{"id":490,"date":"2007-11-14T18:29:28","date_gmt":"2007-11-14T18:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2007\/11\/14\/recent-comments\/"},"modified":"2007-11-15T01:59:33","modified_gmt":"2007-11-15T01:59:33","slug":"recent-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2007\/11\/14\/recent-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

We were rehearsing one of the developmental episodes in the last mvt of Beethoven 8 last night (the march section), and were having some ensemble problems. It\u2019s normal in passages with repeated staccato notes for players to suffer varying degrees of rushy-ness. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, I had the cellos and basses do the section without conductor, which solved the problem for them, then added the violins and violas, also asking them to play the entire section without conductor. <\/span><\/span><\/span>We always joke that it is depressing for conductors that orchestras always sound better when we don\u2019t conduct, but it\u2019s not really true that its depressing or that they always sound better. There are plenty of things that an orchestra can only do with a conductor or director (conducting from the concertmaster chair or as a soloist), so there\u2019s no need to feel too threatened. However, doing things without conductor is a way to iron out\u00a0and eliminate individual tendencies. Anytime things sound better in rehearsal, it\u2019s a cause for celebration, and choosing when not to conduct is just as much the conductor\u2019s concern as choosing how to conduct, so no need for tears.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Everyone I\u2019ve ever worked with is either a rusher or a dragger. It\u2019s just human nature. Rushing and dragging are relative phenomena, so when a mild dragger sits next to a severe dragger, the severe dragger hears the mild dragger as a rusher and attempts to slow them down. When a real rusher sits next to a real dragger, they tend to both become more and more insistent until they completely pull apart from each other. Both musicians are so keen to be right that they get more and more wrong as they musically shout \u201cyou\u2019re behind the beat!\u201d or \u201cyou\u2019re ahead of the beat!\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>When you take away the visual information, there is no longer any \u201cright\u201d time to play- you can\u2019t be ahead of or behind a beat that doesn\u2019t exist, so the only thing to do is play together. Take away the idea of a \u201ccorrect\u201d time to play, and you can quickly get perfect ensemble. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>So last night, as we concluded this short exercise, I gently reminded everyone that the real reason it always sounds better without conductor is that when the musicians are playing without me, they\u2019re doing something in extra that they weren\u2019t doing when they were playing with me. If they can keep that mysterious process going once I start carving the air again, even better things can happen. (I don\u2019t think it even helps to name that process- it\u2019s a mixture of listening, watching, compromising, counting and adjusting\u2026. )\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>This morning I did the local community affairs radio show, the Coffee Hour (actually about 27 minutes minus commercials). I like working with Tom, the host. He\u2019s not particularly interested in music, but is a great, easy interviewer. He never interrupts me but is great about getting in quickly with a question if my energy starts to flag. This should be a good concert for marketing. The weather is turning bad, which is good for concerts, and we have all the friends and family of the youth orchestra to attract. We talked about the flourishing of the youth orchestra and I tried to explain in laymen\u2019s terms just why I\u2019m so proud of this group and why everyone in town should be cheering them on, and we also talked about Leandro\u2019s piece and the Dvorak a bit. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Tom also hosts the local sports chat show. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>He\u2019s got an idea that I know something about sports history (I sort of do, but only selectively), so I\u2019m going to be brave and be his guest for the full hour of Sports Talk on Friday afternoon. For all the chat about the concert, probably the smartest thing I did this morning was repeatedly mention the 8-1 Green Bay Packers from my home state of <\/span>Wisconsin<\/span>. The novelty of a \u201cclassical musician\u201d (read- figure of suspicion!!) actually talking about a football team will probably sell more tickets to the curious than anything else I could do or say.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Also on the Coffee Hour this morning after me was Senator Gordon Smith, who was calling in for a phone interview from DC. We exchanged \u201chiya\u2019s\u201d as I was finishing, but I felt it was a missed opportunity. I\u2019ve always wanted to do political journalism, and would have loved to take the chance to interrupt him with \u201cbut Senator, surely when you refer to the \u201csurge\u201d working against \u201cAl Quaeda\u201d you\u2019re aware that you\u2019re talking about the group \u201cAl Quaeda in Mesapotamia,\u201d which is a completely separate political organization from the group that claimed responsibility for the 9\/11 attacks, and shouldn\u2019t we make absolutely clear that there was no form of Al Queada whatsoever in Iraq before 2003?\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Hmm\u2026. Wonder how many tickets that would have sold?????? <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>c. 2007 Kenneth Woods<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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