{"id":7013,"date":"2015-09-09T14:22:05","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T13:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=7013"},"modified":"2015-09-09T14:22:05","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T13:22:05","slug":"how-to-rehearse-an-ensemble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2015\/09\/09\/how-to-rehearse-an-ensemble\/","title":{"rendered":"How to rehearse an ensemble"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week I gave a talk on &#8220;how to rehearse&#8221; for a regional consortium of music educators. The following list formed the basis of our discussions. It&#8217;s by no means a complete or exclusive list, but we publish it here without further comment in hopes that some of you find it helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Please share your thoughts about what makes a good rehearsal- whether working with beginners or the Berlin Philharmonic.<\/p>\n<h2>General Rehearsal Advice<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Know the music!<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Play first<\/strong>, show what you want, then talk<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be yourself<\/strong> and rehearse the same way wherever you go. All ensembles need both your highest standards, and your utmost patience<\/li>\n<li><strong>Give musicians information in the order they need it<\/strong>, ie \u201cBefore letter A, ten bars\u201d rather than \u201c10 bars before A\u201d<\/li>\n<li>If you wait to work on musical details and style until you\u2019ve solved technical problems,<strong> you\u2019ll never work on musical details and style<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>If you help the players understand the \u201c<strong>why\u2019s<\/strong>\u201d of the score, they\u2019re more likely to remember the \u201cwhat\u2019s\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Teach your ensemble the difference between \u201c<strong>rehearsing<\/strong>\u201d and \u201c<strong>practicing<\/strong>.\u201d When you do have to turn a rehearsal into a practice session, make sure the musicians understand that this is <em>not<\/em> rehearsing<\/li>\n<li>Working on <strong>rhythm often fixes many intonation<\/strong> problems, and slow intonation work solves many rhythmic issues<\/li>\n<li>If you <strong>can write it in their music<\/strong> before the first rehearsal, do<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rhythmic subdivision<\/strong> is not only a matter of accuracy, but of <strong>character<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Your ensemble might be the one setting in which a bright student really has to concentrate as hard as they can to do well. It\u2019s up to you to <strong>teach them how much of themselves they need to give to the music<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Rehearsal planning and anticipating what you\u2019ll need to work on is useful, but <strong>you can only teach your students\/colleagues to be \u201cin the moment\u201d if you are.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2015\/09\/09\/how-to-rehearse-an-ensemble\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week I gave a talk on &#8220;how to rehearse&#8221; for a regional consortium of music educators. The following list formed the basis of our discussions. It&#8217;s by no means a complete or exclusive list, but we publish it here without further comment in hopes that some of you find it helpful. Please share [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-masterclass"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7014,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7013\/revisions\/7014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}