Curt Golden: The OCG Meets Frank Ocean, or Not

Thursday August 20, 2015

The Hotel, Burbank, CA

8:00pm – my inside office

A day utterly devoid of drama. I barely know what to do with myself.

Like yesterday we Ubered over to the rehearsal space. I opened the rehearsal with a review of the Guitarist Inside collected state exercise, and then ran the team through a 30-minute warm up designed to settle into the hands as well as working with very directed listening within the circle. We spent the rest of the morning reviewing the work we’ve been doing, with an eye to what might be useful for the performance. After the lunch break, I talked a little about what “When Ready, Begin” requires of us, and some strategies:

If you feel you have something to contribute, do so with conviction, without fear, and without asking for permission. Go for it without hesitation.
If you don’t have anything at the moment, trust your neighbors and teammates in the circle – join them in what they are doing, or respond with something that compliments it. Watch for circulations, conducted chords.
If you have nothing to contribute, contribute nothing, but with active and responsive intent.

For this session I asked people to call out any piece of repertoire that they felt might have a place in the performance. We played them with very little comment, simply to hear them, and to get a sense of what stage of performability they were. From time to time throughout this session I would without preamble simply call out, “Orchestra, when ready please begin”, and then we would go for it. Once established I generally cut them off. It was the “begin” part of the challenge that I wanted to address and revisit. I also occasionally checked in to see if my neighbors (a Pozzo to the left and another to the right) were paying attention, and initiated circulations out of the blue.

At this point, it was getting to be a long day. The next session was some much needed AT work with Erin.

For our final hour, we looked at “processing” (as in, engaging in a procession – Crafty-speak), and then talked through the pieces we had played after lunch, offering observations and comments, without delving too deeply into analysis. Hernan and I will sit down and have a look at which pieces we feel are both appropriate for the gig, and ready to be performed.

Practicalities, and then home. Some are going out to be treated to dinner by a local friend. I’m going to stick closer to home.