IAAD VII: EYE OF THE NEEDLE DIARY

Week 12

9:00pm

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

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

Cooked dinner on a new and wonderfully functional oven.

Tuesday April 1 2025

7:00pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday April 2 2025

9:05pm

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

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

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

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

Thursday April 3 2025

4:00pm

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

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

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

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