Guessing Games: Focusing in those late night rehearsals

An average story of most of our lives: We’re up at 8am and run to a bunch of classes, and by the time it’s 4:00 in the afternoon, the only thing we feel like doing is going home and collapsing on the couch…but orchestra is later that night and doesn’t get out until 10.

By that time of night, my mentality for playing is usually along the lines of, “Okay, I have to play this the best I can and try to play it better than last time. I practiced it a lot, so I know I can sound better here.”

Which is alright. I’m trying my best, and I came prepared.

But that’s so generic. “Play it better”? If we just try to play it “better,” what should we focus on? Tone quality? Breathing? Articulation? Dynamics? Intonation?

…All of them.

But I’ve started to think about this from another perspective: why do these evening rehearsals seem to be so tiring? Because I know that we’re only going to get through about 10 or 15 measures of this piece (that I really want to play straight through because I like it) before the conductor stops us.

Ok, we’re starting rehearsal. I already know we’re not going to play the whole piece through the first time, so let’s play a little game. Let’s play “Guess What the Conductor is Going to Say to Us Next.”

The baton is up; we’re starting at the beginning.

You know…this little fast triplet accompaniment thing we have is kind of like that other piece we played last year…then he told us to play the notes as short as we could so it didn’t sound muddy. He probably wants us to do that here, too.

Sure enough, after we play the opening a few times, the conductor says, “Flutes, can you play those a little more staccato?”

Hey, look at that. I was right!

I didn’t even have to think “Maybe I should make my articulation better here.” It just sounded better.

Since that seemed to work for me, I kept guessing and before I knew it my phrasing and intonation in ensembles was getting better. I tried to remember what things we had worked on in the past and did my best to fix them in my own playing before they became a problem.

So this little game does a few things for me:

1) it keeps me more focused in rehearsal when I’m tired,

2) it forces me to think and use what I already know, and

3) instead of trying to focus on everything at once, I focus on what’s most important for the section we’re working on, and everything else starts to fall into place.

I find that instead of thinking about separate aspects of playing, I’m listening first and making adjustments according to what I hear. It’s a reverse way of thinking that I think in the past few days has really made my playing sound better without necessarily thinking about what “sounding better” means for that piece. Even at the end of the day.

So that’s my little thought for the week. Have another good focusing strategy that works for you? Feel free to post it in the comments! ♫