'cuz this is thriller

Date: 03/07/13
Orchestra: CYO
Attendance: Good, but I guess a few of them had to leave early
Coaches present: Mr. Lin
Repertoire Rehearsed: bits and pieces of things
Little things I noticed: Yes! The paintings are back! I think these ones are student paintings. I'd say there are about 70 pieces of works up on the wall, and among the 70, I noticed that about 10 of them had birds in them. But NONE of the birds were flying... They were either perched atop a branch, or walking on the ground. I really hope whatever the assignment was, it called specifically for birds at rest, and that it is not a reflection of how kids feel these days... BE FREE! please

And thanks Ben, for coming early and help me set up the chairs. I really appreciate it!
Also thanks to Broc for gathering everybody back to the room after the break!

Note:
So during my two week hiatus from blogging, I've accumulated so much material that I would like to share with you on this blog, but I can't possibly write them all. So for now, I'll stick with the rehearsal notes of the day. Maybe in my spare time, I will write up some short entries reflecting on those occurrences throughout next week.

So here's how we sat for this rehearsal:

There are many reasons why I chose this particular arrangement, but I don't want to have to explain everything (or this entry would be super long...). All in all, I got out what I wanted, so it was a success!

We worked on small sections of the pieces. We didn't play through any of the pieces from the beginning to the end. This rehearsal/practice technique by the way, should comprise at least 95% of your own practice routine. Have small goals for each practice session - like getting all the notes of a particular passage and bringing it up to tempo - and FOCUS. If you have different small achievable goals every day, you will improve really really really fast! Just playing through the piece from the beginning to the end many many times, does not constitute as "practicing". It may be more fun, but it may not take you anywhere. Of course, playing the pieces through is also very important (especially if you have a very particular purpose for doing it) but it doesn't have to be done more than a couple of times in one day.

I guess I just have two main points to go over as reminders.
One is that there are two different ways of playing grace notes: playing them before the beat, or playing them on the beat. I would say that it is generally done the first way (playing them before the beat). But like in the Mozart we are doing, I may ask you to have the grace note right on the beat. But for the Gounod, please make sure that the grace notes are played before the beat. This is very important for this piece (for rhythmic clarity).

The other point is simply that as you may or may not have noticed, I'm starting to "shape" the Jessel piece by doing things not written in the original score (or at least the score I used to arrange this, which was a piano score...). By the way, we don't always have to play a piece the way everyone else does. We all have the artistic license to play any piece however we like, so long as you keep the character of the piece and don't disrespect the composer. It's called "interpretation". So please mark those spots, and watch me when you get there.

Which brings me to another reminder. Bring your pencils to every rehearsal please! Pencils are a MUST for musicians. In a professional setting, I have NEVER seen anyone come to a rehearsal without a pencil. I mean, what would be the point of coming to a rehearsal if you are not going to remember what was said there, right? I've never seen this happen, nor have I ever heard such incidents, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone gets fired from a job because he/she didn't bring a pencil for the rehearsal, or at least, never hired back because of it. Sounds reasonable to me.

To end this entry on a brighter note, I want to share with you a bit of good news. I woke up this morning to an email saying that one of my original pieces will be performed in April by two of NY Philharmonic artists (it's a clarinet and double bass duet). It's good way to start a day!

Also, I saw THIS on my way back home from rehearsal last night:

I appreciate impromptu performances like this :) When somebody is having a grand ole' time with music and dance, it makes others happy too.