Meeting V - 15th November 2009

Sunday, 15th November 2009
Lower Sydenham, London.

Meeting V

In the Circle today: Mark, Pawel and Jacek.

Chris needs to address some Family Necessities, so he announced his temporarily withdrawal from the work of the Circle. There's no feeling of loss, once this has been done with intention and definition.

Not much talking before we begin today. This allows a different quality of beginning. It continues like this throughout the meeting.

10:00 - 40 minutes of the Practice of Doing Nothing.

While we practice, the noises in the house provide us with some useful distractions for our attention training. We acknowledge and send our best wishes to Chris, his family and Tywi at the end of the Sitting.

Session one [10:45-11:35]

J declares his aim for this meeting: to observe his energy leaks - what are ways the energy is lost.

Circulation - this happens spontaneously.

2nd Primary - metronome at 40 BPM.

1 note per beat.
2 notes per beat.
3 notes per beat.

And so on, until we reach 8 notes.

We also alternate between 4 and 5 notes per beat. This proves to be very challenging.

The improvement in the group timing is noticeable. One can see some personal practice has been done on this.

16th notes in 72 BPM:

Leave out: the 4th, the 3rd, the 2nd and then the 1st note of the series of 4 notes. This is a follow up on the exercise we've done in previous meetings with T.

Then leave out every 6th note, moving it towards something more musical, but we are not quite 'available' for this (i.e. unnecessary tensions in the right hand, stamina)

*** Break. 15 minutes is reportedly sufficient, but in fact, it isn't ***

Session two [12:00 - 13:05]

Division of Attention without guitars.

BPM = 66

Direct part of our Attention to the feet.

Begin tapping Left Right with the metronome.

While maintaining contact with the feet, we direct part of our attention to the hands. Then join in in sync with the feet: Left Right etc.

Then the hands tap in double speed.

Add the count of 4 bars of 4 on top in double speed again.

So:

Feet - quarter notes.
Hands - eighth notes.
Count - sixteenth notes.

Then we move to another pattern, taking similar approach:

Left Right Right.

Feet - quarter notes.
Hands - eighth notes.
Count of 3 bars of 4 in sixteenth notes.

This is impossible for some of us. We establish what is possible, and gradually move towards the impossible. Sometimes we need to go back to what is possible few times.

That's it. Give permission to tensions that arose from this exercise to go, and let go of the exercise.

Repertoire:

28 Bars:

Review the chords, then work on the first four bars of the piece. We have three picking patterns to choose from, according to what is possible for us.

Music for a Found Harmonium:

Practice the first two parts.

** Break. This time specific time for beginning is given, and we begin on time ***

Session three [13:20 - 14:20]

Part of the attention in the left hand ... in the contact of left hand with the leg ... in the space around the hand. Allow the hand to take as much space as it needs, let it expand.

Repertoire:

Music for a Found Harmonium:

Learn the 3rd part. Play through what we've got so far few times.

The Experiment in Terror:

J passes on the lead melody to M. Then practice first part of the piece in duos.

Play through it together few times.

We complete - acknowledge and send our best wishes to other Circle members.

Good work today!

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This has been the most quiet meeting so far. It has also been the most intensive meeting. Perhaps these two things are related.

Spontaneity has entered the defined framework of our meeting few times today.

Afterwards we cook a fish pie. There's also carrot cake, and peanut butter blondie from Mark.