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------->