IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 13

Monday April 7 2025

11:15am

This is going to be the final “Eye of the Needle Project Diary” post of the course. I completely let go of making entries toward the end of last week, in part because life simply got very crazy, but largely because my ongoing daily practice was not specifically EotN-oriented. I continued going into the Practice Room and doing my work there, staying in contact with the course. But the actual practice was a combination of general calisthenics and specific practice on repertoire that the Seattle Guitar Circle is currently focused on as we ramp things up in preparation for Italy, and then Seattle Folklife, and then a potential high-profile gig/tour in the Autumn.

That said, it has become manifestly clear to me that “how” I look at any piece of music I am addressing has been irrevocably changed as a result of the process I put myself through on this piece during this project. I suspect I’m going to be irritating some of my bandmates in upcoming months, as one of the manifestations of this shift is that what once might have been deemed “good enough” simply ain’t anymore. The standards I am holding myself to, and consequently those around me and the group as a whole, are kind of intense, and I expect there will be interesting consequences.

But, to wrap this up…

Up quite early this morning. Morning business, which now includes in addition to my usual yoga-based stretching exercises a set of exercises designed to deal with this damned sciatica that has been dogging me. Breakfast before practice. Into the Practice Room for 45 minutes, on my feet, alone the entire time.

Just a couple minutes of general calisthenics, primarily right hand, to get things moving.

For the rest of the time, I played Eye of the Needle along with the recording we posted today from OCG II. Played my copy, on endless repeat, using the long Silence at the end of the recording to decide which part I would play the next time around as well as which variation of the polyrhythm in the Coda I would take (ascending 4s, ascending 5s, descending 4s, descending 4-4-5).

The primary focus was staying with the Rotation of Limbs throughout, while holding myself to a performance standard for my playing. Consequently, I skipped Guitar 2 entirely, because performance standard is not available for me. I followed my impulse each time, choosing one of the following

• Bass – Guitar 4
• Lead – Guitar 1
• “Burbles” – Guitar 3, as presented in the score
• “Burbles” – Just the running lines, otherwise tacit

I was a little surprised when I noticed how lightly my left hand was able fret the notes. I was also pleasantly surprised at how well I was able to jump into the various Leads considering they have not been much in my practice rotation for the past week or so, and how consistent I was with the left and right hand choices I adopted for this project. Staying with the Rotation was more or less what I have come to expect over the years. I’m right there right up until the moment I’m not and then I notice I’m not (often noticing what irrelevance my mind has wandered to) and then I jump back in. Rinse and repeat. Funnily, the version that was most confusing and most difficult to stay with consistently was the one with all of the tacit bars. You’d think that since all I needed to do for large sections was to listen and follow along it would be easier. But apparently I really need the distraction of moving my fingers to help keep my mind from wandering.

Giving myself 15 minutes to switch gears in preparation for my first student of the day, I stopped the playback of the recording and took a couple minutes of stillness for completion and recapitulation before exiting the Practice Room and moving into the rest of my day.

I have some concluding thoughts about this process that are swirling around a bit, but that’s for a little later. 

Tuesday April 8 2025

1:30pm

And so, in conclusion…

Just need to summarize for myself some of the places I’ve come to in this process. 

Parts

Nice to tear this sucker down to it primal form and put it back together. Renewed appreciation for the piece. In the end, I feel comfortable with my ability to have most of the parts performance-ready if required. 

• Bass – Guitar 4. Still my go-to, and the part I think I bring the most to.
• Lead – Guitar 1.
• Burbles – Guitar 3, with or without the unison sections with G1.
• Harmonies – from Guitar 2, the harmonizations for the A and F# sections.

The high octave parts of Guitar 2, the Intro and Midtro above the 12th fret, are still where I am not comfortable and don’t see myself ever performing. I understand them better, thanks to these 13 weeks, and in terms of technique and fingerings I have made my decisions as if I was going to perform it. But having it playable at a performance standard is not likely. Never say never, I suppose, but this one feels pretty obvious.

And even if I stay with role as a “Bass Player” on the piece, I have observed that when playing along with a recording or in a rehearsal, I am more in touch and integrated with the other parts and the ensemble as a whole. That alone makes the project a success. Haven’t performed the piece lately, so the jury is out on that one. But I feel confident I will see the same thing there as well.

Technique and fingering

Where all of these notes fall on the guitar fretboard is one of those things that is as close to inviolable for this piece as it gets, so I changed nothing. With one exception: the very last note of the piece when playing in the highest octave on a guitar with no high E available. That one just presented itself one morning and had that “Duh! Why on earth hadn’t I noticed that before” flavor.

In terms of the initial questions about pivots and accented picking, I am comfortable with my choices. After consistent practice they come quite easily and effortlessly for me, and so for now I will stick with them unless I am in a situation where the more “conventional” forms are required.

The Accented Picking I have chosen to employ is very basic, and really pretty obvious. For the Intro and Midtro in 13, 3+3+3+4, with a downstroke initiating each rhythmic group. For the 4/4 melodies, it is only the second group of 3 that I’ve inverted. Everything else is strictly alternate. This is the one that flows most musically for me.

In terms of the application of Finger Pivots, I mostly let nature take its course. I looked and all of the options for pivots, giving each one a “fair” audition. In the end, anything that felt forced or would have clearly needed a lot of practice to train my hands to do well was discarded. Since that early exploration, my choices have become a consistent part of the way I finger the piece. Although the “high lead” is not something I’m likely to ever put myself in the position of performing, it is interesting that in the parts above the 12th fret I actually abandoned the pivot entirely. It may just be that the action that far up the neck on my 40-year-old Ovation guitar is just not conducive. Or my fat calloused finger tips just don’t work that well in the tiny fret zone. Or something.

The Guitarist Inside

Ugh. I don’t know if I’m every going to get any better at this. I made the observation in one of the buddy meetings that it could be argued that the value of the practice is in the effort made to do it well. I do hope that’s not just one of those things that people say to make themselves feel better when they are failing miserably.

But I persevere. What else can I do?

Composition – Convention – Arrangement/Adaptation

This may be the best thing that I’ve gleaned from the work I’ve done on this project.

The material Guitar Circles and ensembles play falls into three categories:

1. Material specifically written for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning.
2. Formal compositions written in other contexts, particularly classical works, adapted for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning.
3. Works from recordings – all manner of music recorded over the past 60 or 70 years transcribed, adapted, and arranged, for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning. 

3:30pm

After 90 minutes of sitting and writing, my sciatica is driving me crazy. Therefore...

 TO BE CONTINUED

Wednesday April 9 2025

9:25am

Back to Composition – Convention – Arrangement/Adaptation

Three categories of music played by Guitar Circles and Ensembles

• Material specifically written for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning.
• Formal compositions; written works from other contexts, particularly classical works, adapted for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning.
• Works from recordings. “Covers”, in the vernacular. All manner of music recorded over the past 60 or 70 years transcribed, adapted, and arranged, for groups of guitarists using the Guitar Craft tuning. 

And the three elements I’ve been considering when looking at Eye of the Needle, and consequently all repertoire I am working with, are:

• Composition
• Convention
• Adaptation and Arrangement

COMPOSITION. For me, this is what might be considered immutable. Obviously, compositions evolve. EotN is a case in point. It was out there and in the performance repertoire for almost 3 years before it settled on its current form, with all of the elements we know. And while some of the elements added along the way may have come from various players experimenting with things not expressly in the composition that were later adopted as part of the piece, what is and is not part of the composition is up to the composer. (Go ahead, play an improvised "twinkle" or drop into the low octave during the A section when performing Asturias with Bert in the room... I dare you). With Bach, there is no one to petition with a potential change. Either way, one changes or adds a new part, a new section, or a new note, in Eye of the Needle or a Bach fugue, at one’s peril.

CONVENTION. This is a bit different. And throughout this course it has been a bit of a theme for me. Tearing Eye of the Needle (and consequently every piece of repertoire) back down to the studs and beginning again. Separating what is actually part of the Composition from a long list of acquired Conventions regarding how it is played. Presumably, a Convention is adopted for a sound musical reason, rather than just being a collective habit that no one remembers acquiring. And it honors the spirit and intention of the Composition and its Composer.

ARRANGEMENT/ADAPTATION. These are the musical choices a particular group makes regarding how they will present the piece. Something written for piano and voice Adapted and Arranged for a guitar ensemble, for instance.

Since Eye of the Needle has been the focus for this course:

• The sequence of notes, the harmonic rhythm, the form, the tempo (range), are Composition. I would not mess with this unless there was a really compelling musical reason, and even then not without running it by Robert.
• Beginning the piece with a soloist on Guitar 2. This is an Arrangement choice that has become so much of a Convention that it is in the score.
• Alternate picking for the leads. This is a Convention, intentionally adopted very early on in order to help a bunch of amateur guitarists reliably play the piece in time and in unison. And when an entire group is playing the part using the same picking pattern it helps unify the musical phrasing. So dropping the Convention is not something I undertake lightly.
• Pivots were originally a formal part of the piece, but eliminated early on, again for the same reason that alternate picking was adopted. Not many players can actually execute the pivot well. Baby barres masquerading as pivots can slow a player down and interrupt the flow. On the other hand, some of the fingerings that were adopted to eliminate the pivots make no practical sense to me. So there is orthodoxy (no pivots), heresy (aka, the original orthodoxy), and somewhere in between there is practicality. But whatever choice we make, it is Convention, not Composition. The work I did during the course focused on making sure there was intention, decision, and consistency, in my personal Convention regarding pivots.
• Harmony parts played by Guitar 2 is a Convention.
• Burblers playing in unison with Guitar 1 is a Convention, and an Arrangement choice.
• Fives moving up and fours moving down in the Coda is a Convention.
• Basses moving down and leads moving up in the Coda is a Convention.
• The only pure Arrangement option I can think of with Eye of the Needle hasn’t popped up much in my experience for years. But the way it has occasionally been Arranged when only 3 players are available is for the Bass player to move to the Burbles in those sections. Not awful, the spirit is there and it’s certainly workable, though something is missing.

Sometimes Conventions are something from the outside that we bring with us to the performance of a piece or part. It is very common for someone who is learning to play Thrak for the first time to fill in the rests with muted string percussive strokes. On the practical side it helps someone not accustomed to playing one half of a polyrhythm stay in time. And besides, it also makes the part sound a little like Larks II, doesn't it? That's fun. Either way, it’s not part of the Composition. 

Working with compositions and covers that were not originally written for a bunch of guitars relies heavily on Adaptation and Arrangement first. 

• Christopher Parkening plays the G Major Cello Prelude in D Major, to make it fit within the range of a classical guitar in a Drop D tuning. 
• One reason the Guitar Circle arrangements I did of the “39 Series” never really took hold was, I believe, because the guitar simply doesn’t have the range of a piano. The Adaptations necessary made for a very interesting set of Guitar Circle etudes in the most basic sense of the word, but ultimately the compromises were too much and the Arrangements lacked much of the power of the original Composition.
• The Guitar Circle arrangement of Red has an entire section omitted (with the composers permission), largely I think because a bunch of acoustic guitars really can’t sustain the Rock for that long. There is a ceiling for the intensity of the Composition that is reached quite early and it becomes repetitive, which the original most definitely is not. So it’s an Arrangement choice that honors to spirit of the composition.
• The RF String Quintet added a second “middle section” (E♭-C-E♭-C) and A-F# section to Bicycling to Afghanistan before going to the coda, because “that middle section is just too good to play only once.” (Not my words)
• Seattle Guitar Circle extends the Brouwer Etude similarly and for the same reason.

The thing that I primarily find myself doing in Seattle as we are working with expanding the repertoire through both reactivating older material and acquiring or writing new material is to examine as critically as I am able what is actually part of the intended arrangement and what is an artifact of Convention.

The question, in its simplest form, is why am I (are you, are we) playing it like that? When the answer comes back as some variation on “I don’t know” or “because that’s the way we’ve always played it” I get uncomfortable.

If my experience digging into Eye of the Needle on this course is any indication, as often as not I’ll find that the answer is actually “because it best serves the Composition”, and the Convention is retained. Nothing gets changed but everything is different. 

And if part of the aim is to put together a performance team in which the standards are up another level or two, I don’t think we can avoid this kind of scrutiny on our way there. 

 

IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 12

Monday March 31 2025

 9:00pm

Completely topsy turvy day. Up early, and into the practice room. Acknowledged the beginning of a week of limb rotation for the IAAD. For practice, moving on from Eye of the Needle. Instead, using my IAAD informed eyes/ears to approach material SGC is considering for Italy, as well as a serious challenge in the Autumn.

All good, except that the replacement for my expired oven arrived at 8:30am. That’s good news. Haven’t eaten anything cooked in my own home for almost a week. But by the time the installers left it was time for my first student, and I was well into my day. Continued my personal practice at every available break in my schedule, although a lot of that involved comparing GC-approved arrangements with the original material and questioning some of the choices. The whole “composition vs convention” question, and considering an approach we might take to this process in our process.

Cooked dinner on a new and wonderfully functional oven.

Tuesday April 1 2025

7:00pm

Very busy day. I was actually up early enough to get my IAAD practice in before my first student arrived, but since then it has been non-stop boogie. I finally have a couple of minutes to reflect while my (brand new) oven pre-heats.

Usual morning routine, with the addition of beginning a course-related rotation of limbs, pausing to remember the team. To this I have also added an oldie-but-goodie. That is throughout the hour, to the best of my (admittedly pitiful) ability, returning to that limb and that little bit of remembering the team, every time I pass through a doorway. Just as humbling as it was the first time I was given this challenge almost 40 years ago.

Into the practice room. Began with some solid generic calisthenics. Then moved on to addressing some of the music that Seattle Guitar Circle is playing with as we begin expanding our repertoire from the Simple Songs-centric music we’ve been focused on the past couple of years. I’m applying some of the insights, or ways of approaching, material that is familiar, that I have learned from the work I did on Eye of the Needle for this course. And it is very interesting. There are three things I’ve identified about a piece of music that I want to explore more. This goes back to the questions I asked a couple of weeks ago, though I have since added a third category. 

When I look at a piece of music, presented for the Guitar Circle, I want to understand as well as possible three things:

1. How much of what I’m seeing/hearing is actually the composition?
2. How much of it is convention? The way Circles have settled in to playing the material.
3. How much is adaptation or arrangement. These are choices made to make the composition work in a Guitar Circle.

I have many more thoughts on this swirling around, but that beeping sound indicates the oven is ready. 

Wednesday April 2 2025

9:05pm

Up bright and early, and no students until this afternoon. Through the morning routine. Made some oatmeal on the new stove. Ate it with fresh raspberries and a little Greek yogurt. Arranged my workspace and signed into the Practice Room.

Began right at 8am by initiating today’s limb rotation with the AAD team. Upped the metronome a little and put in 20 minutes of warmup calisthenics, mostly focused on the vertical form of the First Primary. Kim popped in with her fiddle for a few minutes.

For most of the rest of the hour I focused on one of the pieces the SGC has in rotation for possible inclusion in the expanding repertoire. A very active piece that I played for a very long time. Played through it slowly, noting the places where both my memory and muscle memory failed me. Pulled up the score and filled in the missing bits, as well as verifying (and in a couple of cases, correcting) the parts that I do remember. Some rote practice on a couple of sections that are particularly tricky. Then played through the entire piece several times at gradually escalating tempos. By the end I was playing it competently, but I have serious doubts that I’ll ever have it back up to performance tempo.

Several runs through Eye of the Needle to complete the hour. The inner work on the piece was kind of cooking, so much so that on my first iteration (Guitar 1) I actually got lost. Chuckled. Tricky business, rationing attention. I also noticed that after all the work I’d done earlier in the hour, I was seriously over-playing this one. Played through Guitars 1 and 3, adding the intention to play more gently. Interrupted the final Guitar 3 halfway through the first D Minor section, as the clock rolled over to 9am. Paused. Moved to the next limb. Saluted the team. Then picked up where I’d left off and played the rest of the piece. Signed off, and into the rest of my day. 

Thursday April 3 2025

4:00pm

Oddball day. Only one Thursday lesson this week, a zoom lesson at 9am. Up very early, with plenty of time for all my stuff, and some breakfast, and an hour of AAD practice, before the lesson. After the lesson I had a little time to do the annoying stretching exercises that are giving me some relief from this bout of sciatica I’m enjoying. Then out into the world for such exciting errands as getting my covid booster. Home in time for a little lunch, a couple of office-related tasks, and it was at this point that it struck me what an incredibly beautiful day it was. Whatever I thought I was about to do, I dropped it and headed out for a 2hr/6mi walk. Now home with my feet elevated.

Practice more or less followed the “moving out of the course into the future” mode that has evolved for me the past two weeks. But that’s not totally accurate. It’s more along the lines of “carrying the spirit of the course out into the world.” Signed into the Practice Room at 7:45am. I was alone throughout. 15 minutes of pretty demanding calisthenics. While I am painfully aware that my chops will never again be what they were “in my prime”, 11 weeks of very focused and regular practice has definitely helped me to get them closer to where they can be.

Paused at 8am for several moments to begin the limb rotation, inwardly saluting the team. The practice that focused largely on a couple of the pieces that we worked with at last night’s SCG rehearsal. This doesn’t look quite like practice in the more methodical sense. In some cases it was as simple as digging up the scores to make sure I’m playing the part correctly. Often it involves drilling passages or transitions that I noticed I was stumbling over last night. In one case it was playing along with the original recording of the piece, only to discover we had be playing one note incorrectly last night. Sent out a text on that one. So, practice in the most general sense, but really just a musician getting his shit together in order to bring the performance of this material up to a new standard. And to me, that involves the kind of work I’ve been doing with Eye of the Needle for this course. I want to take what I’ve learned here and apply it to all of the material we play. To a certain degree this means taking pieces back down to their essence to understand what the music is requiring of us. Asking questions like “why did we arrange it that way?” I suspect that with many of the pieces, in the end I’ll have worked my way right back to where it was, and conclude we got it right. But in the process, understanding it on a new and deeper level. Something like that.

Departed the Practice Room at 8:45am, and switched gears (and tunings) for the upcoming lesson. Took a moment to remember where I had left things with the student last week, and consider our next step. Had a minor inspiration. And it really worked. 

 IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 11

Monday March 24 2025

7:00am

Contact at a very great distance with an old friend.

11:15am

Busy weekend. Morning IAAD events on Saturday, and then SGC flash-mobbed the afternoon CGT show (by invitation, of course), followed by a little socializing with the trio. Food and drink was involved. Sunday SGC rehearsal, moving into a new phase.

Up at a reasonable hour this morning. Hit the Practice Room for 30 minutes. 15 minutes purely calisthenic. 15 minutes of Guitars 1,3,and 4.

Found myself contemplating what elements of this piece are the composition, and therefor necessary, and which are convention, which can vary from group to group or performance to performance. Reminded of Frank’s observation about how often when he is presenting a game for a group to play, people begin playing by rules that were never part of the instruction. How much of Eye of the Needle is played that way because we just do.

Example: bringing the piece in a solo player on the high lead, and the rest of the parts entering halfway through the first A minor section. It’s a very satisfying beginning, musically. Plus it doesn’t require an audible count-in, which is particularly effective for this piece. BUT, it’s not in the composition. It’s a convention. The most stunning live recording I have of the has Robert counting it in and everyone in on the downbeat.

The “burble” players jumping in and out of Guitar 1 is another. It is entirely reasonable for those players to simply bring in the running lines where they belong and remain tacit elsewhere. With a large ensemble this is especially effective. Orchestral players do this all the time. 

Another convention is having the “high lead” players be the ones who go to the harmony part in the A and F# sections. Why shouldn’t a high lead player only jump in the Intro and Midtro, and play it straight the rest of the time, and someone from Guitar 1 cover the harmonies?

The division of 4s and 5s in the Outro? Why shouldn’t a “bass” player take the ascending 5s?

Part of this has evolved, I think, as an artifact of scoring the composition. Economy for one thing. It is a fact that it takes a minimum of 4 players for the piece to be complete, so grouping the bits consistently in 4 parts keeps the score as uncluttered as possible.

But this also has a kind of circular self-fulfilling set of rules. The score is designed to contain all the necessary parts, and it is a reflection of the arrangement that had, at the time the piece was being transcribed, become common practice.

But the result seems to be that over time the arrangement has become more and more fixed, because “that’s what’s in the score.”

So before heading into my work day I played through a hybrid version of Guitar 1, in which I also played the harmony part in A and F#. Take that!

Tuesday March 25 2025

7:00am

My contact-at-a-distance for the morning sitting. Not in this order, and there were several people I couldn’t remember and so kind of lumped together in an “and all the rest” while visualizing the very first circle in the ballroom the morning of the 26th.

Robert Fripp

Roy Capellaro

Randall Chiurazzi

Chris Cousineau

Richard Drews

Chris Ebneth

Andrew Essex

Claude Gillet

Curt Golden

Mac Hart

Bryan Helm

James Hines III

Chris Kirby

Marvin Meng

Jeff Mercer

Peter Racine

Scott Robbins

Frank Simes

Mark Vermette

Barbara June Appelgren

Yoga Teacher

Frank Sheldon (I didn’t know his name yet, but his presence in the audience was remarkable)

Residents in the Kitchen and Dining Hall.

 

12:15pm

Topsy-turvy day. Up at a good hour. Sitting a meditation on Guitar Craft. Instead of Going straight to practice, elected to join “Tea Time in Europe”, where I ate my breakfast. With the 30 minutes I had after that I did some First Primary work on the NST electric, as my first student was bringing her electric in preparation for a school of rock style performance. So, for most of that hour I worked with her “Fox On The Run” by Sweet in NST, and counting while singing a tricky background vocal. That was new.

After the lesson, I had an hour or so to get in my workout, which I’ve been neglecting. Wrapped that in time for “Dinner in Europe”, so I was entertained while I made and ate my lunch. Now to clean my dishes. And then finally get in the rest of my practice.

Wednesday March 26  2025

12:00 noon

Day of Distraction. Last night my oven basically blew up while I was cooking dinner, so I’m waiting for my landlord to come by to assess the situation. Also, I should just never check my email before I plan to practice in the morning. Found correspondence regarding a dispute with Medicare that requires immediate attention. Associatively I remember another health-related appointment I need to set up, as well as a related issue I need to follow up with. And at that point a task I’ve been putting off adds itself to the list of chores I can’t avoid but really don’t want to be bothered with.

So practice was proforma. Calisthenics first. Playing sucked. Counting forced. Only spotty success with remembering Sensation. Ended with several renditions of Eye of the Needle that I hope no one overheard.

Put the guitar away and began to address the irritating to-do list, still distracted. Slow going. Fortunately the time for Level T arrived and I put all of that away for 15 minutes. Gathered with 4 others in the Practice Room. Kim suggested a limb rotation, moving every 5 minutes. As it happened, today I had literal Level T lined up. My toiled needed cleaning. Off we went. Easily completed. After 15 minutes a quick gathering, and we were all off into our days.

This helped a lot. Afterwards I was able to focus on gathering the materials needed to move the issue with Medicare along, and uploaded them to my insurance rep. Stupidly convoluted system. Made the phone call I’ve been procrastinating about, setting that process in motion. And as I was typing this my landlord called. New oven ordered.

So not a lost day, just a mundane one. Rehearsal tonight. At least that’s something to look forward to. 

Thursday March 27 2025

10:00am

Fun to have an evening rehearsal in the calendar now. I love the contemplative energy of our Sunday mornings. Evenings have a different flavor. And in the case of last night it doubled as a couple hours of challenging calisthenics as we revisited some older repertoire that is, shall we say, a little busier than most of our current material. Last night was punctuated by flashes of lighting and claps of thunder. Unusual for Seattle. We also used the Practice Room which meant Eric could join us from Eugene.

Up early enough today to start a load of laundry while I had breakfast, and get it into the dryer in time to allow for an hour of AAD practice before my first student at 9:00. In the Practice Room, on my feet. First Primary related workout, into refreshing myself on the details of a couple of the pieces we touched on last night. Again ended the hour with 3 iterations of Eye of the Needle at performance tempo: Guitar 1, Guitar 1 hybrid with harmony parts (see Monday March 24), and Guitar 3. All of them very reasonable. Not sure they would have passed the audition, but I wouldn’t have been embarrassed either. 

Friday March 28 2025

2:45pm

It wasn’t a particularly late one, but after a night of conviviality, oysters, and a couple of adult beverages, I allowed myself a little latitude regarding when I got up this morning. Only a little late, but enough to muck up my usual schedule. 

Went into the practice room a little after 9am. Found Brad helping Kim with her Eye of the Needle for the mandolin. Left the audio on while I got my practice space arranged, then turned the sound off. Happened to flip it back on a little later just in time to butt in with a comment about counting, then audio off again until I noticed them exit the room.

As with all of my practice sessions this week, aggressive calisthenics to begin with. 5-note First Primary variation with counting in 5 and then 4. Today I worked vertically, up one string and down the next, through all of the first finger combinations. From there to the Third Relation and Calliope bass lines focused on accuracy in the string skipping and the fullness of each note.

Ended with Eye of the Needle; G1, G1-2 hybrid, G3, and G4. Okay, but not as satisfactory as yesterday. Noticed that when I’m playing the bass part for Intro and Midtro in 13, with only the metronome and no musical context, my timing gets very wonky. Ironically it is worst during the C and F# bars where I’m just playing 3 single sustained notes. But even the descending lines sound a little unsure. Most of the time my tactic for this is to sing the G1 part in my head or even under my breath, and while useful it isn’t reliable. I have the note placement mapped out in my head (and on a little cheat sheet on my desk) that works if I’m counting in 13/8 rather than 13/4. Eliminates the subtle sound of hesitancy. So I practiced that for a while, and then ran G4 through the entire piece several time, making sure there is no startle in the moments when my internal count has to move from a quarter note pulse to an eighth note pulse, or the reverse. Improvement there. I never need this stuff when playing with an ensemble, which is how it ought to be. But I think the next few times the piece gets called in rehearsal or I’m playing along with a recording I may engage it intentionally just to get a better sense of how it slots into the other parts. And so, one more available strategy.

Both of my acoustic guitars really need new strings. Going to do that now.

Saturday March 29 2025

SGC – Monthly Open Circle
IAAD – House Meeting (which I will miss due to the Open Circle commitment)
IAAD – EotN Check-In Meeting (which I should make)

Sunday March 30 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on

IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 10

Monday March 17 2025

4:30pm

Good night’s sleep last night, but my back is still nagging me. Up early enough to get all of my morning business done, including an hour of IAAD practice, before the arrival of my first student of the day.

Kept things simple. Into the Practice Room. I was alone for the entire hour. Metronome on at a reasonable clip. Nothing but my most current First Primary variation. Made it through 18 of the 24 possible iterations, so I’ll pick up where I left off tomorrow morning. Throughout counting and sensing, looking to clear out pathways for the Guitarist Inside. Took a couple of minutes at the end to revisit the bass part to another piece from the early repertoire that came up in conversation yesterday.

 

Tuesday March 18 2025

3:45pm

Up earlyish, which was good as I had just enough time to take care of my morning routine and get in a solid IAAD practice hour before my first student at 9am.

Into the Practice Room at 7:45, remained alone for the hour. Camera on. My back, which is still not 100%, reminded me of the plan to do my practicing standing up. And so I did. Picked up the First Primary work where I left off yesterday. Completing the cycle I began yesterday, I worked for some time on a slight variation, increasing the tempo and adding counting. First in 5/4, which sits very obviously over these patterns, and later in 4/4, which I found remarkably challenging. It eventually clicked, so I moved to counting while sensing the soles of my feet and observing my breathing. 

After 40 minutes, I played through Eye of the Needle 4 times at performance tempo, once on each part. Guitars 1,3, and 4, are serviceable. I don’t think Guitar 2 will ever be ready for primetime.

In the final 10 minutes I worked Asturias at escalating tempos to see where my breaking point currently lies. Better than I expected, but since I had just been doing calisthenics for 40 minutes I probably should not have been so surprised. But still not great.

Paused for a moment and departed the Practice Room. My 9am student plays NST, so In a way I was able to ride the energy into the next hour.

 

Wednesday March 19 2025

2:00pm

I’m looking at two late nights in a row. Tonight to attend a performance, and tomorrow to take part in one. So I allowed myself rise later than usual this morning. While a completely reasonable decision, this always leaves me a little off balance, with the feeling that I’m perpetually running late.

No early AAD practice. Did make it to Tea Time after breakfast, and then Level T. Then used the free time before my noon Zoom lesson for a few chores around the apartment, and then practice.

In the Practice Room and on my feet. First Primary work actually went quite well. The counting aspect also settled in more quickly, and I wondered if perhaps that might be because I was on my feet. I was not animated, but I found I was gently shifting my weight from one foot to the other, which felt very natural and unforced, and aided me in following the time better than foot tapping.

From there to practicing Guitar 3. In particular the transitions in and out of the sections where it is in unison with Guitar 1 parts.

So far so good.

Then I ran Guitar 3 several times, and while the transitions I had been practicing were, indeed, much smoother, overall my performance of the part sounded kind of unmusical. Small accuracy errors. Wobbly time. I know I’m hard on myself when assessing my own playing, but I don’t think it was imaginary. And willing my hands to play better definitely wasn’t working.

Ended with Asturias and some supporting calisthenics, and this did nothing to lighten my mood, and I was getting impatient. 

The hour was up, and I was off to my day job. 

 

Thursday March 20 2025

3:30pm

Ah yes, the 3rd Thursday of every month. It’s magical.

 

Awoke reasonably early, again. Just early enough to take care of the morning business and 45 minuters of AAD practice before my 9am Zoom student. Breakfast would have to wait until afterward. In fact I made and ate it over Tea Time. By my calculation 10am is tea time somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. But what the hey?

Into the Practice Room about 8am. Spent my time alone except for a brief visit from Kim. On my feet the entire time. Except for the final 10 minutes, it was all Asturias-related calisthenics. Pushing tempos. Definitely an improvement from yesterday’s grimness. I’m still running up against some inevitable realities with respect to the limitations of my chops. But still, better.

In the final 10 minutes, with a little trepidation, I ran Guitars 1 and 3 at performance tempo. Unlike yesterday, these were renditions that did not embarrass me. Sat quietly for a few moments and then signed off.

Friday March 21 2025

1:15pm

Last night was a really, really late one. Got home well after 2am. And after a performance I’m too amped to go straight to bed, so I chilled for an hour or so. Made absolutely no attempt to force myself to get up at anything resembling my normal hour. Fortunately, I had a moment of prescience yesterday and decided to do most of my normal Friday “office” tasks ahead of time. So what morning was left after I got up was low key and unpressured. “Buddies” meeting at 11. I mostly listened from my easy chair, at least until there was something that felt necessary enough to say to get me up off my ass.

After that meeting I headed into the Practice Room for 30 minutes of raw calisthenics. Jaime was in the room, camera off. I worked while standing again, with camera on. I will probably come back for a bit more of that later today, as we have our stealth gig tomorrow afternoon and I need my chops to be as sharp as possible. Once again ended with run-throughs of Guitars 1 and 3. Not as satisfying as yesterday, but not awful. I sounded tired, and I was making tired mistakes. It was feeling kind of either/or between The Guitarist Inside and technical accuracy. Not quite enough attention to go around. 

Saturday March 22 2025

Busy, busy, busy.

Sunday March 23 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on 

IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 9

Monday March 10 2025

Noon

Switching to daylight saving always messes me up. It’s just tough for me to get out of bed in the morning until my circadian rhythm adapts, and that takes a week or so. So up not so early, the morning routine, breakfast. Not enough time before my first student to get any serious work done. Warmed up with some OST electric; a little Mystery Train and, for some reason, Rebel Rouser. Why Duane Eddy on an overcast March morning? No idea.

After my morning student, to project work. But for today and maybe several days, that’s not on the guitar.

Yesterday at SGC rehearsal Greg sneezed, and the words immediately out of my mouth were “Bless you.” A conventional response, and I wouldn’t have given it a second thought except that for the past week I’ve had a perpetually open document in which I’ve been collecting common phrases and idioms that contain religious references, particularly ones that I use at least from time to time. So when I heard my voice reflexively wishing blessings on Greg, the question I’m holding came back to me in a very concrete way. What does a crusty old atheist mean by that?

I spent my “practice time” going through my list and kind of cataloging these phrases. Most are simply colloquialisms in common use in the culture I grew up in. Many are vulgar. Almost all of them are simply ordinary thoughts or exclamations, punched up with a religious reference. “I’m tired” becomes “I’m tired as Hell.” Something surprising comes along, “Holy cow (or crap or shit or moley)!” or “Good Lord!” Something goes wrong, “Damn it!” Am I thinking of the actual constructs of “Hell”, “Holiness”, or “Damnation”, let alone using them in their original meaning? 

I can go on and on in this vein, and have a tendency to do so. But the underlying question for me is: What do I mean when I casually speak these terms? 

And what do I mean when I earnestly say, “Lord have Mercy”?

This isn’t going to be answered today. And I have work to get to.

Wednesday March 12 2025

10:00am

The switch to Daylight Saving is really kicking my ass this year.

Yesterday I again slept too late to do my AAD practice before my first appointment. And as the day wore on, the best I could do was 45 minutes of generic, slightly Asturias-oriented, calisthenics.

This morning I did a much better job of getting going early. But after doing my daily morning 10-minute yoga and stretching routine, while I was sitting on the side of my bed putting my socks on, I felt an ache creeping into my lower back. Sat still for a few moments to see if it would pass. But it remained. Hobbled into my day.

“Lord have Mercy” is a whole lot less theoretical today.

Did get my morning guitar practice in. But it was wobbly and unfocused and unsatisfying in general. Tylenol. An AT lie-down. So far nothing is helping. It’s going to be a long day. 

Thursday March 13 2025

10:05am

A little more human today. My back thing has improved but it's not gone. At least I can pay attention to other things now. In spite of Daylight Saving I was up early enough to get my morning routine as well as an hour of AAD practice in before my 9am zoom student.

Remembered to go into the Practice Room this morning. I was alone. Right hand warm-up on open strings, testing the waters. After such a miserable practice yesterday, looking to see if my lower back would permit me to actually pay attention. As I write this, I’m wondering why I don’t practice while standing more often. Most of the time when performing I am standing, so wouldn’t practicing that way make sense. Plus, whatever this spasm action in my back is all about, it’s actually happier when I’m moving than when I’m sitting (or lying in my bed – the first 5 minutes or so after I got up this morning were pretty exciting). I may give this a shot tomorrow morning.

Thankfully this morning was a vast improvement over yesterday. I was able to remain engaged and not just going through the motions. Stayed with pretty basic stuff. Moved from open strings to Guitar 1, playing through it several times. Then to more of a left hand focus. Since I’m going to be doing a Burbles Redux guided practice on Saturday morning, I went back to the 5-note version of the First Primary, moving through a couple of the possible variations. Once settled in, added counting in 4/4 to this. From there to a short refresher of the sequence I’m using in the presentation, practicing various fragments while counting in 4/4. Ended the hour with several passes of Guitar 3.

Departed the Practice Room. I had completely forgotten that I was in it in the first place. Had a half hour to get out of my chair and stretch, make a cup of coffee, get the OST guitar tuned up, and put some thought into what I’d be doing with my 9am student. Interestingly, as we were checking in on the stuff he’s been practicing he asked a couple of technical questions that took us down a very GC path, and the net result was that the lesson had something of a quality of continuation from my personal practice. 

Friday March 14 2025

9:30am

I have a project for the weekend that is more or less Level T on steroids, so I let myself arise at my leisure. Which is to say, about 6:45am. The project begins right after the IAAD team meeting this morning, so a short report.

The usual morning routine. But instead of diving into guitar practice I decided to cook and then enjoy a real breakfast. After clean up I jumped into the practice room. Work this morning was purely about the EotN sectional meeting I’m leading tomorrow. 5-note first primary, while counting in 4. After about 5 minutes I remembered my thought yesterday about practicing while standing. My back has almost fully recovered so I wasn’t getting constant reminders. Went for it, and spent the rest of the session on my feet. After working through a number of variations on the primary, while counting, and breathing, I moved to the succession of Burble exercises I’ll be presenting tomorrow. For this I turned on a loop I created of the A minor section, which I plan to use instead of the metronome tomorrow. About this time Kim joined me in the room. Went through the sequence, though not spending as much time on each iteration as I will in the session tomorrow. 1 beat, 2 beat, 3 beat, and 4 beat sequences, beginning on each of the 5 notes of the pattern. 1 bar patterns, separated by a bar of rest. 4 and 8 bar patterns. 

Waved to Kim as she departed. Wrapped up my work and left the room. Before completing I began a short personal zoom meeting, where I recorded myself along with the loop, just to check the audio balance on the playback.

Ironically, all of this felt good enough that I could have gone on for much longer. Oh well. 

Saturday March 15 2025

5:00pm

Short and sweet:

Morning: 

• An hour of Warmup
• Lead Eye of the Needle sectional
• An hour of prep for Part 2 of a massive Level T project
• House meeting

Afternoon: 

• 5 hours Completion of Part 2 of a massive Level T project

Sunday March 16 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on

 AND..... CONTINUE.

IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 8

Monday March 3 2025

8:30am

A crowded calendar today. Set my clock to get up early, and awoke just before the alarm. Slightly modified morning routine, and to the guitar.

No solid agenda as I sat down, but while I was going into the Practice Room I heard my voice just under my breath, “back on the horse.”

The two things I have on my plate are 1) a continued and deeper dive into The Guitarist Inside. Something about this has been rolling through my mind all weekend, which I need to write about when I’m not so pressed for time. And 2) lots of continued calisthenic work, particularly for the right hand, as there are some gigs coming up.

Began with 20 minutes of right-hand warmup, moving toward and ultimately landing on the main D minor and A minor theme of Asturias. This is the piece we’ll be performing in 3 weeks. It is really tough for me to play these kinds of parts without a lot of warmup, and in this performance there will be absolutely no warmup. Hands this morning felt pretty good, but performance tempo is a problem.

Throughout the calisthenics I worked with the Circulation of Sensation. Let go of synchronizing it with the breath as that often causes me to fall into an forced and artificial respiration rate. During the morning sitting I can work with this more successfully, but as soon as there’s a guitar and a metronome it gets to be too much.

Moving to Eye of the Needle, I worked with Guitar 3 exclusively. I’ll be leading a “burble”-focused guided practice on Saturday and I need to be sharp. Began with the running 5-note line in A, simply as a calisthenic, also getting my left hand a little involved.

Played through the part several times, in several ways. For this work I came back to the Rotation of Limbs as prescribed for this piece. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and it flows a bit more naturally for me. Besides playing the part as it is presented in the score – basically Guitar 1, moving to the running 5s at the right time, and then back to Guitar 1 – I did several performances of the piece simply sitting in silence, metronome on, hearing the piece in my head, attending to the inner work, only actually playing the burble parts. It’s an interesting and revealing exercise. I am just as likely to lose track of the Rotation when sitting in silence hearing the piece in my head as I am when my fingers are wiggling, for one thing.

For the final 20 minutes I moved to some purely practical work with the part. Contemplating how best to present this material on Saturday. Practicing the various approaches for learning to count the part that we could work with, and practicing those to make sure I feel comfortable and competent demonstrating what is going on inside for me when incorporating the count in a purposeful way.

Sat in Silence for the final 2 minutes. Looked up at the screen and waved to no one. Departed the room and headed into my day, a (big surprise) overcast and drizzly Seattle Monday. 

Tuesday March 4 2025

11:00am

Up even a little earlier than usual, before the alarm. Escaping from some very unsettling dream imagery. Morning routine and to the guitar.

Began alone in the Practice Room, but was later joined by Peter and Kim. They had their cameras on. Mine was off.

Mostly pure calisthenics this morning, heavily focused on 5-not patterns. Still thinking ahead to Saturday’s guided practice on the burbles . Right hand work, ala the Second Primary, beginning traditionally and then gradually morphing into the 3+2 pattern of the EotN part; 3 on the D string, 2 on the A. Struggling to even remember to maintain some kind of contact with the Circulation of Sensation. The smallest distraction and it’s gone. Added counting, first in 5 but later in 4 since that’s what the piece requires. It is much more difficult for me to maintain the 4 count when the I’m hearing are just generic open strings that just outline the rhythm rather than the actual melody. Eventually moved to playing the actual burble part, but just on open strings, which was tough, but interesting.

To get my left hand moving, went to the First Primary, but with 5-note combinations, to continue the counting work.

For the final quarter hour came back to necessary prep work for Asturias. Worked on the basic 6/4 form, focused on the A minor pattern on the middle 4 strings. For some reason even when I’m cooking on the D minor, moving to the A minor is where I falter. It’s the same pattern just one string over, and yet I find it difficult. At nearly the last minute it dawned on me I won’t be performing this sitting down, and in fact we rarely do. So I got on my feet and played through the piece several times (just the basic form, no twinkles) and progressively quicker tempos. I do play it better when standing, but it sure ain’t there yet. 

Wednesday March 5 2025

3:00pm

My schedule this week is kind of scattershot complicated this week. I’ve been successful at getting my practice in early, but I end up having to wait until later in the day to write my summary, and so it is not quite as fresh in my mind.

Up quite early, alarm necessary today. Had to shake off some peculiar dream remnants again. 

Into the Practice Room, camera on, all alone for the entire hour. I focused on counting, while circulating Sensation, while playing guitar. I was a little surprised yesterday by the amount of difficulty I had counting while playing the picking pattern for the burbles on open strings. So I began there. Glacially slow tempo. In some ways this is harder than playing fast, in that there is no “momentum”. It is more linear, and less about the character and quality of the rhythmic feel. But I could actually be somewhat present within the sequence and see where the pulse lined up with the pattern. Sort of a musically practical application of the Division of Attention Exercise. I put this same kind of work into the piece nearly 40 years ago, but it hasn’t been much necessary since then. Stayed with this slower tempo for longer than I had planned, before clicking back up to performance tempo. But it paid off. I still found myself losing it in baffling ways from time to time, but in general it was there except when I wasn’t.

Next, the 5-note variation of the First Primary I found yesterday, adding the open string to the beginning of each of the finger combinations. Circulating Sensation as much as I was able, when I remembered. Again let go of synching the circulation with the breath, as it was one iteration too far for me to really attempt. Counting here was easier. In contrast to the open strings these patterns have, if not much of a “melody”, at least a recognizable sequence of tonal relationships. Groups of five notes played as a unit, and a recognizable sequence of relationships with the pulse.

I find I’m enjoying that one.

I ended the morning with a number of run-throughs of Guitar 3, again coming back to the limb rotation. Ultimately worked the tempo up through the high end of performance tempo, and dipping my toe into “that’s not musical anymore.”

Time for a little breakfast before my first student arrived. Then a few hours of work outside the office, getting something together that Hernan needs for the League box set project. Just enough time to type and post this before going back to work.

Thursday March 6 2025

3:00pm

Overslept. Very unusual for me. Don’t remember an alarm, or maybe I didn’t set it. Consequently I didn’t have enough time to practice before my work day began. At noon I had a break and joined Tea Time while I had a little lunch. At 1 o’clock I was at my workstation and preparing to practice.

Into the Practice Room, camera on. Alone for the first 15 minutes, before Peter popped in for half an hour.

Purely practical work today, preparing for Saturday morning. Nothing but burbles with the metronome. I had an idea yesterday about a way I could present the material at that meeting, keeping in mind that it is billed as “guided practice” as opposed to a class or lesson. Thought I ought to do some viability testing, and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow just in case it turned out to be a bright idea. Glad I did. The concept wasn’t flawed, but the specific exercise I had envisioned really wasn’t practical and it needed to be tweaked. Several of the patterns would have required finger pivots that aren’t actually in the piece. Besides being an unnecessary technical challenge, it would have introduced an element that would later need to be forgotten. Experimented with a couple of options until I found a sequence that will be useful. So for the rest of the hour I ran through it, practicing each element for five minutes or so to see how it might go.

At the end of the hour exited the Practice Room.

Short break and then I came back to deal with some Zoom-related technical matters. Began a new meeting, hit record, and played short snippets along with both my metronome and my looper at various volume levels to get a good balance for the call. Then ended the meeting and watched the video, making some crib notes for Saturday morning about how to set the gear up. Later today I’ll probably scribble out a general outline of what I want to work through on Saturday. I can’t be terribly detailed with this since I have no idea what the experience level mix will be for the group, but I do want to internalize the general arc. I’ll probably use my daily practice hour tomorrow for a basic run-through, so that I don’t have to totally make it up as I go the next morning. 

 

Friday March 7 2025

3:15pm

Up and at it at an early but civilized hour.

Coffeed up and headed to the guitar. Alone in the Practice Room, camera on. Basically, ran through the material for tomorrow morning’s burbles Guided Practice in one possible scenario of real-time, limiting myself to 45 minutes, and even that may be generous. Made some mental notes about things that took longer or went more swiftly than I imagined. How simply we begin or how deep we go will depend on who turns up. No matter what, it will be as much about exploring and practicing counting as the mechanical challenges of the part. Five notes. Once you’ve figured out that every other repetition begins with an up-stroke, and you’ve spent a little time with the metronome getting it reliable and accurate, mechanical challenge over. Playing it well, and in time, and making the changes reliably and on time and without an audible startle, a little more difficult.

The final 15 minutes were several run-throughs of the full Guitar 3 part, with limb rotation. Left the room, set down the guitar, and launched into a busy day.

Saturday March 8 2025

10:45am

Again up at a reasonable early hour. Morning stuff. Coffee. Set up my gear for the guided practice session at 9am. Into the Practice Room at 8:15 to warm up. Ran into Peter there. Got my right hand going on open strings. From there to the 5-note First Primary, getting my left hand involved. This also allowed me to settle into counting in 4 while playing 5-note patterns, keeping my breathing relaxed. Kind of important any time, but in the guided practice this morning I’m going to be talking, counting, and playing, pretty much nonstop for 45 minutes. So, extra important. Ran through a very short version of the sequence I’ll be presenting. Said goodbye to Peter and then departed the Practice Room.

Six of us in the Guitar 3 Breakout room. Brought in the metronome at 60bpm. Off we went. I think it went well. Thanks to the prep work I managed the time pretty well; we didn’t get quite as far as I had hoped, but we ended at a very logical completion point, so I wasn’t left with the feeling of being rushed or interrupted.

Hope it was useful.

Preparing for this all week has definitely allowed me to go a little deeper into this part of the piece. It seems to me that it also gave me the structure and focus I needed to work my way through the middle. Happy about that. For the next week though, I need to get serious about wrestling with an aspect of the Guitarist Inside that I’ve been avoiding. In preparation for that I’ve had a document open all week. In it I’ve been listing all of the common phrases I can think of - phrases that I have used, myself - that are derived from religious concepts, and asking myself what I mean by them. So I’ll begin by organizing them into categories and take it from there.

 

Sunday March 9 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on

ONWARD------->

 IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 7

Monday February 24 2025

5:30pm

“Assume a Virtue, if you have it not.” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“Fake it ‘til you make it.” – Startup company founders with big ambitions, everywhere

‘Ol Bill was the more eloquent.

Having completed my review of the Seven Themes at the end of last week, I allowed myself to ponder the next phase at my leisure over the weekend. To be honest, I already knew what it was, because I knew I had been avoiding it. So there is an element of resignation in this step. So far I have been frequently touching on The Guitarist Inside, but only fleetingly. And as soon as some guitar challenge gets my attention it gets left behind. I know how to tackle guitar challenges. The challenges of The Guitarist Inside, not so much. Plus, tackling guitar challenges is fun.

I recognize that there are a couple of things holding me back.

The first has to do with the nature of the task itself.

The Hands. I get this one. The state of my guitar playing is what it is. I’m pretty clear about where my technical strengths and limitations lie. And I have had a lot of practice in addressing them. So the part of the practice of The Guitarist Inside that involves Sensation and bringing a part of our attention to this or that is the part I have the most experience with. I have no illusions about how easily distracted I am, especially when the guitar part I’m playing requires a lot of attention. But when I’m successful I recognize and know it.

If the task is simple – bringing part of my attention to the soles of my feet while I play through a piece of music, for example – I have a pretty reasonable shot at success. 

The Head. If the task involves moving the attentions through a particular sequence of limbs or points, in a way that moves with the music – the Rotation of Limbs as it is applied formally to Eye of the Needle, for instance – I can find success. I can apply the 60-point Exercise to a piece of music I’m playing, as long as I predetermine how often I will move; a certain number of bars for each point, say. With a little practice. The movement of attention in combination with the musical element of time always has at least a chance before I doze off.

Where I really fall short is in applying these organized patterns improvisationally. “Hey, let’s circulate, and move through the rotation of limbs each time my note comes around.” I can sort of do it, but my note selection and playing go to hell.

The Heart. So, when we add this element, I’m toast. All those years ago when I was first formally introduced to work with Sensation, it took time and practice for me to learn to recognize the difference between “bring a part of your attention to the sensation in your right hand,” and, “think about your right hand.” In the same way, to this day when I am asked to “hold the feeling of Wish,” I am pretty sure I’m just thinking about Wish, or about some idea I have about what something called Wish might be. Or worse yet, what some word, Wish, might even mean.

Certain feelings I have at least a grip on. Gratitude is one I can access pretty well. But most of the time what I’m doing is substituting some kind of trite affirmation for the actual feeling of the Feeling.

And pretty much whatever impression of feeling a Feeling I employ when engaged in The Guitarist Inside, I very quickly lose any connection to Sensation, and/or my playing goes off the rails.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Up and out of bed intentionally early. Morning routine, coffee, to the guitar.

While I really am happy with the progress in my playing since the project began, I’m determined that for this next phase (which may last to the end of the project) will be centered on The Guitarist Inside. Much as I’d rather just practice pieces.

On with the metronome, and 45 minutes of calisthenics. Roughly based on material from the themes, but keeping them simple and achievable enough that I can have at least a little free attention for something else. To these I brought some of the options for work with Sensation. A little limb rotation. A little 60-points. But largely worked with the Circle of Sensation. It’s an interesting one. Deceptively difficult, since it is about Sensation in Motion rather than focusing on a series of points. It’s movement, sometime connected the breathing, but not always. And not metronomically tied to the tempo of the music the music I’m playing. Tough for me. But at least it’s something that I can practice.

For the final 15 minutes I brought it back to Eye of the Needle, replacing the Limb Rotation with the Circle of Sensation as I played through each of the parts. Letting go of the rotation was surprisingly difficult since it has been woven into my playing of the piece for so long.

This strikes me as a good model for my practice for the next little while.

Tuesday February 25 2025

11:00am

Settling into this “early to rise” groove. Didn’t need to rely on my clock. Up for the morning routine. Still darkish out, but noticeably more predawn light than even a week ago. Lots of wind last night and this morning. As I was sitting it occasionally sounded like a freight train going by my window.

To the guitar. More or less a repeat of yesterday. 45 minutes of solid calisthenic work, but nothing terribly complex. In addition to the cross-picking exercises that have been part of my daily routine lately, I put in some solid time with both the first and second primaries. The idea is to keep the guitaring simple enough that I can be consistent about keeping the focus on practicing elements of The Guitarist Inside, preferably without my guitar playing going totally to hell.

The 60-point exercise along with the second primary was pretty functional, except that even on my best day there are sections where I tend to doze off or lose track. I’m also not completely clear about whether or not locking the progression of the 60 points to a metronomic tempo is the way to go. It’s handy, because it kind of becomes a musical exercise and I know how to do musical exercises. But when practiced as part of the morning sitting, the timing is less strict. “Two or three breaths” was the instruction I was given for how long to pause on each point, so there is a more organic “rhythm” to movement of attention. It would be a very interesting kind of division of attention to be playing music that needs to be in time while doing this inner work in an non-directly-related mode of time, simultaneously. I wonder if it’s even possible.

Also worked with the Circulation of Sensation. This one is also associated with the breathing cadence rather than a hard count. But it is a continuous movement rather than hitting a sequence of marks, so that makes it a little less daunting.

Not that I’m even vaguely successful at any of it, other than in small flashes.

At one point I simply stopped playing guitar and worked on this movement through the body on its own, and then adding the guitar back in to an exercise that was already in motion. Kind of reversing the way I usually approach it. This feels promising.

I have a document in which I’ve collected all of the references to The Guitarist Inside from Robert’s book. It also includes something I wrote down right after coming out of a meeting with him in Tepoztlán in 2015. It is a list of nine particular exercises that can be used as part of this practice, and I go back to it often. The list is not strictly sequential, but it does include a short series of practices that are additive; do this, now to that add this, and so on. 

I took a moment to pull up the document and refresh my memory, because I recalled that it began with the Circulation of Sensation and then added holding wish in the breast, I wanted to double-check. The document is in my words, not Robert’s, as I was recapitulating a discussion for some future purpose. Maybe this. 

The question of what is Wish, and how do I tell the difference between Wish and merely the idea of Wish?

As with yesterday I completed the hour by playing Eye of the Needle through 4 times; G1, G3, G2, G4.

Practicing the Circulation of Sensation with each, it is still strange to dislodge this piece, albeit temporarily, from the Limb Rotation. During the second time through – playing Guitar 3, aka “the burbles” – specifically in the long F# section, as I struggled to have a little continuity with the movement of sensation while executing the part as well as I am able, I had some small sense of “something” in the center of my chest. It was fleeting, but not imaginary. Pretty sure I actually chased it away by thinking about it, which is a pretty good way to remove myself from the experience. Attempts to find it again didn’t yield much, and I heard myself writing off what I thought might be the reappearance of the “something” as wishful thinking.

Pausing a moment to complete my practice, the term “wishful thinking” came back to me. I kind chuckled at the thought that the path to Wish might begin by wishing for a wish.

Had time for a quick breakfast before the arrival of my 9am student. 

Wednesday February 26 2025

10:30am

Resistance day, evidently. The petulant child is in ascendance.

No morning students, so I let myself sleep in just a little. That was the first sign, I suppose. Still, kind of nice to not get out of bed in total darkness.

Picking up a little from yesterday, during the Exercise of Contact at a Distance at the end of my sitting I elected to practice the Circulation of Sensation. Perhaps practicing the combination of these two without the guitar might set something in motion that I could carry into guitar practice. As I got up from my chair to head for the kitchen I thought to myself that the “good wishes” I was sending out to the IAAD team kind of reeked of a Hallmark greeting card. The second sign.

While making coffee I had to admit to myself that I was experiencing a minor state of dissatisfaction. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get up in the morning, or that I didn’t want to honor my commitment to the sitting, or that I didn’t want to practice guitar, although my enthusiasm was definitely minimal. It was more along the lines of, “Why the hell are you doing this? You’re a 72-year-old man with almost no responsibilities. You could do whatever you feel like, and no one would know the difference.”

To the guitar anyway.

Logged into the Practice Room, which I realized I had forgotten to do yesterday. Patrick was there. Neither of us had our cameras on, we didn’t speak or message. Just nice to know he was there.

Sat quietly for a couple of moments to reconnect with the Circulation of Sensation. Much like yesterday, mostly very straightforward calisthenics today. 15 minutes of Second Primary-ish work. About that time Patrick departed. 15 minutes of the First Primary. All the while moving through the circulation, coordinated with the cadence of my breath. Once again noticed the challenge of the guitar playing moving in time with the metronome while my attention is moving at an utterly unrelated and far more organic tempo. My attention wanders. I haul it back. It wanders again. Seems like that never ends. Now I’m getting positively grumpy.

Moved into 15 minutes of arpeggio work, which increases the complexity, which demands a little more attention, which means my attention for the inner work is stretched even thinner. And I have to admit that I’m not doing a very good job of either task. The “Why are you doing this?” voice is back.

As with yesterday, I closed the hour by playing through Eye of the Needle 4 times, once on each part. Decided to go with the limb rotation for this. Today’s order was G4-G1-G2-G3.

During the second run-through, the basic lead, something remarkable happened. My zoom screen is basically black, with a little color picture of me in the center and a little bit of color across the top and bottom where the controls are. And I’m not looking at the screen anyway, other than occasionally turning my head to check to see if anyone has entered the room. My eyes are closed, or nearly so, when there is suddenly a very bright flash of white. It is genuinely startling. I manage to continue playing the piece, but I look at the screen and see that zoom is gone, and there is a message saying that the event ended after 40 minutes. This makes no sense. For one thing, there is no time limit on these. And for another, it has been longer than 40 minutes since I logged in. The message disappears.

At this point I my left hand leaps up to the second D Minor of the piece, heading into the final stretch, and I realize with more than a little alarm that I have absolutely no memory of playing through the previous 16 bars, maybe more.

Completed it, continued on to the final 2 run-throughs, all in a bit of a state. 

Thursday February 27 2025

10:20am

Actually forgot to set my alarm before I went to bed last night. Still awoke promptly at 6am, which has been my target of late. With a 9am Zoom lesson in the calendar this gave me just enough time to take care of my morning routine, get in my hour of practice, and have a little breakfast, before getting down to my professional commitments for the day.

Signed into the Practice Room, where I was alone. Decided to turn my camera on, if only to see how that experience compared to my usual camera-off mode. It’s a little disconcerting, to be honest. I don’t stare at my computer when I’m practicing, but the occasional glance in that direction I did find a little startling. 

The focus for today was to be pretty straight skills work. I had worked with the Circulation of Sensation while doing the at-a-distance portion of my sitting. And here again before launching into practice I paused for a couple of minutes, with the aim of engaging with sensation, and the hope that I could carry at least the flavor of that with me into my practice.

I have a possible gig in a few weeks that will likely involve performing Asturias, and as it is a piece that utilizes the same cross-picking skills as I’ve been working with for the IAAD it made sense to use it as material for today’s practice. Generic Second Primary warm-up for a couple of minutes at a gentle pace, moving into the specific string combination required for the D minor 5/4 section, still on open strings.

With that established, I moved into 45 minutes of practice on that section, melody and picking pattern, but minus the planted pinky note – not something I wanted to hold for an exercise in endurance. Every 5 minutes I cranked the tempo up a notch. Even though I have a metronome app that can be set to any tempo I choose, for some reason I still go to the standard tempo notches from a traditional metronome. I don’t know why.

At the 30-minute point, Patrick entered the room, camera off. Interesting, the feeling that I might be being watched. Toyed with the idea of turning my camera off, but decided to ride it out.

With about 10 minutes to go in my hour, as I was wrapping up the Asturias work at what for me was a pretty brisk tempo, Kim entered the room as well. She had her camera on. She was slightly obscured by the icon for my metronome app. But I could mostly see her and her mandolin, and I let things stand.

Once again, ended the hour with Eye of the Needle, four times. Today was G4-G1-G2-G3. With all of that fast and relentless right hand warm-up, kind of funny to suddenly be playing a part with long notes played with the thumb, short phrases, and lots of rests. My warm-up had moved outside of EotN performance tempo, so playing the lead parts had a nice easy feel, like slowing down and relaxing into the parts. I still can’t play Guitar 2 for beans.

Signed off, and moved into my day.

Friday February 28 2025

9:30am

Office day at Golden Music Enterprises. So no students.

Up early, but not as early as usual. Morning routine. Made a cup of coffee and headed to the guitar.

Fired up the Practice Room, camera on. Took a few moments to get the Circulation of Sensation in motion. Peter entered the room, also with camera on. The first 30 minutes or so was entirely about chops. Still in Asturias mode, today I focused on the 3-string “twinkle” cross-picking form. Open strings at first, and later the actual tone clusters. Accelerating the tempo at intervals. Not sure what performance tempo is going to be, but I’m not there yet. And working in the grey area just above my tempo comfort zone is profoundly unsatisfying. Necessary, but no fun. 

At one of the pauses to adjust the metronome I grabbed a sip of my coffee. It was nearly cold. It occurred to me that this happens every day. Maybe not the best plan to bring a cup of coffee into the practice hour.

For the past couple of days I’ve been noticing that playing the Eye of the Needle bass part out of context is really tough. The Intro especially, but really the whole thing. So I keep making mental notes to practice counting it. And today I remembered I had made mental notes. So I put on the metronome and worked for a while with counting. Many years ago I made a project out of being able to play the bass Intro while counting in 13/4. It’s tough. The other parts are all moto perpetuos, so counting with the slow quarter note pulse is easy for me. But the timing of the bass line against that pulse is really tough, and even when I was well practiced and could do it, I really didn’t see the value in it, musically. However, when counting it as 13/8, while maintaining the quarter note pulse in the body, makes all kinds of sense to me. I totally feel the on-off-on-off-off-off-on-off-on rhythm, and the line suddenly makes musical sense. So this is what I’ve adopted, even when playing the leads.

So I spent the next segment of my practice hour playing and counting the bass Intro and Midtro parts with the metronome while counting. Felt it begin to settle in.

About this time Peter departed, and almost immediately Patrick checked in, camera off.

And as has been my practice this week, ended the hour with a run through of each of the four parts of Eye of the Needle. G4-G1-G2-G3, all while counting out loud. It turns out the choice to count the 13s as 13/8 adds the extra challenge of changing the count cadence in and out of quarters and eighths. Hadn’t anticipated that one. By the time I was going through the 4th rendition that challenge had been remedied, but it surprised me a little.

Before wrapping up the practice, I played through the bass part one more time, with the count. One of the things I noticed about my first time through was that I was neglecting the precision of the release of the bass notes, and that’s kind of important. It’s not something that happens in performance, but evidently adding the audible count was just enough of an attention drain that not only had I been inaccurate the first time, but I didn’t realize that I was neglecting this detail until after I played the part and was reflecting on how it had gone.

So, one more time through the bass part. A few moments of stillness. A wave to Patrick’s avatar, out of the room and into my day.

10:54am

Happened to glance at the clock and saw “10:54”. Noting that 24 years ago at this very moment the earth under Seattle moved alarmingly, and simultaneously BootlegTV came to an end. 

Saturday March 1 2025

Mental health day. More like mental health 36 hours, since I declared it last evening.

No IAAD music. Instead figured out a really cool Pops Staples groove last night. Then “Boom!”, the documentary about the Sonics. Today, a fantastic podcast about Alex Chilton, which naturally resulted in Big Star ringing through the apartment the rest of the day.

Hadn’t planned on attending the House Meeting, but that felt like a bridge too far. Very glad I went.

Sunday March 2 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on

ONWARD TO WEEK 8, AND OUT OF THE MIDDLE