Alessandro Bruno’s report: Guitar Circle Of Italy Meeting hosting Luciano, Vienna & Kiel Circles + Performances in Crema at Bar Parko & in a wine bar in Reggiolo
Rolo, 07/12/2005
Because of the bank holiday on Thursday, this is going to be a long weekend all over the country, so floods of people travelling everywhere made our trip stressful.
Another “surprise” was that we couldn’t enter the kitchen because of a one-day-course held by the Steiner people of the house, until 11.00 in the night (!)
So, pizza at the local pizza place for dinner.
This time we invited Luciano Pietrafesa to direct the project, then 2 people from the Kiel team and the whole of the Vienna circle (4 peple) joined us.
Luciano is the last to arrive together with Aldo and Filippo who went to pick him up at Bologna airport.
11.45 Inaugural meeting. We introduce ourselves and declare our aims, then set the rules of the house and some other practicalities.
Participants:
1 – Luciano Pietrafesa
2 – Alessandro Bruno
3 – Roberto Deiana
4 – Filippo Guerini
5 – Aldo Garuti
6 – Roberto Duse
7 – Stefano Simioni
8 – Alessandro Papa
9 – Mariana Scaravilli
10 – Sylvain Truchet
11 – Richard Tettero
12 – Barbara Zimmermann
13 – Vincenzo Granato
14 – Thomas Gasser
Then guitar adjustment/string changing for some of us. Writing down this and finally to bed; I’m very tired. It’s 10 minutes past 1.
Rolo, 08/12/2005
The schedule:
6.30 Rise
7.00 Tai Chi
7.30 Sitting
8.15 Breakfast
9.00 Warm up
10.30 Tai Chi
11.10 Kitchen meeting
11.30 Meeting with guitars
12.30 Quiet time
13.00 Lunch
14.15 Meeting with guitars
16.30 Tea
17.30 Meeting with guitars
18.30 Tai Chi
19.00 Dinner
20.15 Meeting with guitars
Breakfast was a bit of a disaster, partly as a repercussion of the fact that we didn’t have the kitchen in time to prepare it, and partly because 14 people instead of 8 or 9 in this house makes a complete different kind of event and must be addressed in a different way, we just realise that now.
The warm up was particularly focused on circulations so not only a warm up but also a wake up.
The meeting at 11.10 was to introduce everybody to the work in the kitchen, functions and meanings.
Then in the ball room with guitars Luciano introduced “Tango Appassionado”, a Piazzolla piece that is part of Zum repertoire: it seems to be at reach for everybody and it’s beautiful.
During lunch a question arose: “In GC we say that we begin the day by doing nothing, so why did we begun with Tai Chi instead?” I turned the question to Luciano who said: “ In order to do nothing we must be awake, that’s what Tai Chi is for, the thing is that Tai Chi also needs a certain degrees of awake ness…”
The rest of the day was all spent to put together a set list for tomorrow’s performance; we begun by calling out the pieces and giving them a shot, the Luciano operated a first rough selection, also Tango Appassionado was passed to the people who was busy in the kitchen during the first session, and the remaining parts were presented too. The Luciano suggested to organize session work on different pieces for the rest of the day and have a run-through last thing in the night; after quite some time of hesitation then Richard offered himself to set up the schedule for the session work.
After tea we begun, moving from one piece to another, from one room to another, dinner (the kitchen in the meanwhile made a step forward and the food was good and served in time); then on again until almost midnight, when Luciano wrote down a set list we had a run-through:
1 – Invocation
2 – Tango Appassionado
3 – The Eye Of The Needle
4 – Circulatio C Maj
5 – Fireplace
6 – Canon (variation n.6)
7 – Day Break
8 – Circulation D Maj (thumb – with repetitions)
9 – Hope
10 – Calliope
11 – Asturias
(In the pocket: Thrak)
A very long and intense day, again over one in the morning when we called it a day.
Rolo, 09/12/2005
7.00 – Rise
7.30 – Tai Chi
8.00 – Sitting
8.45 – Breakfast
10.00 – Warming up
11.00 – Personal practice
12.00 – Housewor
12:30 – Personal practice
13:30 – Tai Chi/Quiet time
14.00 – Lunch
15:45 – Guitars downstairs
16.00 – Departure to Crema
No hot water in the morning, I couldn’t step into the shower so opted for a quicker ablution.
Breakfast was again problematic, this time due to a team of absolute beginners; we acknowledged their complete innocence and decided since now on, to have always one person with experience in the kitchen.
I joined the worm-up-session half way through, after a proper shower, while Luciano was introducing a two-finger-combination-exercise: the principles of “completion of flow” and “simultaneous release” were involved, a revelation for some.
The rest of the day has been dedicated to personal practice and/or small group addressing the weak spots. We changed the line up for Day Break: 4 players instead of 7.
Filippo, our tour manager, instruct us throughout the whole process of loading the cars and get to the venue, 130 Km away. We got there around 6.30 p.m.; a sort of very simple village hall, completely empty, so we could set up the performance space arranging the chairs for us and for the audience. No green room, so we decided to let people in when we were already on stage, and collect at our best in a narrow corridor once we left the stage until the audience would have get out of the place.
The sound check was pretty long due to some technical problems (cables and lines not properly working). We had time for a quick snack offered by the venue, the half an hour of only-tuning-collecting state.
The performance unfolded gently, received very well by a very receptive and supportive audience. TEOTN was the highlight but almost the whole set was surprisingly good for that particular situation.
We could have been quicker in leaving the place but a little bit of socialising was needed, so when we got home it was almost 1.30 a.m. Again a very long day…
Rolo, 10/12/2005
7.00 – Rise
7.30 – Tai Chi
8.00 – Sitting
8.45 – Breakfast
11.00 – Warming up
11.30 – House meeting (no guitars)
12.00 – Personal meetings
13.00 – Lunch
14.30 – Housework
16.00 – Tea
18.30 – Guitars downstairs
We allowed more time for breakfast to talk about last night performance, specially to spot the bits we can improve.
The house meeting was to give the team a double challenge: 2 more full-group-pieces were needed for our too short set list, and the quality endeavour exercise was also introduced; the result of this work was scheduled to be present at 5.00 p.m.
5 personal meetings for me and 11 for Luciano, so I managed to do them all before lunch, Luciano had a second round after lunch while I could dedicate a bit of time to the money matters (utterly needed).
The presentation of the quality exercise took place in a circle with Luciano and I sitting in the middle; for most of them the piece of work they choose was far too ambitious to be discharged superbly, I hope this was clear to them as well for this is such a subtle and powerful exercise.
Off to Reggiolo, a village next to Rolo, only 6 Km away.
The venue is a groovy wine bar/pub with King Crimson “Eyes Wide Open” projected on a wide screen (!). Tables everywhere and no sign or room for a possible stage or performance space; I must say though that when the guy accepted the offer of a performance, we talked about between 4 and 8 players, so he was definitely not expecting 14 players! Almost impossible to squeeze all in a corner, even standing…
We did a sort of sound check which was mainly to fine adjust our position; then we went into the flat upstairs which was our green room, no light in the whole house, just a lamp in the small empty room we used; we left there the guitars and the rest of our stuff and went back downstairs where some food was provided. Then back to the flat to collect ourselves and wait for the call, which arrived at 11.00 p.m.
The situation was exactly the opposite of the night before: we had to run uphill for the whole show, with a general sense (with the exception of 2 or 3 of us) of frustration; most of the pieces have been poorly played for people who was there to eat and drink and, with some exceptions, not much interested in us. Luciano changed a bit the set list on the spot, then, towards the end he made the sign and we all unplugged; he led us around the central group of tables, we then played a circulation and Asturias doing our best to redeem the situation; we then walk off, into the flat, got our stuff together and drove back home as fast as we could. When we encircle in the ball room it was 1.30 p.m.: again!
Rolo, 11/12/2005
6.30 – Rise
7.00 – Sitting
7.45 – Breakfast
8.15 – Packing up and house reset
9.00 – Final meeting
10.00 – Everything downstairs
10.15 – Leaving the house
Luciano in the final meeting asked for comments and observations about the last performance and, more in general, about the whole project; what came out of it is that the last performance provided the “other side of the coin”, so it was good that the team could experience, in such a short time, both heaven and hell of the life of the performing musician; I added that, in my personal experience, gigs like the last one have been far more common than the ones like the first. The comments about the whole project mentioned the high intensity of it, this “gain in temperature” (mainly due to 3 elements: Luciano, 4 days instead of 2, and 14 people instead of 9) produced a whole stream of new information, which now needs to be internalized and digested.
Mariana then exposed the GC activity of the next future inviting whoever is interested in any of these future project and courses to apply soon.
After a hug we all went in different directions.
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