Chicago!...bang bang!!

Post 17 of 90.

What a long day!

I was so frantic about tweaking my laptop hard drive that didn't get to bed last night until about 2am, then I tossed, turned, and woke up multiple times, including one wake up call in the form of a wet paw in the face from the cat, who wanted to be let out. I had just let him back in from running around in the rain, but then he just had to be on the other side of that closed door.

When the 4am alarm did arrive, I just wanted to lie in bed and bask in the soothing sound of the rain coming down outside. It was not to be.

I met Don at a truck stop on the northwest side of Indianapolis and we carpooled the rest of the way. The drive up seems so short now.

In the bathroom of the truck stop, fat truckers debated the merits of New Country Music versus the Old Country Music. This reminds me of JC's recent assertion that the latest country sound is basically REO Speedwagon with a twang.

At Adrian's studio we ran through Sun Music several times and we seem to be getting up to speed pretty fast with that one. We had several very musical circulations and attempted some variations, mostly in C Harmonic Minor, including a downbeat/upbeat circulation between two subgroups. We at first went through a long stretch of just not having it together on the downbeat/upbeat circulation, and then all of a sudden it clicked into place. John commented that after a certain point you get confident enough with just hitting your note to widen your attention to include what else is going on in the circulation and to mesh more with the other players.

Having an even number of players made it possible for this exercise to keep two subgroups in operation simultaneously without overlap. If we had an odd number of players, we would each find ourselves shifting in and out of having to play in the downbeat or upbeat position in time. The second time we tried it, I stuck to playing bass notes and working on harmonic cadences. After a certain point, I was able to widen my attention to respond intelligently to Don's notes, and so my root note cadences began to reflect more directly what was going on with how the rest of the circulation was progressing. We agreed that having bass notes in the downbeat position helped us orient and differentiate downbeat from upbeat better.

Then we ran through Sun Music several more times before moving on to other repertoire: Blockhead,Trapiche, Eye of the Needle, 1 of 1,000 Regrets, Asturias, Hope, and Third Relation. We seemed to have lost some ground since the performance. Hope is still particularly rough. With Don there to play the cross-picked part with Loren, I joined the circulators, and we found once again that circulating to an external pulse is still a step beyond. The double-time circulation is still far enough away that we couldn't bring ourselves really to attempt it. Adrian and I stepped up to solo, so we now have three soloists and plenty of additional confusion.

We discussed several pieces to add to our repertoire in the coming weeks: Flying Home, Boogie Express, Grossderschau, and Steve Jolemore's Ananda. (Seems like I'm forgetting one here...). We also considered the possibilities for duets and other subgroups of players to perform within a set.

On the drive home, my sleep deprivation began to catch up to me, so I relinquished the driver's seat to Don about mid-way between Chicago and Indianapolis. I was perilously close to nodding off behind the wheel, even with Don keeping up conversation to help me stay awake, and an instance of slipping into a momentary dream state fugue with my eyes open was the final straw.

It felt disturbing to be in the passenger seat in my own car, but I still managed to snooze solidly for about half an hour while sitting upright. I woke up with cottonmouth from my jaw hanging open while I was unconscious.

Don and I parted ways back at the truck stop and I raced to get home before I nodded off again, with just one stop at an Arby's for a quick bite.

On the way back, I found myself listening to a modern country station for several songs out of curiosity. Most of the lyrics were saturated with a strangely defeatist brand of nostalgia. It made me wonder about the people who listen to a lot of this music and identify closely with it.