Feb. 7-11Efficient Rehearsal Techniques, Part 4
by: William W. Gourley
Now that the students have carefully warmed–up, they are ready to apply their skills to the music. Part 3 discussed the warm-up portion of the rehearsal generally occupies 30-50% of the period.
Rehearsal Schedule
Feb. 7-11
Monday Holst 1st mov. Beg. – D
Sousa intro & 1st strain
Grainger
Tuesday Grainger all Jazz Band 7:00 a.m.
Holst 1st mov. All
Sousa beg – trio
Wednesday Sousa all
Holst 2nd mov beg – 10 before E
Thursday Orch. Winds Jazz Band 7:00 a.m.
Grainger all
Holst mov 1 & 2
Friday Holst mov 1 & 2 Pep Band 6:30 p.m.
Final Tour Sousa beg – trio
Payment Grainger
Scales DbM & bbm GM & em
Feb. 20 Scale Test DbM & bbm GM & em
Feb. 27 Playing Test
March 4 Concert 7:30 p.m. concert uniform
March 8 Festival 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Dexter HS
March 22 Jazz Band Concert 7:00 p.m. Middle School
As educators, we must remember that our students have very busy schedules. Generally, they are the most involved members of the student body and need to budget time efficiently. When students open a folder containing six to ten pieces of music the task of preparing that music for rehearsal can be overwhelming. They do not have the time to devote to learning all the music so they must guess what you will be working on the next day. This can become an exercise in futility. They either pick the wrong music or not everyone in the ensemble is at the same level of preparation on any one selection. Providing a rehearsal schedule will make rehearsals much more efficient.
Give the students the rehearsal schedule Wednesday or Thursday of the previous week. The students will be able to better budget their time and prepare adequately for rehearsals. If a student has mastered the material for Monday’s rehearsal, he/she can focus on Wednesday’s where there may be some challenges for the student. Include information regarding extra rehearsals, sectionals, jazz band, fiddle club, pep band and up-coming performances, tests and the pedagogical concepts being taught for the week.
The rehearsal schedule will bring focus to your rehearsals and help you in tracking your progress. It is too easy to become focused on a couple challenging selections or sections and not devote enough time to less demanding material. Continuity is critical for all of us but especially for student musicians. If we aren’t careful in reviewing material that we have worked on in a timely fashion the skills will be greatly diminished when we finally get back to it. The rehearsal schedule will help avoid this. Notice how selections are rotated on the schedule so each selection has the opportunity to be in the prime learning period, just after the warm up, and at the end of the period where you focus on overall musical presentation.
Concert Music
New Material 30-40% of the total class period
The warm-up has brought unity and focus to the ensemble so now is the time to work on the new or challenging material assigned for the day. If you look at Monday on the rehearsal schedule example, the goal for the day is to perfect the beginning to letter “D” of Holst’s, Second Suite for Military Band in F. Notice the lesson plans for Monday, includes the FM and dm scales in the warm-up and Chorale 23 in FM preparing the ensemble’s fingers and ears for the Holst.
The Sousa is next, and the ensemble will begin perfecting the introduction and first strain. It is preferable to have a selection here that students have a bit more familiarity with and is less demanding than the first concert selection. By now you are two thirds into the class period and they are starting to fatigue mentally.
Previously Learned Material 20-30% of the total class period
I remember attending a clinic by the Airmen of Note, the Air Force’s Jazz Band. The lead saxophonist mentioned the importance of playing through the music for the group to get the style and not stopping to “dig out” spots. We need to transfer this wisdom to our rehearsals.
The Grainger is a selection the students have worked on and is close to performance ready. The group is in the last 20% of the class period and has exhausted a great deal of its ability to work on minutia. This is where you increase the energy flow in the class and let the students play. Focus on the forest and not the trees. Allow the ensemble to play through the selection to gain a better understanding of the overall musical presentation. Within reason, allow them to play over mistakes taking a macro approach. Listen less for mistakes and more for musicality. Try to reserve stops for correcting balance, tone, style or phrasing concerns. This allows the students to get a better ensemble feel for continuity and ends the rehearsal on a positive note.
At times it might be preferable to put some review material just after the warm-up. For instance, if you did a lot of “digging” on a section of music the day before it may be beneficial to focus on that section first. This may only be four to eight measures or it could be several spots in a particular selection that will need to have daily review to maintain muscle memory and enhance technical proficiency.
Creating Opportunities for Success
Fix problems before they occur. In part two (August issue) I discussed finding potential performance problems and teaching these concepts during the warm-up period. Alternate fingerings, difficult rhythms, tonguing or bowing difficulties, new notes, etc. can be taught in the warm-up weeks before the students will encounter them in the music. A difficult passage in a composition can be worked on before you read the entire piece in order to give the students some preparation so the ensemble will not fall apart when the piece is read.
Back to front. Rehearse the last rehearsal number/letter or section to the end of the piece. Then begin at the second to the last rehearsal number/letter or section. This decreases the frustration of running into unfamiliar passages and condenses the learning. Many of the concepts introduced in a composition are recapped at the end and this allows you to teach them efficiently. Another benefit is the end is often the most exciting part of a composition and allows you to create a feeling of excitement for the work. It is similar to the promos we see for movies. I am not suggesting you work the entire composition in this manner, however.
Rehearse difficult sections first. Work on the awkward rhythms, technical problems, etc. in a phrase first, then play the phrase or composition. This reduces the frustration factor in students because they can play right by these spots.
Hit the highlights. Rehearse difficult passages often. You do not need to play through the entire composition every time you pull it out of the folder. Once you have “wood shedded” a particular section, review it for 3-5 minutes a day to keep those technique problems learned and refined.
Take notes. Keep a note pad handy or a piece of paper in the score. Make quick notations during and after the rehearsal to remind you of things that need attention at the next rehearsal.
General Thoughts
Environment. Does the rehearsal room convey the message that it is a place of order? If possible, have the room set up neatly. Have music playing while the students enter the class. This is a good way to passively teach music history. Just place the composer’s name of the music playing on a time line above the dry erase/chalk board depicting historical milestones. I always reserved Fridays for jazz.
Write the rehearsal sequence on the board or an overhead projector and expect the students to place things in order on the stand so they can move from one event to the other. Nothing kills rehearsal efficiency more than waiting for someone to dig through a folder filled with six months of handouts and unreturned music to find the guiro part.
Announcements are on the rehearsal schedule and the dry erase/chalk board. Try to minimize if not eliminate discussing announcements. You can point to them during long tones or highlight them. Of course there are times when it is necessary to discuss things in detail but, generally, make the students responsible and do not make announcements at the beginning of the rehearsal. Get the ensemble focused on music first. Save announcements for the end of the rehearsal or short sound bites between exercises or music selections. The less said the better.
Always work as if the concert is tomorrow. I tell my groups that we need to rehearse as if the president just announced he was coming to town tomorrow and his favorite composition is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and everyone knows we only get one rehearsal. Still, we would want it to be as good as we can get it in one rehearsal so we would maximize every millisecond in the rehearsal. This does not imply that having a good laugh during rehearsal is not an efficient use of time. It is a great tension reliever and tension is the demon that interferes with great music making and enjoyment.
Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Praise, praise, praise. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is when I stop a group in a rehearsal for the first time and proclaim, “That’s it!” Invariably, someone will say, “Then why did you stop us?” If the only time we stop is to correct something, how is the group going to know when it sounds right? Tell them what was good and have them play it again so they get it in their heads and ears.
Be flexible. Do not become obsessed with your rehearsal schedule. If something is going particularly well in a rehearsal, go with the flow. Don’t fight momentum. Conversely, if things just aren’t clicking that day on a certain exercise or section of music move on and avoid frustrating the group. This will give you an opportunity to create different strategies to teach the concept. There are days when the planets align in our favor and times when they don’t. Mondays and Fridays seem to have a dynamic all their own and learning to channel vibes from these days can pay great rewards. Mondays have the nasty habit of coming after two days off school and students need a delicate balance between refocusing and not over-doing new material. Fridays have the nasty habit of coming before two days off and there is a vitality in the school that, depending on the ensemble’s maturity, encourages more recapping of the week’s lessons, listening more for macro concerns and addressing fewer micro problems than you would Tuesday through Thursday.
This four part series has addressed creating a strategy to help students achieve a successful music making experience in your class. Through assessing the ability level of the ensemble, creating a curriculum that emphasizes skills acquisition and review, careful selection of appropriate literature, anticipating performance problems and addressing them in a pedagogical development warm-up, we create opportunities for success by eliminating roadblocks.
Although the musical benefits are obvious, the greatest benefit of Creating Opportunities for Success is the fostering of a positive attitude in the students. Mastering the basic fundamental music skills of tone, intonation, rhythm, technique and phrasing enables them to more easily perform the music in the folders successfully, creating a positive attitude gained through achievement. And, nothing encourages community support and continued participation in our ensembles more than success in performance.