Final day of GC, a good day for learning and a bad day for the ego.
Over breakfast, a discussion led by Hernan on last night’s performance. Not the musical aspects but the organisational ones. ‘In 21 years of Guitar Craft, no-one has started a performance by tuning in front of the audience’ remarked a bemused (and, I think, amused) Hernan. Well, he’s never seen the Incredible String Band. It was a mistake, was purely mine (Bernhard was mouthing ‘no! no!’ as I began), and goes against all common sense. H went on to draw out the importance of preparing the performance space.
At the morning’s guitar circle I discovered I couldn’t play what seemed a simple cross-picking arpeggio.
We were given the task of taking one very small action, practising it, and performing it individually in the evening. I resolved to play one bar of a piece called Hope from one of the California Guitar Trio albums. Just one bar. After a session with Leonardo and one with Luciano I realised that wasn’t going to work and settled for the arpeggio from the morning’s session.
Come the demonstration, I completely ballsed it. More lost pride!
How did I feel? Fine actually. It showed I can make mistakes – big mistakes – learn from them and survive. ‘There is only one mistake – the failure to learn from a mistake.’
As night drew on and the course was declared closed, lots of capering and photography, affectionate and sometimes downright strange conversations. Bed about 2am, alarm set for 6.
The Intro Team: (back l-r) Massimo (Italy), Tywi (Wales), Mark (England), Bernhard (Switzerland), Wolfgang (Austria), Poopak (Iran), Klaas and Susanna (Germany), Slavek (Poland), Lamont (hereabouts), (front) Loredana (Italy)
