Reading Reflection 4

When planning a school orchestra rehearsal, there are, understandably, many factors to take into consideration. The way that the rehearsal is structured is very important, too. If it is paced too slowly, then the students will lose interest and their minds will wander off. Of course, if it is paced too quickly, on the other hand, then the students will not be able to follow, will become frustrated, and will be much more likely to give up, both in the immediate (in class) as well as the long term (dropping the class or quitting the ensemble).

Particularly in an orchestra setting, there are several specific parts of a rehearsal that cannot be ignored. Tuning, for example, is very important, especially when the students are young. Not to diminish the importance of any ensemble to be tuned, but early strings, in particular, have a hard time figuring out how to fix their intonation problems, if they even notice them. Also, the instruments themselves are much more likely (depending on the season) to change drastically between rehearsals – even during rehearsals! There are many, many different suggestions as to how to tune an orchestra. One of my favorites, at least once the students get just old enough, is to provide a pitch and go around and help each student get one string absolutely correct, and then let the students adjust from there on their own, thereby reinforcing ear training (as described in Chapter 7 of Hamann & Gillespie).

During the actual meat of the rehearsal, then, distribution of time is crucial. One cannot spend the entire time hammering pieces as a full ensemble. Not only will the kids get very tired of this, it doesn’t even make much musical sense. From time to time the rehearsal will have to stop so that individual sections can work on portions of the music. At these times, an assistant (if present) can take that one section out and work with them, for example. If an assistant is not present, then section leaders can be relied upon. Or, alternatively, the rest of the ensemble can air bow/finger along to get practice, but being quiet so that the director can focus on one section at a time.

As Chapter 6 mentions, planning a rehearsal is absolutely critical to having a successful rehearsal. The score needs to be marked up and numbers, and parts need to be checked against the score for accuracy. Also, particular to string orchestras, fingerings and bowing may need to be decided upon (and even written in), depending on the level of the ensemble (whether or not the director does this or the concert master, for example).

Lastly, there are some techniques that make wonderful musical sense regardless of the ensemble. For example, as Hamann & Gillespie also mentions, audiation is a great way to learn parts. If the students can “hear” the parts in their heads (and then subsequently sing them), they will be much more likely to play them correctly. All in all, there is an endless list of things to consider. It can be a daunting task for a new teacher. However, resources like Hamann & Gillespie can be great resources.

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