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