new blog

This is my first post to this new blog, and I'll begin importing old posts from my Chicago Circle Diary bit by bit over the next few days.

I am currently living in Seattle and attending a Technical Communication certificate course at University of Washington. I worked in book publishing for almost ten years, but being back in school is a big challenge. There are certain aspects of grammar that I was always good at, but I haven't had formal instruction since high school (and the most intensive work I did before that was in 4th grade when my English teacher had the class diagramming sentences like crazy). So I'm having to work at it, which is good from my point of view. I had stagnated at my previous job, and it feels good to be learning again. My aim is to become a better writer, and the analysis we've done of our own writing has spotlighted some of my own writing habits--especially my tendency to write winding, convoluted sentences.

On the creative side, I recently bought a copy of Archetypes for Writers: Using the Power of Your Subconscious, by Jennifer Van Bergen. I'm planning to read it several times before diving into the exercises, but it looks promising. Van Bergen's approach is different from the usual writing books on character, plot, setting, and so on (and having worked at Writer's Digest Books, I own a lot of these books); her philosophy and exercises are more psychological and point toward what she calls a global skill. This global skill comprises several component skills that each have to be learned separately and then integrated.

Van Bergen cites this quote from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain:

"[G]lobal or whole skills, such as reading, in time become automatic. Basic component skills become completely integrated into the smooth flow of the global skill. But in acquiring any new global skill, the initial learning is often a struggle, first with each component skill, then with the smooth integration of the components."

Van Bergen names this global skill arkhelogy and states that it is actually an ancient human skill. Those who practiced arkhelogy in ages past were called seers, prophets, shamans, etc.

We'll see. I just want to write a compelling story sometime before I die. I've written fiction before, and the books of traditional writing instruction have helped, but something is still missing. If I'm going find the energy to sit for hours and write a story, then it needs to be something compelling that can keep me engaged throughout the process.

I felt a little strange buying this one. I've been buying books on writing for years and years, and I had reached the point where I felt like it had all been said, that every possible angle of the fiction writing process had been explored and dissected. And here I found myself once again picking up a book and thinking, "Ooh, maybe this one has the secret I've been looking for! Maybe this one will finally do it!"

One appealing angle for me is that it offers a deeper way of understanding and connecting with other people. My writing and characters over the years have been shallow; they were variously obviously about me. Now, Van Bergen takes pains to point out that you are ultimately accessing something within yourself when you pursue these exercises, but it's coming from that place where we are all ultimately the same person. Something about that rang true for me. Otherwise, not long ago, I had stopped writing after becoming frustrated with my shallow grasp of other people. Who knows? Maybe I wasn't actually that interested in other people to begin with.

In the end, I don't aspire to be the king of solipsism. This lack of connection bothered me, and I think that's why I have instead pursued music as a way of connecting with other people; in a guitar circle, during a circulation, the connection is immediate and direct. It's instant gratification.

Note: finding this book was an interesting bit of synchronicity for me, and I think that helped persuade me to buy. At the happy hour following the Tuning the Air performance, JB told me about how much she like the remake of 3:10 to Yuma, and that there was something archetypal about it that caught her. I thought this was an interesting comment, and I thought about it off and on for several days afterward. Then I noticed this book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble in University Village. I guess my antenna was primed, and now the holographic universe was serving up its cosmic google results.

And so, what about music?

Here's a brief list of new developments in my musical life:

I finally built a practice journal using my Notebook software. I needed something non-linear where I could track my work on a particular element over time, and this program has a useful feature that allows lists to be collapsed and expanded. My list of ongoing projects remains visible when I collapse my latest notes. I need to keep my current projects present in my mind, and a standard paper notebook wasn't doing the job. I would forget things and then remember days or weeks later, work on them again, forget again, remember days or weeks later, and so on. And I wasn't making progress.

I've begun applying Lydian Chromatic Concept ideas to NST guitar, and I'm collecting little sketch ideas in my tablature notebook. So far, I've been working mostly on a G7 arpeggio with extensions added based on George Russell's seven primary Lydian scales. Right now, the F Lydian Aug, Mode II, and the B Lydian Aug, Mode +V, chordmode alliances are my favorites (Lydian Aug, Mode +V, is also known as "Super Locrian"). These little sketches are very "Crafty" sounding, so it seems the Concept is getting me where I want to go for now.

I'm slowly getting to where I can play the opening "Eye of the Needle" figure while counting and tapping the beat. This is the process:
--I began by reciting the 16th-note "Ta Ke Ti Na" pattern along with the notes as I played.
--Then I added a foot tap on "Ta," and as I went along, I worked on finding my signposts within the pattern where the beat shifted to different notes. I need to keep that pattern tagged to the pulse, so these signposts tell me where I am.
--Then I reduced "Ta Ke Ti Na" to the 8th-note "Ta Ke" recitation.
--Once "Ta Ke" was stable, I began counting the beats: "One...and...two...and...etc."

And it generally worked. I made several passes where I counted the entire 13 beats of the bar.

The next challenge will be to sync this stabilized internal pulse to a pulse outside of myself, such as a metronome. So far, the whole thing unwinds after several beats. But it's possible.

I conclude this was important because of the seemingly universal tendency for groups to speed up when playing this piece. The pattern comes unmoored from the prevailing pulse, and the 4/4 conditioned players want to feel the pulses on the main accents of the pattern. And so they speed up.

For other projects, I'm still working no-tempo on the C section bassline pattern (first five notes) of "Flying Home," and I'm making progress on inhibiting the tendency of the left hand 3rd finger to react sympathetically to the movements of the other fingers.

I've found that I'm having to approach several parts of "Eye of the Needle" no-tempo starting out; I also had to make some decision about which fingering compromises to make here and there. The fingers crowd together on those upper frets, and I had to decide when exactly I was going to make a slight "leap and replace" fingering maneuver on a 15th fret G. Which option was least disruptive to the following notes?

Neither of these have survived an encounter with the metronome, even at 40 bpm with one note every four clicks. Next thing you know, fingers are popping up sympathetically all over the place and I'm twisting up like a pretzel. But, considering these patterns were completely unplayable before, this is progress.

Then there's a whole raft of fingerboard familiarity exercises. I'm working on C Major, but I've decided to add notes by going either direction in the Circle of 5ths, learning the notes that would be altered to access new keys--in this case F (sharp direction, F# to access G Major) and B (flat direction, Bb to access F Major) are next on deck.

At some point, I also plan to learn the "black notes" as a unit--Eb Minor Pentatonic and F# Major Pentatonic.

I've been sketchy on ear training with Absolute Pitch Blaster. I let it go long enough that I decided to start C over again, just to reinforce it in my ear once again. I sailed about 2/3 of the way through before it again became challenging. But, I also noticed that my work on G was still there and available, and that (I think) G4 was still sticking out like a sore thumb.

Wednesday night was the first meeting of a new circle at Seattle Circle HQ. GM led us through a Bach circulation, and then we worked on some of the "greatest hits" Guitar Craft pieces.

Otherwise, things just get weirder in the boarding house. One of the residents stopped taking her medication, and now she is wigging out--stomping around, slamming doors, screaming out the window, and getting into shouting matches with nonexistent people. All of this late into the night, sometimes until 6:00 AM.

Here are some fascinating quotes:
--"No demons enter here!"
--"I have no compassion for Satan!"
--"Michael! Take off that wedding dress and get out of my room!"
--"Do you want me to open this door? Do you want to meet me? Are you really sure?" [from inside her closed room as I walk past, then she shouts and punches the door]

I asked D, the resident building manager, what was going on. He told me she was being housed as part of some kind of "halfway house" agreement, and there was a counselor who was supposed to be monitoring this woman. Well, things have clearly gone off the rails. At one point this morning, D attempted to reason with her, but there is nothing and no one there to reason with. I'm afraid D is out of his depth with this one.

She needs professional help. It's not funny. I feel sorry for her, and I don't think she's going to be in the house much longer.

I don't know what happens then. Does she go to an institution? Is she out on the street?

She's also beginning to frighten me now and then. Yesterday, as I came home to rest before class, I found her walking in circles in the alley behind the house. She said somebody was supposed to pick her up, but never showed. As I walked down the steps to the outer door, she moved in right behind me, as close as she could get without pressing right on my backpack, and it made my hair stand on end.

Maybe things will settle down soon.

At least the room is cheap and is within walking distance of campus and other necessities.

Maybe one day I'll write a novel called Boarding House...

I promise future posts won't be so long. I had a lot to catch up on here.

Things seem sketchy now, but "time flies" and very soon we'll move on to the next round of weirdness...