End of Day 5 of the Gig Harbor Course

06-03-2009, continued – As RF walked out of the chapel, there was a tangible rise in the tension of the room—or maybe we were simply more aware of it. Two or three guitar buddies were off to the side, waiting patiently. One of the beginners, Michael (who had a particular quality of being enormously tense at all times; this regularly came out in his playing), went down to the floor and started to look at the groups and call out who was in each group. Shushed momentarily by several of the other beginners (I don’t remember if I said anything), he continued on, pointing out that we were going to find out anyway, and why would we try and hide it?

At this moment, unnoticed by us, the guitar buddies took their leave quietly. As they walked out, we went through the lists. When poor Matt (a middle-aged psychology professor who was staying in my cabin) was told he was the soloist, the look of dread that washed over his face was a good barometer for the rest of the room. I found that I was in one of the quartets, with Sasha, Michael, and Jason, and shortly after this, the beginners decided that, as it was currently 9:30 p.m., that we should disperse, talk as individual groups, and then reconvene in the dining hall at 10 p.m. Thus splitting up, my group spoke briefly (“Do you have anything? I’ve had a couple of ideas bouncing around. . .” “So have I.” “Well, why don’t we bounce some things around, after the group meeting?”), and at 10, we all found ourselves in the dining hall.

What followed was my first real taste of trying to manage by committee, and further personal affirmation that pure communistic anarchy is just a really bad idea. What started as an organizational meeting to try and come up with a game plan quickly devolved into an argument over which idea was more likely to result in a game plan. The only two discernible results of the meeting was that we elected a leader in Chris, whose full-time job was directing choirs, and that we knew what we were doing at 11: meeting in the chapel.

In between was a bit of open time, so my quartet chose to grab guitars and toss ideas back and forth. Jason had a bit of a chord sequence he’d been toying with—a couple of chord shapes that he’d adapted from Old Standard—and asked if we wanted to hear it. It was almost instant music, with a form and tonality that made sense. Workshopping that for a bit, we came up with a rough sketch with bass line, chords, and an intro to a B section. That brought us up to 11, and off we went to the chapel, with a couple of intermediates silently and knowingly nodding at us as we scampered.

Once in the chapel, all beginners arranged themselves into the circle, gradually shifting the parts into place—this took a little longer than usual, in part because we were suddenly much more attuned to the “state of the circle”, a phrase that would be repeated quite a bit more over the course of the next twenty-four hours. We focused for a moment, and then began the meeting with a circulation. This lasted about ten minutes, and then quietly died down. After this, Chris asked if anyone had any suggestions. There was a bit of difference of opinion, but the general consensus was that we should try playing with some ideas, and see where they went.

With no ideas offered, Chris turned to his left, and asked Matt, “Do you have anything?” Later, Matt would say that it was simply a matter of panic that brought about the simple three-note figure that became the genesis for our group piece. Over the course of 2 hours, we wrote—through a great deal of strife and agitation, not to mention a fair amount of squabbling—the bulk of the piece, which would be presented as a fanfare. At the end of the rehearsal, we decided that we should rest for the night, as it was now shortly after 1 a.m., and we would have the bulk of the day to rehearse and work for the performance.

After we adjourned, Michael and myself got together to hash a couple of the ideas we’d been working on for our quartet, but shortly realized that we were exhausted, and chose to wait until the following morning. I still chose to go off and woodshed for a bit (about 45 minutes), trying out different ideas, but eventually made my way back to bed, so that I’d be able to rise for the sitting, tomorrow.