change in the air

Another Tuning the Air performance tonight, the most consistently powerful so far, at least from my little corner of the larger experience. There have been other performances with larger peaks, sometimes so intense they blow the top of my head off, but this show was on a higher average level from beginning.

The circulations tonight were the best I have ever heard from any group. Every single one was amazing.

We had 32 people in the audience, the largest so far, and word-of-mouth continues to be the best advertising.

Several members of the performance team were surprised at the quality of the show when they realized we were smack dab in the middle of the run. CG later told us over beers that the Middle is not automatically bad; we're just conditioned to think of it that way. The middle is the point when the creative leap takes place, and unfortunately, it's often a turkey, and we tend to focus on that experience.

I guess this means the leap was successful.

The house team is also getting better, and MB so rocked when she acted on a hunch to announce the Open Circle at the end of the show. Well done, MB!

Later, while waiting to turn into the Hi-Life from Market St., TS and MB were rear-ended by Jesus.

School's (Almost) Out

The Technical Writing & Editing Certificate Course at UW is almost over. I've met a lot of great people, and I definitely want to stay in touch.

Another transition in progress for Ian. One job interview under my belt last week, and we'll see what happens.

I'm glad I took the course. It has definitely lifted my skill set as a writer to another level, and I am so much better prepared than when I left Songwriter's Market. Now, I need to take this new "book learnin'" out into the real world; I learned so much, but I'm also at the beginning. I have a lot of ideas about how to build and develop my skills, and I must not allow myself to become complacent or stuck. Keep moving.

Ongoing Guitar Struggles

I'm in a strange spot with guitar playing. I am definitely improving, and I'm finally conquering some of the more difficult guitar parts to "Where It Goes," "Trapiche," and "Eye of the Needle." But the process is slow, so slow. I've been working on some of these pieces for years, and I'm still nowhere close to the skill level of the TTA team. They play some of these pieces at unbelievably fast tempos. And then there are a whole raft of pieces the TTA team has been playing for the last five years or so, and there is almost no overlap with the pieces I have pretty solidly in my fingers. I have doubts that I could ever catch up, especially given how slowly I seem to develop.

I guess some things just can't be rushed.

In the meantime, I spent Saturday testing myself by recording overdubbed versions of repertoire in ProTools; like I mentioned, my playing is greatly improved, but mastery eludes me by a wide margin. The recordings reveal numerous small stumbles and rhythmic anomalies in parts I already know well, while the new parts I'm learning tend to derail and trainwreck when I hit a snag. These new parts are not quite in the fingers.

I've also lately been pondering the apparent reality that my practicing is dismally unorganized and inconsistent. I never seem to work on the same piece for more than two days at a stretch. If I could work on the same piece every day for several weeks, maybe I could get somewhere. Instead, I bounce around from part to part, just whatever seems to catch my attention on that particular day.

Not quite ready for prime time

Members of the House Circle have occasionally asked why I haven't joined the TTA performance team. They tell me I'm a competent player.

But, the TTA team plays on a higher level than I do. This is plain to me, but maybe not to other members of the House Circle. The House Circle players will eventually understand well enough as they develop.

It seems to me that I would still need to undergo some kind of development process to even be in spitting distance of what the TTA is achieving as guitarists. I don't believe I could walk in and pass an audition. I was on track in my development with the Chicago group, but TTA represents a different line of development way ahead of the Chicago group; when I left the Midwest, the Chicago group was in the early stages of emulating things we had heard were going on in Seattle.

For now, the House Circle seems like what I should be doing here in Seattle, and I'm enjoying the work. The group is stretching and developing, and I enjoy being part of that process.

And things are apparently not all roses and baskets of puppies in the TTA team. No big surprise. AB was extremely unhappy last season; he had seen where he needed to go in his music composition education at Cornish, and he was burning to move on.

There are rumblings; these things happen. That's life.

I sympathize with the wish of some people to deal with a better quality of problem, but all the same, perhaps we should trust the process. Hang in there.

Or maybe some better situation will come along.

Will the Teacher appear?

I sometimes wonder if I will ever find a teacher; Igor A and I were talking during a coffee break on Saturday, and he was extolling Igor K's virtues as a diligent student. I realized during the conversation that I maybe could not be nearly as good of a student; I tend to argue (being a "smart" guy and all), and I confessed this shortcoming to Igor A.

I'm looking forward to the Raft Island Course in October. I'm beginning to feel like I might be ready for something like that. I feel like I need something in my guitar playing, and maybe I will find it there. Or not. Who knows?