Hot Monday Night, Huge Guitar Sound

A while ago we brought up Tuning the Air...um, was it April? Last night, we finally made it out to Ballard to check out the circular guitar ensemble and were not disappointed.

This is the second year of Tuning the Air's Monday night performances in the North Annex of Trinity Methodist Church. The 45-minute shows begin at 8pm (doors at 7:45pm), and the suggested donation is $5. You go inside, you go up some stairs to the third floor, you enter a room with a bunch of chairs in a circle and pillows in the center of the floor. You pick a pillow, you siddown. Then nine or ten really good guitarists surround you, and if you close your eyes you get the impression you're inside one big guitar.

But don't close your eyes too long, because there may be dancing to watch, too. Apparently the dancing is done very quietly, so if you're not looking, you might not know it's going on. Watchfulness, that's what we're preaching here. Besides, there's also a light-show element to the proceedings that deepens the cool.

Last night the program featured 12 guitar works and one spoken word piece, Geographical Fugue, which involved repeating place names (e.g., "Malaga Malaga, Tibet!") over and over. We really liked Circulation in E Minor and Music for a Found Harmonium. Ikada-Jima was Chinese-toned experience, with gong. (Download it here.) And of course there was Eleanor Rigby, taken to a blissed-out place.

Some songs were improvised around the circle, single notes traveling from guitar to guitar amazingly quickly. Some built from a single guitar, then branched out as others picked up the rhythm, others the melody-- it's a unique live experience that transports you to a place where music is the geography. A production of the Seattle Circle, Tuning the Air is an example of Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft in action -- not surprising as co-producer Curt Golden is known as a leading exponent of the method.