10.04
None of the six meetings addressed guitar playing. Any dope can change the world, but it takes a hero to make the bed or clean a toilet.
11.36
The Group Meeting with Level One: we addressed passing notes to each around the circle in various combinations: singly, in duos & trios. Also, passing over one unit to the person/s on the other side. The instruction was this: "Play any note you wish, providing only that this is the right note". One student asked: "what is the right note?". So, the instruction changed to: "Play any note you like, providing only that this is the wrong note; that this note violates yourself & anything that you know to be true; is out of tune, out of time & with poor timbre; and is false to anything that you feel to be true of music". But since this instruction was harder than the first, straightaway we went back to "the right note".
The flow of circulating individual notes is smoother today than yesterday. More than this (like acting in pairs) remains problematic, even insuperable in our present condition. So faced with the impossibility of circulating in pairs, we addressed the impossible by making the situation more difficult, and moved to circulating in trios. This is a practical technique when facing an impossible task: don't make the task simpler, make it harder. You may or may not achieve the impossible, but this technique makes success more likely. But after 50 minutes, I sensed a carelessness in the circulating. So I asked:
"If God were looking at our work, & wished to reward us for the quality & intensity of our application by granting us what we most deeply wished for in our lives, by placing this within a note, our only requirement that we must hear it and accept it, would anything change? And if we really really believed that grace were available within a note, would anything change?".
Then we moved on to addressing the operation of the right hand, an introduction to the Second Primary. Martin & Fernando are now continuing with this.
The day on any course that I meet with Level Ones, and their right hands, is my darkest day. This isn't just about holding a pick and striking a string: how we hold the pick is how we organise our lives. How we organise one small part of our life is how we organise all the small parts of our life. So, in addressing the small detail of holding the pick, we run into the accumulated habits, attitudes, opinions & manner in which we present ourself to the world.
For example, young men with guitars often have aspirations which go further than the purely musical. Like, acquisition of territory, food & sexual partners. The pictures of guitar stars on the covers of magazines perhaps represent or idealise aspirations in these areas: fashionable clothes, groovy postures & the guitar slung low as a priapic enhancement. Whatever their other possible benefits, pictures of guitar heroes rarely present models of efficient playing habits. So, when I move to adjust the operation of the right hand for picking, I am adjusting (inter alia) the sex life, public presentation & courting procedures of young men. All of this is written into the musculature of the right hand, wrist & arm. If this is what it's like for me, what must if be like for Alexander Teachers?
12.28
Hernan has just had a meeting with a Kitchen Crafty and his young wife in the room next to mine. She suggested, in direct terms, that Guitar Craft is a scheme for making money from gullible students. Robert & Hernan are intelligent enough to fool them all, and then carry the money off to Europe. She is going to send in the tax department. Hernan says that, regrettably, there is no money for Robert & Hernan to carry off to Europe (RF interjection: if there were, don't worry, we'd be off). So, says irate wife, you think you are Good People, then? She is a teacher, and knows what a school is. Do we think Guitar Craft is a school? It is a cult (RF interjection: despite The Gauchos continuing to play at meals). What authority do we have? And she doesn't need anyone telling her to put attention in her hand when chopping vegetables: she has her attention available all the time.
I have no difficulty with informed criticism or commentary, offered with goodwill. Even, on occasions, without it. All of this helps us to refine our work. Our internal learning is ongoing: if it were not, we would be moribund at best.
Several wives are visiting their husbands this weekend, and this is the only hard situation so far. In the past, partners of Crafties sometimes appear to feel threatened by, perhaps jealous of, their spouse's commitment to GC & the time spent in practising. Perhaps, they are simply lonely. I sympathise with this: my own wife has been a Guitar Craft widow more often than I care to remember. For some people, GC is their way. For others, it's on the way to their way. And for some, it's not for them. Perhaps only of passing interest, but not more. For some, this is their family. But scepticism is a necessity. GC is not a belief system: it provides a practical approach to guitar, music & a personal discipline. This is not a place which welcomes the gullible.
The Level One meeting (16.30 - 17.30) approached the right hand, in a musical way. Now, 6 personal meetings with members of the Kitchen Team begin at 18.00. The house has a quiet hour before dinner, to respect the service in the church.
20.04
Several performances at dinnertime. No comments or questions. Several visiting wives are leaving, including the wife of the hard situation. She disappeared for the afternoon & returned to apologise to Hernan. She also made some tasty niblettes for dinner.
22.02
The 20.30 Kitchen Team meeting reviewed the work of the day. One of the team reported clear dreams in which he saw the faces of Crafties who are not on this course. We considered the notion of a community spread through time and place; cf. the GC exercise of Contact At A Distance, but in a more developed and mature form.
The Level One met immediately afterwards and bevooomerated for an hour in 11, 7 & 5. There is a tendency in odd meters to snatch at 1. This moves 11/8 to 10.5/8 in a hurry.
On an unrelated note: the toilets here in the rooms assigned to staff are significantly unpleasant. El stinkeroo to the max. Burning joss sticks help to cover the stink arising from the drains below, but now this room is full of smoke. A window is now open to clear the air of pong & incense, but open windows invite mosquitoes to approach and feed upon soft Crafty flesh. One of the chief pleasures of a Guitar Craft course is the sight of Hernan Nunez relentlessly & unforgivingly in pursuit of mosquitoes. Hernan is not a Buddhist, it seems, in his relations with these little suckers. Enter = die. Unapologetically, without hesitation, he squidges them flat with his hand. I'm not sure what Michael Peters would make of this. I wonder, are there any Buddhist pest control officers?
"We must be able to play in our sleep.
Because usually we do."
