Thursday - played at Amazing Things open mic. Last two times (this week and two weeks ago) the turn out has been quite small, but the atomosphere has been great; there is a real sense of community and an artistic sensitivity to this crowd. I played Kadourimdou and The Day after the Feast/The Voyage to Ireland medley, plus Frenzy at the Feeder for the bonus round. Here is the breakdown:

Kadourimdou:

• Kept messing up the beginning bass riff! The transition between just the bass line and bass+chords continues to give me trouble. It is a much different way to orient the left hand and this definitely needs work
• This time the 7/8 section was relatively smooth. Now I just need to work on all the other difficult bits!
• The triplet based riff in the transition from the A section to the B section in particular, as well as the two fast descending runs (/6 and /5) need work, as does the fast scale section at the very end
• A little bit slower tempo was a great help in establishing and maintaining the groove during this tune. Overall, it seems I am making good progress on this tune.

Feast/Ireland

• First of all, good response from the audience I felt on this medley. The first song was rougher than the second, for sure. Much attention and control is needed to maintain the correct timing with all those arpeggiated notes that just sort of hang out there. Practice it slow? I don't know what the correct approach is here. Perhaps the metronome...
• Voyage to Ireland came across better than expected for a first time performance. The ornaments need some work, but I think I was struggling with the super-light gauge of my new strings and that did not help. I should study more variations for this tune.

Frenzy at the Feeder

• It is hard to tell from behind the main speakers, but this one suffered perhaps most of all from the lack of tone in the lighter strings. The first string was 'thwacking' and 'plinking' a lot. Other than that, the tune went pretty well, certainly much better than the first time I played it at Amazing Things. Parts that need work are the 5 fret pull-off riff that appears before and after the B section, and the section with all the fast four note pull-offs towards the end. I should slow this part down and work on getting all the notes to sound out with clarity.

Not sure what the status of the DADGAD cedar/rw guitar expedition two weeks from today is...

NPR had an interesting piece on designing the space of the home to fit the needs of one's individual personality. It made me think on what makes a space good or bad for practicing, jamming with other musicians, performing... Perhaps I will try to dig up some writing on the net on this subject. I can't be the first one to think about this!

With Cunla/Merrily now committed to memory, my guns are now trained on Hymn 11.