IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 6

Monday February 17 2025

2:15pm

The 20th anniversary of “Performance Zero” of Tuning the Air – the trial run exploring the viability of building a show based on guitarists sitting in a circle with the audience in the middle (spoiler alert: It was, and seven years later we brought down the curtain on the final performance) – and I find myself a little consumed with one of the nuttiest ideas I’ve ever had for a circulated arrangement of a classical work. There is also a Plan B should it prove unworkable, but I really want Plan A to work. Total madness.

But that’s not part of this project in any relevant way, other than the fact that any time I begin working on it I am in danger of going down the rabbit hole for hours, which makes ensuring I stay up on my IAAD commitments a bit more of a struggle.

Up reasonably early. Morning routine and directly to the guitar. Gave the Practice Room a shot, and found one other person already there, and within the hour two more joined in. Still experimenting with camera-on vs off. Not sure. I notice that with the camera on I am a little more aware of the performative aspects and find that distracting, and at the moment that isn’t feeling useful. But it also may just be something I need to work through and past. We’ll see.

Began with the collection of IAAD-material-based cross-picking calisthenic warmups. Good stuff and it is clearly showing improvement, if glacially slow.

From there, back to Calliope. This was not practice, but research. Turned off the camera, opened the score, and went through it bar by bar taking note of precisely where the mirrors in the lead appear. It is all there, back in some dusty corner of my memory, but pulling it up at will with precision not so much. Ran the WMMR performance at 85% tempo, and when listening I pretty much always hear these details coming and know where to expect them. So I think for the purposes of this inquiry I’m good. Back to the guitar, I played the bass part along at 85%, 95%, and 100% tempos. Mostly there on the actual bass parts. By the time I was up to 100%, though, the high bits up in the lead range were pretty ugly. Considering the fact that whenever I hear this piece played these days it’s even faster than that, it is pretty clear that I’m not going to be in a performance team for Calliope any time soon. If ever.

Closed the book, turned the camera back on, and back to calisthenics for the remainder of the hour.

Breakfast, first student of the day, and then a doctor’s appointment. Consequently writing up my notes about 5 hours after the fact. Not ideal, but whatcha gonna do?

Tomorrow on to Askesis.

Tuesday February 18 2025

3:30pm

As of today, the guy on the left is officially retired. And the lovely sunburst 1968 ES-335 he is cradling is his wife’s “happy retirement” gift to him. A bunch of his very jealous guitar playing friends wanted to see it, and more importantly hear it, and much more importantly, play it, so I hosted a small gathering at my place last night for that purpose. There was pizza. There were vintage amplifiers turned up real loud. And there was tequila.

All of which is to say the today began a bit later and a bit more slowly than usual. 

Consequently, my IAAD work for the day was segmented. After the morning routine I only had about an hour before the arrival of my first student. Made a cup of coffee, tuned my guitar, pulled up the pdf of Askesis that I got my hands on yesterday, and logged into the Practice Room.

I was alone in the practice room, but elected to keep my camera off for today. Did a little generic warmup and then went to work on the Askesis parts. This is a fascinating one. For this half-hour session I worked my way through both parts on the score, simply remembering how they go. Along with Third Relation and Calliope, this is part of a trio of GC Themes in which the distinction between “lead” and “bass” parts is academic at most. Both parts are all over the place. I also seem to have known both parts equally well, though in performance I was almost always on Team Bass. For every section and every figure, regardless of which part, the relearning curve was short. I’d slowly work my way through the pattern, and on the third or fourth clumsy and awkward repetition my hands would suddenly take over. So it’s all in there somewhere. This score has quite a lot of picking indications, a couple of which surprised me a little. But in thirty minutes I had everything back in accessible memory. Even found one or two mistakes in the score. And there is one bar that is either wrong in the score or I used to play it incorrectly. I need to consult with the composer to determine whether the score or my is wrong. We didn’t work from scores when this material was emerging. Basically we used one another as living breathing loopers until the composer was satisfied. 

The most surprising thing I encountered during the reacquaintance session was the time signature changes. I am willing to bet that if I ever knew what the time signature of a given passage was, it was fleeting anecdotal information that I tossed aside once I could play the part.

Back to the Zoom screen, where I found someone had joined me. Extra glad I left my camera off. Signed off, changed to a Telecaster in the old tuning, fired Zoom back up, and headed to suburban Chicago.

After the lesson, a quick and late breakfast, and on to Askesis part two.

In the earlier session I really had not done a whole lot of actual guitar playing, so for this half hour I used two passages from the lead part that have always tripped me up, and used them as practical material for what was basically 30 minutes of calisthenics.

Afterward, checked my phone and saw a message from Igor that he was out and about with Fernando, suggesting we get together to grab a coffee in the neighborhood. Called him, made a plan, and headed out the door. Always a joy to see Fernie. 

Have gotten zero real exercise in the past two days, and this is something that makes my doctor cranky, so now heading out for a long walk while there is still daylight. 

Wednesday February 19 2025

3:00pm

Up early enough to get my hour in first thing this morning. Shared the Practice Room with Patrick Smith. Camera off.

A short warmup with material from Invocation, Third Relation, and Calliope, at a medium tempo.

After double-checking and confirming the accuracy of the score for Askesis, I chose several sections, primarily from the “lead”, that have always been problematic for me, and used them as material for calisthenic practice. Two birds, one stone. Amped up the tempo as I settled in. I will still never be a guitar speed demon, but I am getting stronger and more reliable at the faster tempos that I can manage.

For the final quarter of hour it was back to Eye of the Needle. Through each of the 4 parts at performance tempo. While Guitar 2 is still not ready for prime time, it is beginning to sound more musical; less tense and fraught. Back through Guitar 1 and Guitar 3 again at a pushed tempo.

Tomorrow on to The Moving Force for a couple of days, and that will wrap up the recapitulation of the original Themes. 

Thursday February 20 2025

11:20am

Allowed myself to sleep in just a little this morning, as I have a 10pm gig tonight. That meant that I didn’t have time for IAAD practice before my first student at 9am. 

After signing off of that lesson, I picked up the Guitar Craft guitar and began. For the first time since this project began I really really wasn’t in the mood. My warmup was sloppy and didn’t really improve much. Resistance was very high.

But I stayed with it, as one does.

Opened the book to The Moving Force. This is a piece that I never, even on my very best day, played at tempo. And that certainly isn’t going to change right now. But, as with all of this material, I did learn it and was able to play it through, more or less as an etude.

So the first thing I did was to read through it slowly section by section, which really means bar by bar, playing the cross-picking pattern on open strings. This is a little odd, as you never really get a feel for the flow this way. The first thing I noticed was that I don’t really remember it changing time signatures at almost every bar. Or rather, I don’t remember learning it in terms of counting at all. I knew it had lots of tricky little twists and turns, but I always experienced them as melodic twists and turns rather than meter.

Then I read through it again, still bar by bar, slowly, actually playing the part. Clearly at one time in my life I put a great deal of work into this, because this came back more or less immediately. That is, my fingers knew what to do, albeit only rudimentally. And at that point all reference to “the count” went completely out of the picture.

Then I moved to the bass part, which is very sparse and only appears briefly in specific phrases to add color and a bit of harmonic depth. To look at it on the page, it made no sense to me. So I pulled up Show Of Hands, and just played along. Bang. All right there. I did notice one place where I hear a couple of the bass notes an octave lower than they appear on the score. This is the only “real” recording of the piece. It appears on Get Crafty, but that recording is a bit raw. I also have a ton of bootlegs of shows where we played it. So I just played along with each of them. And the low octave is audible in all of them. It’s possible that just one player is taking it down, much as the bass for the midtro of Eye of the Needle is often doubled at the low octave – it’s not really part of the composition, but rather one of the arrangement variations that are available.

What strikes me most about the bass part for this piece is that it takes the EotN approach to another level. In order to play it you really must KNOW how the lead goes. The bass is not holding the pulse. It is not driving the piece (compare it with Calliope or Third Relation). To say it is “decorative” would far understate its importance, but it is something like that. Whether someone working to learn the bass part learns the lead just by hearing it a million times or actually takes the time to learn to play it, that level of understanding is mandatory. It honestly can’t be counted. An isolated bar of 13/8 at 240bpm? Followed by a bar of 5/4, a bar of 2/4, a bar of 9/8, a bar of 3/4, and finally a bar of 4/4. Not really in the cards, at least not for me. But you still need to know where the downbeat of those bars are in the melody. And every bit as important, you need to know where the end of those bars is, because a long note that hangs on through a harmonic shift is enough to kill the piece – something that is also true of Eye of the Needle.

Not sure how much more work I’m going to put into this piece, but I anticipate cycling through all of the themes for another week, focusing on the guitar practice/calisthenic side of things, and there is certainly plenty of stuff in here that I could dig into.

Friday February 21 2025

5:45pm

How I spent my Thursday night: 

And by that I mean, from 10pm Thursday to 2am Friday. Came home, had a little snack, made myself a hot toddy (people don’t always realize how hard playing the harmonica is on your throat muscles). I cannot come home from a gig and just go to sleep. So I chilled and watched a little TV, and read a chapter of a book, and by about 4am I was ready to go to bed.

I absolutely did not set an alarm. Very deliberately and intentionally.

When I did climb out of bed it was after 9. Through the morning routine. Made a cup of coffee. Took a quick look at a very long to-do list for my regular Friday office/clerical day. Took care of a couple of items that could be checked off quickly, and then it was time for the 11am IAAD Buddy meeting. Some really good stuff came up there. 

At noon, as we signed off, I noticed I was hungry, so I made a little lunch and another cup of coffee and then “headed off to work”. A scintillating afternoon of paying bills, confirming the lesson schedule for next week and setting up necessary zoom appointments, chasing down and matching medical bills to Medicare statements, taking another dive at researching my flight options for Italy in April, etc, etc, et-freaking-c. 

It was almost 4pm by the time I could put all of that away. I was grumpy and totally not in the mood for guitar practice, and since a commitment to daily practice was not something I took on as part of this course I was completely at ease with that. Except I wasn’t. So, after some hemming and hawing I sat down for what was to be 30 reluctant minutes, but which stretched out to 45 highly engaged minutes. Go figure.

Right hand warmup on open strings at a reasonably brisk tempo meant to be for 5 or 10 minutes turned into almost 30. Nothing fancy. But it gave me some time to contemplate the Guitarist Inside, along with a couple of things discussed in the meeting this morning that felt related. At one point I took a shot at the “circulation of sensation”. Didn’t get very far. Sensation is something I have a strong relationship with, so the part of any of these exercises that involve bringing a part of my attention to some part of my body comes pretty readily. But I am still terrible about combining them with the task of playing Music, or even with a simple repetitive exercise. Sooner or later either my attention wanders away from the exercise, or my guitar playing begins to falter in tragic ways. With the limb rotation through Eye of the Needle I am constantly blanking on which limb is supposed to be active, and rely heavily on knowing where the exercise lines up with the composition to get myself back on track. I don’t think if I’ve made it through the piece with clear continuity in the limbs from beginning to end more than a handful of times since I was first introduced to the practice in late 2009.

Tomorrow my guitar work for the day is likely to be the Seattle Monthly Open Circle, and on Sunday an SGC rehearsal, and I did want to wrap up The Moving Force this week so that I can move on to something else beginning Monday. Getting the lead back into my hands is not part of the plan, other than to borrow bits as material for calisthenic practice. But the little flashes of insight I had yesterday are still intriguing to me. I played the bass line along with the Show of Hands recording, without referring to the score, and it was more or less there. A couple of times through and it was good. I recognize how I know “where” these lines are played; that is where in the form of the composition they appear. I know the piece well, and understand the harmonic rhythm of the composition. So know which harmonic segments include bass lines. But how I know precisely when, and for how long each note sounds, is still kind of mysterious to me. Something I wrote yesterday about note durations sticks with me and I pulled the score back out to double check my accuracy. I must have practiced the hell out of this thing at some point in my life because all of my note durations were spot on. Except for the very last note, and in exploring this today I realized that I didn’t really understand what the lead was doing rhythmically in that bar. So I slowed the recording down (they make software for that) and spent a couple of minutes playing the lead through the final 3 bars of the piece until I was confident I could hear and feel the downbeat that the bass needs to release just before, and voila. Deficiency eliminated. At least until the next time I play it.

I can’t believe it, but I really really need to begin dinner preparation now. Where did the day go? 

IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 5

Monday February 10 2025

11:30am

An intentional day off yesterday. Interesting night’s sleep. I did awaken at about 3am, and had that “oh, no, not this again” moment of dread. Fortunately, was able to get back to sleep in a matter of minutes (2 songs from my Robert Johnson playlist). The second half of my night’s sleep was a jam-packed dream extravaganza with heavily surrealistic overtones. Woke up early, with my alarm, and lay in bed an extra 10 minutes in a state of gentle bewilderment.

Up. Morning stuff. Time for my IAAD guitar practice before my first student’s arrival. As I made coffee I pondered what that practice might be. The little voice I heard on Saturday about paying attention to what I was avoiding was still hanging about. What I’m avoiding is The Guitarist Inside. Not because I don’t like it or don’t want it, but because I’m really very bad at it, and I don’t have a clear sense of how to practice it. What are the Guitarist Inside Primaries, please? Because that’s the level I’m on with it.

The other option for Phase 2 that I was pondering was to revisit all of the early GC repertoire. Not necessarily with the same kind of detailed attention that I’ve been applying to Eye of the Needle, exactly. But bringing it back into my hands. There is a very clear continuum to the material that emerged in those early years. Theme I led into Theme II, which led into Theme III, which was Eye of the Needle. And that in turn led into Theme IV and so on.

So as I sat down, still not sure what I was going to practice, it occurred to me that this was actually one single practice. The early repertoire can give me practical material to work on, and while I work on that material I can practice the Guitarist Inside – specifically the holding Wish in the breast, and lord have mercy, but also reminding myself of the larger pool of practices – and just see what I can notice. From that perhaps a path forward might present itself.

Last week when pondering all of this I had been thinking specifically of beginning with Third Relation, but as I sat down this morning it occurred to me to begin at the Beginning. So, Theme I, then. I have never been particularly adept at the high melody bit, so a good piece of practical guitar work there. Pulled out the score briefly to make sure I remembered all of the bits. Good. Warmed up a little with the basic arpeggio. Took a quick look at the bass – a part too easy to overlook, just 4 whole notes, but much to take into consideration when playing it.

Then onto the melody bit. Warmed up my right hand on open strings in the cross-picking pattern this part uses. Then played the part slowly. Some question about where to play one note – the score says one place, common sense says another. Ultimately stuck with the score, but I’m open to a change.

Once up to tempo, brought in the Exercise of Contact At A Distance, specifically connecting with the participants on the IAAD, as a way to facilitate holding Wish in the breast.

Then something remarkable happened. The face of Frank Simes popped into my awareness. Not part of the course. Not someone I ever think about. In fact the last time I saw him was March 30, 1985, at the final meeting of the first Guitar Craft course. Frank was the one real “player” on that course. And for our final performance, in the original “ballroom” at Claymont Court, it was Frank and Robert playing this part. What followed was a flood of faces, some with names but others not, the 19 participants (including Robert) of that first course.

There I was playing this part, pretending to hold Wish in my breast, and a direct connection to 40 years ago arrived. A few more Presences, some with faces, one in particular with a name, followed along. The Claymont residents supporting the course in the Kitchen, in the House, as well as more direct contact.  

After I completed my practice, I retrieved the names of the guitarists on that course. Some missing names to go with faces I had seen, some names I still can’t place. 

Thinking I may be onto something here.

GC US1 – March 25-30, 1985

1. Robert Fripp
2. Roy Capellaro
3. Randall Chiurazzi
4. Chris Cousineau
5. Richard Drews
6. Chris Ebneth
7. Andrew Essex
8. Claude Gillet
9. Curt Golden
10. Mac Hart
11. Bryan Helm
12. James Hines III
13. Chris Kirby
14. Marvin Meng
15. Jeff Mercer
16. Peter Racine
17. Scott Robbins
18. Frank Simes
19. Mark Vermette
20. Barbara June Appelgren
21. Yoga Teacher
22. Frank Sheldon (I didn’t know his name yet, but his presence in the audience was remarkable)
23. Residents in the Kitchen and Dining Hall 

Tuesday February 11 2025

7:30am 

Up exceedingly early, by design. Who books a student for 8am?

Morning routine in the dark and cold. A cup of coffee and straight to the guitar. Warmed up with the melody bit from yesterday’s work on Theme I. Feels like something worth putting into rotation in my practice. All of the cross picking I’ve been doing during this project is beginning to pay off. Then on to Theme II. Other than reviewing the bass line to be sure I remember it correctly, not much new here. It’s the Fourth Primary, something that quite regularly shows up in my warm-ups. Remembering it in context a bit different, though. If I were to put it on a looper, it would be a good place to practice improvising, but at the moment that feel a little outside the Phase 2 work. Beginning tomorrow I’ll be tackling considerably more technically demanding material and I don’t know how much time that will require. Moved on to Eye of the Needle. Once through each of the 4 parts, straight in at performance tempo. A couple of days off from it seem to have brought it back to life. Guitar 2 is still not performance-ready. But all in all it felt rather solid.

Moving on to the Guitarist Inside, I went back to Theme II. It felt that this was simple enough that I could practice working with a number of the forms that have been discussed. As I repeated this simple musical pattern, playing each note with as much presence, intention, and care, as I was able, I experimented with several of the possible modes of the Guitarist Inside. The limb rotation a pretty obvious one and it works quite nicely. Even so, I still get distracted and my mind wanders, and I rarely make it through one complete cycle without at least one “wait, where the hell am I?” moment. But I persist. The Sixty Point exercise was an interesting one. Unless I plan to play the piece for a very very long time, this one needs to move at a pretty quick pace. And I got lost in all the same places I do when practicing this as part of the sitting. Certainly worth looking further into. Touched on the Collected State exercise. I found that the simple form settled in pretty easily, but the more traditional form as it is presented for the morning sitting would be a big challenge.

As with yesterday, I used the Exercise of Contact At A Distance as a vehicle for holding Wish in my breast, and breathing out Love. And again I began with whichever names and faces from the IAAD I could easily call up.

Obviously, surprises are only surprising once, but yesterday’s surprise appearance of the characters from the first Level One was much on my mind as I worked. As Theme II had arisen shortly before the first Level Two in 1985, and it was on that project that I encountered it for the first time as anything more than just the Fourth Primary, I intentionally brought that performance team to mind as well today. This manifested in the form of a near-cinematic collage. Because of the intensity of that course, all of the players are firmly burned into my memory. Their faces and most of their names came to me readily. And, to be honest, finding a little Love to exhale was no effort whatsoever. The folks contributing from outside the Circle were a little more difficult for me to conjure. Barbara June and Toyah were obvious. Eric (the Hero) Kahan as well. Pretty sure that Debra and Susy were part of the support from the community. But I can’t specifically remember if Frank was active on that course. Did we still have yoga? What other community members contributed? I’m a little sad I can’t remember more detail.

 

Time to go to work. First student shortly, and it will involve both Patsy Cline and T-Rex in NST.

GC US9 – December 1-14, 1985

1. Robert Fripp
2. Terry Blankenship
3. Roy Capellaro
4. Jon Diaz
5. John Durso
6. Andrew Essex
7. Tony Geballe
8. Claude Gillet
9. Curt Golden
10. Mike Gorman
11. Trey Gunn
12. Bryan Helm
13. James Hines III
14. Danny Howes
15. David Mazza
16. John Miley
17. John Novak
18. Mark Tomacci
19. Barbara June Appelgren
20. Eric Kahan
21. Toyah Wilcox
22. Debra Kahan
23. Susy Hawes
24. Frank Sheldon*
25. Residents in Kitchen and Dining Hall 

* 2:15pm – had to get confirmation from Tony on that one. 

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

11:30am

After the lesson, a short laundry list of to-do’s. Some involving preparation for lessons later in the day (like refreshing the slide solo in What Is And What Will Never Be). But pertinent to this project, unloading a bunch of “notes to myself” that come up while I’m practicing, for things I need to do “later”.

The first was to dig up the video of the GWU show in 1985, where I know there is a close-up of Robert playing Theme I, in order to put to rest the nagging question of where that one note is actually played. Hint: the score is correct. Now I can practice the part without that question hovering.

Another was to go into my files, find what writings I do have about The Guitarist Inside, and collect them all in one place. I found this morning that I was grappling during practice time with questions about the details of the exercise, as well as the available forms and variations. Things I should be clear about before I begin. Most of what I have in disparate forms has been collected in The Guitar Circle, so I went there first and did a little cutting and pasting into a single document that I can have open at all times for reference. The only other useful thing I found were some notes I scribbled down after a meeting in Tepoztlán in 2015. 

This should make the Guitarist Inside aspect of practice in the coming days a little less fuzzy.

 

Wednesday February 12 2025

11:00am

Already and oddball day. No professional obligations until the afternoon, so I allowed myself to sleep in a little, which is to say I arose at what would generally be my normal time rather than the much earlier beginning I have adopted for this project. Went through my morning routine as usual, pushing away the feeling that I was running late and needed to be in a hurry. Breakfast before guitar, which is also something of a divergence from my practice on this course.

Began with a little gentle right hand, and then moved on to the Theme I “melody” which I am adopting as part of my warmup. It’s beginning to come along. Still takes a few repetitions before my right hand settles into the pattern, but it is more or less there and improving. From there to the exercise known informally as the Third Relation Exercise, an A Minor triad arpeggio played with cross picking over 3, 4, and 5 strings. As my work for today is a review of Theme IV, aka Third Relation, it seemed prudent. Plus it’s a good exercise and one that I am going to add to my warmup going forward during this project.

All in all, about 15 minutes of that. I then pulled up the music stand and opened the book to Third Relation. It has been some time since I’ve played the piece, and in the case of some to the lead variations, perhaps decades.

Guitar 4, the bass, first, since this is the part I most often played in performance, and the easiest doorway back into the music for me. Simply read through the part, reminding myself of the details, transitions, and nuances. While motoring through the rocking D Minor bass line I caught myself using a different fingering in one particular place than indicated in the tab. And while my ancient muscle memory would be happy to default to the indicated fingering if I asked it to, the 72-year-old guitarist addressing this piece in 2025 is pretty sure his fingering makes more sense, and for the time being I’m going to listen to that guy. If I’m going to do more with this piece than merely work through it as material for this project’s study, I will in all likelihood come back to this part as the one I’m most likely to be able pull into performance shape.

Then to the various leads. There was a time when I had all of these available in my hands, but there are multiple layers of rust on them now. Didn’t make any attempt to actually play through these parts, but simply read through it section by section. At almost every turn the same sequence of events. Read through it, phrase by phrase, figure out the fingering, the rhythmic timing, and right hand requirements, puzzled because none of it seems familiar. Eventually get it well enough that I can hear something that I recognize. Then my hands suddenly take over and I have this cheerful feeling of “Oh! There it is! I remember that.” Finally the inherent technical challenges of each phrase reveal themselves and I have this gloomy feeling of “Oh… There it is… I remember that.”

Went through this cycle over and over, working through all of the variations of the part. Some come more readily; the “dancing 5’s” and the descending sections. Others feel like I have never heard or seen them before in my life; the upper octave variations in particular.

I was in the house when this piece was born. Some part of me knows all of this stuff, but damn it is buried deep.

By the time I completed all of the parts, the hour was gone and I felt like I hadn’t really gotten any actual practice other than the warmup. And absolutely no Guitarist Inside. I was feeling like a slacker. So I put on the metronome and worked on the bass part for another 15 minutes. That was enough to get it into the world of the possible.

Going to put this bass part back into my regular practice rotation, although I have a lot of doubts that these old hands will ever be able to get this material back up to performance tempo. Fortunately, for Phase 2 at any rate, that is not part of the aim.

At least another day on this one before I move on. 

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

4:15pm

Had a free hour this afternoon, so I decided to make up for the lack of calisthenic work this morning. Jumped into the Beta-test version of “The Practice Room” just to see what it’s like. I think it’s going live today or tomorrow. In any case, it was odd to see myself on the computer screen as I practiced. I mostly ignored it. I can report back to the team that it works, but I’m not sure I grok what exactly it’s for. Maybe that will become more obvious later.

General workout began with an old standby octave scale exercise, since the bass part of Third Relation requires a bit of that. Began with the generic version and then tweaked it to mimic some of the picking patterns the bass part requires. From there to an extended workout with the “Third Relation” exercise, cross-picking over 5 strings. After about half an hour of that moved into running the part, looking at shaky transitions, and in general cleaning it up and speeding it up.

I like getting the workout, and I sure need the workout. But I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that “Phase 2” isn’t about getting parts up to performance condition. It has more to do with reexperiencing this material that I haven’t played in some time, as I did this morning. And then putting some aspects of it into my practice regimen to use as material to practice the Guitarist Inside with. The “Third Relation” exercise, for instance, with the 60-point Exercise. Or the descending sections with the Circle of Sensation. I need material to play that is challenging enough to imitate actual playing situations, but uncomplex enough to give me a fighting chance to observe something about how these practices work on me when I’m actually engaged with them. 

Thursday February 13 2025

1:30pm

The way my schedule is laid out today, I had to split my practice time into two half-hour sessions. The first just before my first student of the day, and the second after lunch. Early morning remains my most productive practice time, at least for the material I’m working on now, by far.

For the early morning session, began again with the melodic line from Invocation. It is getting easier for me to jump into this one, which is good, but it is also just quirky enough that it doesn’t respond well to autopilot, which is also good. Followed up on the plan formulated yesterday, to work with isolated segments from the repertoire I’m looking at, and experiment with the various forms of the Guitarist Inside. So once I had this one up and running I added the limb rotation. Dismal. It seems I can do one task or the other, but not at the same time. When I stick with the rotation, my playing goes to hell. When I correct my playing I completely lose track of my limbs. The Sixty-Point Exercise was the same – only worse… I get lost on that one even when it is ALL that I’m doing. The Collected State has promise, as it moves in its own time. I suppose that’s technically true of the rotation and 60 points as well. It is not necessary to marry them to the time set by the tempo and arrangement of the music. Eye of the Needle does include that wrinkle, but that level of precision may only be necessary when a group is doing the exercise in unison. More study needed.

Moved on to the “Third Relation” cross picking exercise. I’m okay with this a very moderate tempos, but as I approach performance tempo it gets pretty painful to listen to. Once in the groove, again experimenting with the same three forms of the Guitarist Inside, with pretty much the same result. Only worse since I’m less reliable on this guitar part. Switched to the bass line in D, which I am comfortable with, and had a bit more success, but only incrementally.

Fired up Zoom and into my day.

The session after lunch was more or less the same. Same musical material, but experimenting with different forms of the Guitarist Inside; holding the feeling of Wish in the breast, the circle of sensation, and a bit of the Exercise of Contact at a Distance, sending good wishes to the IAAD team. That last one isn’t exactly part of the Guitarist Inside, although I don’t know of any reason it shouldn’t be. But I was using it as a kind of surrogate for the practice of extending the feeling of Wish out to my friends in the circle.

All in all the results were the same as the morning. No real success in maintaining quality in my guitar playing while giving the inner work the attention it needs. Plus, my playing is worse in the afternoon, evidently. I think that once professional obligations and the noise of the world in general creeps in, focus is just a lot harder.

Tomorrow is another day.

Friday February 14 2025

8:45am

Happily back in the early morning groove today. Up at 6am, morning routine. Brew a cup of coffee and head for the guitar.

Largely academic morning. The first 15 minutes was the Invocation and Third Relation warmups. Moderate tempo, but very solid right out of the gate, which is encouraging. Throughout the warmup I worked with the Circle of Sensation as a way into the Guitarist Inside. As with yesterday, this one shows some promise for me. 

From warmup into Calliope. The book on the stand, and I read through it slowly. Began with the “Bass” parts (G3 and G4); bass in quotation marks since, like Third Relation, that part leaps about between the high bits in counterpoint with the leads and the growling low bits of definite bass. I find the score for this a bit confusing. Or, alternately, I’ve always found this piece a little confusing and the score doesn’t help that. Either way, it took me a while to find my way through this. Muscle memory definitely present as it all came back. Something that isn’t in the score that I have a very distinct memory of is a mirror part in the bass line of the E Major section. I really don’t know if this is something that was toyed with and dropped during the composition’s evolution, or if we just missed it when doing the transcription. But my hands play it readily enough that I clearly put some time into practicing it at one point or another.

Consulted some recordings, but the only “official” recording of this piece is on Get Crafty, which is distinctly lo-fi. Everything else is bootlegged. Settled on the WMMR recording. This was the League shortly after returning from the first Level 3 in Cranborne. Dragged the mp3 into “Transcribe!” so that I could slow it down a bit, which allowed to play along even with my rusty chops. This definitely helped to get me back inside the piece.

Then on to the Leads. As with all of the material I’ve looked at so far, when this music was first emerging I learned and practiced every part. And at one time or another I have played every part in an ensemble of one kind or another. But early on I found myself more than a little irritated with the prevalent undercurrent of that very common guitarist conceit; that the “leads” were for the high flyers, and if you’re not up to that you should play the bass. Anyone who has ever heard Invocation or Aspiration or Eye of the Needle with the bass line butchered knows what nonsense that is. So at some point during this period I decided I was going to become Master of the Bass Lines.

But I digress. As I worked through the Lead parts they came back to me swiftly. I also remembered very clearly why I knew from very early on that they were not my destiny. Ingenious, but treacherous. Fun, up to a point. And certainly a great workout for the hands. But the aim of this particular phase of the work is to reestablish the music for myself, which means knowing how all of the parts go. Whipping all the parts into a state of performance readiness is not really part of the plan. I’ll spend another day with this, focused on guitaring rather than analyzing, and then move on.

Office day at Golden Music Enterprises, and there is lots of tedious but unavoidable work to be done. Also need to go over the presentation I’m making for the IAAD tomorrow morning. And then of course, it’s Valentine’s Day. Off I go.

GC UK1 - September 1-November 16, 1986 - Red Lion House, Cranborne, Dorset

1. Robert Fripp
2. Terry Blankenship
3. Randall Chiurazzi
4. Andrew Essex
5. John Garbarczyk
6. Tony Geballe
7. Curt Golden
8. Ralph Gorga
9. Trey Gunn
10. James Hines III
11. Adam Lieb
12. Lindy Auberry
13. Elizabeth Bennett 

 

Saturday February 15 2025

2:30pm

Summarizing my practice a number of hours after the fact, which is not ideal. But I had to go from practice straight into preparation for presenting the Exercise Of Contact At A Distance, and from there into the House Meeting, and finally a number of essential errands. So now I’m back, and the task of remembering.

Up early, but not excruciatingly so. Took care of the morning routine, made a cup of coffee and headed to the guitar. Paused and considered my plan, which was to have a morning largely of calisthenic work, but utilizing material from Calliope. Seemed like a solid plan, so I tuned my guitar. 

Noticed that it was just coming up on 8am, and remembered that Mika was hosting a guided practice at 8. Thought it might be an opportunity to test out the Practice Room concept, which as of this morning had not yet gone public. I logged into the meeting, muted and video off, muted my computer’s speakers so I wouldn’t hear the material Mika was presenting, but just see a bunch of guitar players practicing. Turned on my metronome and set off on my warmup, the Invocation and Third Relation cross-picking forms I’ve been using all week. 

Warmed up for 15 minutes, hands feeling generally good. But I found the activity on screen distracting. This hadn’t been a problem when I hosted the warm-up hour before my Eye of the Needle presentation. But for that one we had all turned our video off, so I knew people were there but I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me. I simply knew I was not alone, and we were all practicing. I also think the fact that they were all doing something together and more or less in unison, while I was clearly not also contributed to this sense of discord. So I stayed online, but turned on my screensaver so I couldn’t see them. In that way this became less a test-run for the Practice Room, and more a specialized application of the Exercise of Contact at a Distance. Whatever it was, though I knew they were there working, I was no longer distracted by them.

Worked primarily on three bits of Calliope. First, the insane 9/8 lead line from the Intro, played on the highest frets possible on an Ovation guitar. This part is simply cruel. And if it was ever possible for these hands on this instrument, both are now far too ancient to do anything but flop about. Took it down a fourth to B♭. Although this makes the stretches even stretchyer, it was at least playable for me. The 2-string skips of the cross-picking are certainly challenging, but not insurmountable. So good work there.

From there I moved on to leads in the whacky interlude. Here again, the string skipping makes it hazardous, and the rhythmic scheme is pretty eccentric. But it is not conceptually difficult. Once I broke it down into 4 discrete bars it became quite clear. I think back in the day when I was playing this more regularly, my approach was to put my head down and crash through it. This morning it became more of a dance, as I believe it was meant to be. Left hand fingerings are tricky to the extent that position shifts need to be swift, precise, and clean. But really nothing anyone who has ever played Killing Floor or Soul Man in the old tuning would find daunting.

Then on to slay a personal dragon. The mirrored bass line in the 5/4 bar at the end of the Interlude. For some reason this has always eluded me. It’s just twisted enough, and enough unlike anything I would play if left to my own devices, that it has always frustrated me. So I tore it apart and looked at the places I always screw it up, and applied all of those little practical techniques I’m always on my student’s backs to work with. And by the end of the hour it was pretty reliable. A little like the Invocation melody line, I think I just need to get this into regular rotation in my daily practice for a while. So I’ll add it into my warmup going forward.

By then in was 9am. Turned off the screen saver and returned to the team on Zoom in time to close the hour with them.

From there: breakfast, a little quiet review of my plan for the EoCaaD presentation at 10. The presentation. The House Meeting. Into my day. And now, into the day off.

Sunday February 9 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – morning on in a trio format

ONWARD TO WEEK 6

 IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 4

Monday February 3 2025

3:15pm

Sunday was a much-needed day of doing absolutely nothing. Rest and recuperate so that the cold doesn’t linger interminably. Watched college basketball, read books, watched movies. Preparing meals was about the only thing I did on my feet. Feeling very much better today. Slept until my alarm went off. So I again lost those quiet pre-dawn hours for EotN practice. When possible, I am going to get up early (preferably, on purpose) until this part of the project has been completed, and reclaim those hours. Today my schedule kept me from getting down to this work until midafternoon, and by that time it was almost too late.

Moved on to Guitar 2 today. The final section of this inquiry. Though as it is the part furthest from my comfort zone it may stretch out a little longer that any of the other three. Warmed up the right hand. This was where the disadvantage of practicing in the middle of my work day was most apparent. More difficult to get my hands loose and relaxed, and my patience considerably thinner.

Then a review of the part. I “know” it. But I have not played it for a long time, so after several slow run-throughs I went to the score to confirm some of the details, in particular the transitions. Walked through the piece section by section, noting these details, experimenting with fingerings that are unique to Guitar 3. Made preliminary pivot decisions, one of which I changed (removing a pivot, and finding a fingering option) after practicing it for a few minutes. Noted the decisions in my “Practice Notes” doc. Played through the part beginning to end one more time, with the metronome at 60. Then called it a day. For this project I have made no practice time commitments, but somehow 45 minutes feels like not quite sufficient.

The student arriving shortly, however, may have something to say about that.

Tuesday February 4 2025

3:20pm

Once again slept through the night and woke up to my alarm. This gave me just enough time for my morning routine and then an hour of EotN work before students begin arriving. Hosting IADD Tea time at 4pm, and this is my first break in the day to collect my thoughts on this morning’s work.

Began work in earnest on Guitar 2. Cycling through the Intro changes at a slow tempo served as my warmup. Confirmed the transitions, which are challenging. Isolated each with just a few notes leading into and out of the shifts, so that in context they do not cause a lurch or startle in my playing. In the process of this I reversed yesterday’s decisions regarding pivot in the high register and eliminated all of them except the first finger between the 1st and 2nd string. With these same fingerings low on the neck, the pivots are a piece of cake. But in 14th and 17th position, I think it comes down to the fact that on this venerable and ancient instrument I play the strings are just too high up there. Alternate fingerings determined and practiced, and a hint of the smooth legato-ness I am striving for began to appear.

The only other “new” arpeggio that this part has is the major triad harmony that accompanies A’ and F#’. I double checked yesterday’s pivot decisions just to make sure, but ultimately left these alone.

Played through the piece a number of times, still at the slower tempo. Never convincingly. I find that the first bar after every transition, tends to be a scramble of improvised fingerings that generally settle down to the prescribed fingering by the second bar. Even when my “improvisation” just happens to be the right fingering, this gives every transition the sound of uncertainty. Which is absolutely true.

By the end of the hour I was more or less up to performance tempo, fewer mistakes but still lacking the sound of authority. Played along with the Show of Hands and Tuning the Air recordings. Context helps.

Even the simple rotation of limbs remains wishful thinking on this part at this stage.

I think this will be an all-week project. 

Wednesday February 5 2025

8:45am

Slept through the night, but woke up about 30 minutes before my alarm would have gone off, coming out of a slightly bizarre and possibly course-related dream (included a cameo of Bill in his “Mr Grumpy” role). Decided to go for it and just get up and going. No students until noon, so my first opportunity this week for some EotN work that wasn’t constrained by outside obligations.

What we in Seattle call a bit of snow outside, with the promise of more throughout the day. Put the metronome on at performance tempo and launched into 15 minutes of generic arpeggio work, all above the 12th fret, since that’s where the tough part of Guitar 2 lies, and where I am least skilled. This was very good. Even got in a little Afghanistan, which actually began to approach fun.

Noticed something yesterday that, while not a brand new seeing, came back to me with a certain impact. That is… when fretting notes high up on the neck, the pressure applied by the left hand materially changes the height of the string under the pick. So I keep hearing these god-awful clanging open strings where they don’t belong, and which almost never occur when I’m playing down near the nut, and realize that this is the result of having to dig a little deeper down with my right hand to get solid contact and tone, and in doing so banging into adjacent string that under other circumstances my right hand technique would have navigated over. As trying as this part is for my left hand, I believe that making intelligent adjustments to my right hand technique is going to be the principle challenge here for me.

Focused largely on the Intro again. The fingerings I settled on yesterday still feel and sound right to me, so that’s good. Began by doing the grunt work of cleaning up the transitions, and made solid headway there, isolating and practicing each transitional moment. Cycled through the A-C-A-F# sequence for about 10 minutes, convincing my fingers that this is how it goes and beginning to find the continuity through the part.

Played through the entire piece front to back several times. Made a mental note that in my next session I need to do the same kind of work with the major triad “harmony” form, both solidifying the fingering and clearing up the transitions in and out.

When playing this part solo, I have a hard time hearing the familiar harmonic movement. The transition from the C Major harmony bit over A Minor to the unambiguous F# Minor part always sounds shocking and is a little disorienting for me. When playing along with the recordings, which I did several times at the end of the hour, this is not a difficulty. Even managed at least sporadic connection with the rotation of limbs. So there is Hope.

On to breakfast. 

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

4:30pm

Noon student needed to cancel, which opened my day up into the afternoon. While tempted to jump back into practice mode, there were two emails in my inbox that required more than a terse response and it sort of felt like this was my best opportunity to take care of them. I was also painfully aware that I was very late with my Week 3 Report. Wrote and posted that first.

The first, a request for advice and perspective from a Crafty considering taking up offering guitar lessons as a source of a little part-time income. It required a great deal of thought and precise articulation. And a lot of time. Happy to do it, but it is a lot of work. 

The second was a response to a potential student, referred to me by another Crafty. On the mundane business side of these correspondences I have boiler plate responses. But in terms of asking the right questions in order to evoke the information I need to determine if this is a relationship worth pursuing for both of us, everyone is different and that part of the conversation is always improvised. I had sent him a request last night for a little history of his experience so far, as well his sense of what he needed help with, and his very responsive response had come this morning. So I had a good idea of who he is what he wants. Part of my response needed to be a clear description of the pros and cons of the Guitar Craft tuning and the standard tuning. That also takes a little time, and requires simple clarity. Turned out he had his email program open because he responded very quickly. And determining that the GC tuning is what he wants to pursue, a flurry of emails laying out next steps, scheduling options (he’s on the east coast), and a whole lot of stuff about string gauges for acoustic and electric options.

Exhausting. Clearing those obligations it was time for lunch. Still had some open time and so I sat down for more practice, looking at the things I mentioned this morning. Slow going. Low energy and my attention all over the map. After 30 minutes it dawned on me that I had basically been sitting on this stool since 6:30am.

Dropped the practice and moved on to an hour of vigorous cardio; hand weights and all that stuff. I used to do this so that my doctor would stop nagging me, but I confess that at this point any day I don’t exercise feels like a mistake. It does indeed reinvigorate me. And then a shower further brought me back to life. Unfortunately (no, I shouldn’t complain about abundance) it reinvigorated me for the students who begin arriving in a few minutes, rather than more fun with EotN.

Tomorrow is another day. 

Thursday February 6 2025

10:45am

Since I have a 9am Zoom student on Thursdays, I set my alarm for earlier than usual so that I could have my morning EotN hours. Arose with ease. Still quite dark out. Morning routine. Peeked outside through the blinds and saw that it had snowed last night. The temperature out was just below freezing. Quite often here in Seattle, what happens is a couple of inches of snow fall. Then during the day it warms up enough to turn it into slush. Then it dips back below freezing and the slush turns to ice. I have a steep driveway, then a half dozen steps up to the building, then 10 or 15 yards of walkway to my door. If one of my students takes a header in my driveway or on my walk, I really have no idea who is liable. And I’d rather not find out.

So I bundled up and headed out into the dark. The snow was damp and heavy, but still cold enough that I could use a push broom to clear everything away. And I still had some salt from the last time it snowed. Slippery on the driveway, but negotiable.

Back inside in time for CET-appropriate tea time, along with breakfast.

After tea time, I still had a solid hour and a quarter to practice. So I can say it was a productive morning.

After a little right and left hand warmup with an arpeggio exercise I launched into Guitar 2. For the most part today, I played the piece all the way through, beginning at a modest tempo and by the end of the hour I had graduated to a tempo that is really a bit too fast for the piece. But I wanted to see how my chops were progressing. Through all this I noticed a couple of things.

The first was that regardless of the tempo, I begin the Intro with a lovely light and legato touch, but by the end I’m a mass of crackling tension. I played through Guitars 1 and 3 a couple of times to compare and contrast, and while this is a little bit true on those parts, it is not nearly as audible, and I am more able to let it go and reestablish the sense of ease and flow while in motion. The high octave parts of the Intro and Midtro are partly the issue, for sure. But also the amount of extra leaping about this part has, combined with the newness of the fingering choices I’ve made on the sections unique to this part, means I’m constantly one or two beats away from forgetting where I am. So while practicing and improving the bits and pieces and transitions in Guitar 2 is still necessary, I really feel that playing it through is most important right now, getting it to the point where moving from position to position and reliably using the fingerings I’ve worked out doesn’t occupy so much of my attention.

The second thing I noticed was a realization that If I were called upon to perform this part right now – that is, play it cold without the benefit of an hour of warmup and detail work – it would be a bona fide tragedy.

Went back to Afghanistan – Lead 1, specifically the running 11s into the long arpeggiated descending line of the C Phrygian section –  for the final 10 minutes. In some ways this is a bit of a diversion, but it really does put my hands to work up in the same section of the neck that Guitar 2 requires, using fast moving but very similar arpeggios, so I still think it’s useful.

Plus, it’s fun.

My two in-person students for the day have both cancelled due to the weather. It’s probably overly cautious, but safety first and all of that. One I’m actually very relieved about. It’s an older woman, and I worry a little about her, out on the driveway and the stairs, even in the most pristine weather. I had sent her a message earlier about the state of the driveway, intentionally giving her an opening for an out. Originally, she was going to see how it looks in the afternoon, but 30 minutes later she realized that the wise choice is just to cancel until next week. The other is a young coder dude from Southern California, and I don’t think he has any idea what to do with snow. That one’s a little silly, but I don’t want anyone taking risks they are not comfortable with.

So, the universe has handed me more time to practice.

But I believe I’ll take a walk first. 

Friday February 7 2025

10:00am

I can’t quite decide if my guitar playing has actually gotten worse this week. Or the slightly more terrifying alternative; my playing has always been this bad, but my critical listening chops have improved this week.

Very happy that the cycle of insomnia seems to be behind me. Once again up early, but by design. No snow to shovel this morning. But it is really cold out.

About an hour and a quarter on Eye of the Needle. The first 30 minutes entirely cross-picked arpeggio exercises at 10th position and above. Sloppy. Better after 20 minutes or so. But still.

It feels to me that at this point I have completed the preliminaries. Since the beginning of the IAAD I’ve worked through each of the four parts, picked them apart, and reassembled them employing intentional left hand fingering and right hand picking pattern choices. I have practiced each part, and gotten them up to performance tempo. Of the four, Guitar 2 is still the weakest, but I know what I’m working to accomplish.

So today I simply played through the piece many times, rotating through each of the three "lead" parts: G1, G3, and G2. The first cycle was at a gentle practice tempo. The second closer to real life, by the 3rd time through I was at a respectable performance tempo. For the final cycle I played all four parts along with the Tuning the Air recording.

So that’s Round 1. Going to take the weekend to ruminate on what a good next step might be.

One thought is to take a cue from today and spend a few weeks simply playing the piece. Practice the Music, rather than the part. This kind of repetition could open up space to focus on the limb rotation, as well as taking some time to look at the other aspects of the Guitarist Inside.

Another approach is to drop the piece entirely for a week or so, and instead use this time for calisthenics designed to improve my accuracy, reliability, and speed, and so have a little more to bring to the piece when I come back to it.

A third possibility would be to spend a couple of weeks revisiting other pieces of the early GC repertoire that I have rarely touched in years. Dipping my toes into Afghanistan this week inspired this notion. And since all of the material that came out of those earliest years was conceived to explore and utilize the same technical approaches, and involves many of the same challenges I’m working with in EotN, it could only help.

Or there’s something else entirely that might present itself. I’ll spend the weekend with an open mind.

IAAD organizational meeting in about an hour. Then some open time for I don’t yet know what. Getting off this chair and doing some exercise comes to mind. With the cancellations yesterday I took care of the office work that is usually what Fridays are for, so that’s already out of the way. Picking up Julie Slick at 3:45 to head down to West Seattle, where a quintet formation of the SGC, Julie, and a number of other performers, will be taking part in a Greg Meredith Birthday Hootenanny. 

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

“All the scholars in Toronto who could read German seemed to haunt our rehearsals, and sometimes their hissing disputes at the back of the theatre were so distracting that the director had to threaten to turn them out. Art is always in peril at universities, where there are so many people, young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text that provides the nutritious pemmican* on which scholars love to chew.”

Robertson Davies, from The Cunning Man 

*"Pemmican: a food made from dried meat mixed to a soft mass, originally made in some native North American cultures and later used by Europeans travelling in Arctic and Antarctic regions.": The New Oxford American Dictionary 

Saturday February 8 2025

Noon

Fun gig last night at the Meredith celebration. A short set from a quintet formation of the SGC. Only 3 prepared compositions presented. The rest impromptu and improvised. Circulations, improvs, and one (Merideth-coined term) “Romp” that had us parading around and through the audience, up and down stairs, through various rooms, creating a glorious cacophony, ending with us encircling the audience, where we remained for the rest of the show. Very loose and relaxed. Some mistakes that in a different life might have sent me into a rage, shrugged off. The audience was delighted and that was sufficient. The host reports this morning that the guests couldn’t stop talking about it.

This morning, the perfect way to wrap up the week as well as the first phase of Eye of the Needle work. I haven’t yet settled on what the character of the next phase needs to be. So, rather than sit down to my established morning hour of practice, which would have felt like just a proforma rehash, I got to let Horacio and Luciano do the work. Two EotN-focused IAAD presentations allowing me to just sit back and play.

While making a cup of coffee before Luciano’s presentation, I looked down at the water draining through the coffee filter and heard my own voice, almost inaudible under my breath, say, “Pay attention to what you’re avoiding.”

Sunday February 9 2025

IAAD – day off

SGC – day off

NFL – I heard a rumor that there’s a game somewhere

TO BE CONTINUED - ONWARD TO WEEK 5 AND THE MIDDLE THIRD OF IAAD VII