pulse of D strings.

Our timing is affected by the excessive effort we put into counting, but at least the count keeps the mind focused on a defined task, instead of leaving it to its associative devices.

Stay with eighth notes - count 5 bars of 3 as a group, then 3 bars of 5, and then keep alternating between these two counts.

Stay with eighth notes triplets - circulate the count of 3 bars of 5 on top of it.

Sixteenth notes -> extend it to the first section of Music for a Found Harmonium.

Attention in the feet, top of the head and what is in between - complete.

*** Break***

Mark brought over some delicious blueberry muffins, that he claims were made by him last night...



... but we well know that they were actually acquired in Starbucks.

Guitar session two [12:10 - 13:20]

Direct the attention to the left hand, go in depth. How many times are we going to remember our left hand in this session?

We investiage how much pressure is sufficient to press the string with each finger in the Position of Readiness.

BPM = 66

Alternate the notes in the 7th position: E, F, F sharp and G with an empty A string, from slow to fast, across the neck

Then we continue with MFFH, work on the first two sections.

Acknowledge the end of the exercise of remembering the left hand.

A good effort today. We complete, and a flatmate Ivor takes the picture of the uglier fraction of LGC:



We have lunch with dessert together, talk.