I think this is more of a life skills/teamwork question than one about playing, but never mind...

At my school, everyone who's above a certain level on their instrument is put into a trio or quartet which rehearses once a week with one of the instrumental teachers. Next Monday we are supposed to be playing in a concert and I get the impression it's not really negotiable: despite the fact we are nowhere near ready, we just have to BE ready! The main reason we aren't ready is that the 2nd violin has only come to four rehearsals since September!

Hence we've organised some extra rehearsals, which have to be without the teacher as she only comes in one day a week. There was meant to be one last Friday, but neither of the others came so that didn't happen! Assuming they come to the next rehearsal on Monday, I'm kind of in charge as I play 1st violin. Obviously I know how the teacher would lead the rehearsal, but I am not much more advanced musically than the other two, and we're all the same age, so if I did exactly the same I would seem bossy/stuck up/rude. On the other hand, obviously someone has to take charge or nothing's going to happen, and logically that someone's going to be me!

So what do people do in this sort of situation? we really need to make a vast improvement or the concert is going to be a complete embarrassment!

Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is a bit of a rant!
Rosie.

I think you've already made the right decision to take charge, as it appears your musical colleagues are somewhat lacking in discipline.

This might not sound very helpful, but whatever it is you are playing, just give it a complete run through in the next rehearsal, without stopping. Just keep going, no matter what happens. Only then will everyone really be able to hear what really needs the most attention. Are you playing a standard trio work, or an arrangement of something else? If it's a standard work, could you get hold of a copy of the score and a recording, and have a good listen to it?

I am assuming of course that your colleagues have put in plenty of individual practice? Personal preparation is absolutely essential for ensemble work - each player needs to know not only their own part, but also have a familiarity with those of their fellow musicans. Only that way can you play and sound as though you are one unit.

Thanks for your advice. It's helpful to know it would be helpful (bit of a mouthful, that!) to play through the whole thing - I probably would have done that and then wondered if it had been a waste of time, and almost definitely stopped early!

It's a standard trio, Haydn Divertimento no. 7 in A major. It's not on iTunes though, or in standard music shops so I don't have a recording...and the teacher has the score!



Well...I kind of tried to avoid dishing the dirt in my original post - but the straight answer is no. I can't work out whether or not the cellist practises...but she tends to make the same mistakes repeatedly. The 2nd violin came to the first 2 rehearsals before practice copies had been sorted, and then has turned up to the most recent two because she suddenly realised she needs to record us for her GCSE. So she now has a practice part but I know she's been skiing over half term...

God that feels so mean but it is true!



err no chance...this really is going to be shambolic.

Thanks for your advice though.

[quote]each player needs to know not only their own part, but also have a familiarity with those of their fellow musicans. Only that way can you play and sound as though you are one unit[/quote]

err no chance...this really is going to be shambolic.

Thanks for your advice though.
[/quote]

Oh, dear. Sounds like the best thing is for you to make sure you know your part really well so it's clear who let the side down if things go awry. And then another time, try to get with other players who really want to play.

Good luck - let us know how it goes (sometimes these things miraculously come together against all the odds!).

For the sake of Rosie91, I hope so too! Definitely need to find more committed colleagues for any future performances. Good luck and do post again, post-performance, to let us know how it went.

Thanks, both of you - I'll keep you posted. have contacted both of them via facebook (ahh the wonders of the modern world) so they definitely know there's a rehearsal tomorrow!

1) Put bar numbers in the all the parts, at the beginning of each line and after long multi-bar rests. This means that you can start and stop at exactly the right place if you need to work at a small chunk.

2) If the ensemble is tricky (i.e. you have difficulty staying together either in the small or in the large):

a) for rehearsal, play the tricky part from the score (you can take turns at this), so that you can see what the others are doing. Play sufficiently slowly at first that you can play your part and tell whether the others are playing correctly. Make sure the others know where to stop; if they play on when the score player hits an impossible turn, time is wasted.

b) for performance, at particularly difficult places, write in the rhythm (or the actual notes on a narrow stave if you have space) of a cue (something recognisable AND DISTINCTIVE* in another part) over your own part.

* If the same phrase occurs more than once close together, in one part or in different ones, this can cause more trouble than it solves.

3) Always be prepared to play a difficult passage very slowly to work out how it should sound and how the parts relate.

4) To be sure of playing at a constant speed, play to a metronome. This is difficult, and requires a) that you listen to the metronome and not to each other and b) that you play quietly throughout the passage, so that the tick remains audible.

Refinements (if you have time)

5) Dynamics, articulation and phrasing are all part of the composition. A playing edition will usually have these, even if the editor had to add them. Depart from these only after careful thought (for which I suspect you don't have time).

6) In every bar, be sure that you all know which part is most important and play so that the audience will know that too.

Running a rehearsal efficiently requires quick thought to identify the most important current problem and choose the best way to fix it. Some things will correct themselves by immediate repetition from before the problem point and even if you know precisely where one of the others made a mistake, the tactful approach is to give them an opportunity to correct it before you point an accusing finger. (When conducting or coaching, I sometimes ask a player who has mucked up a beautiful solo, "Would you like another go at that?")

By all means start with a play-through to get the shape of the movement and identify the problem areas, but after that don't waste time rehearsing secure passages when insecure ones remain to be improved.

That's very useful information!

Hope it goes well Rosie!! You should remind the others that if they don't practice, it'll sound ###### when it's performed - and they'll embarrass themselves

Thanks Kenm, that's all really useful!

Today's rehearsal actually went alarmingly well...both of the others turned up, and weren't too late...we started by having a playthrough and I was surprised that with one or two hisses of "upbeat to 38" etc we can more or less get from start to finish. towards the end, one of the sax teachers came in to get something and persuaded us to play for him. He said it wasn't as bad as we made out, but gave us some good pointers.

I think it's finally sinking in that we need to work - actually I was really surprised when the 2nd violin said at the end "I think we need to organise another rehearsal." wow! It's also going to be obvious if it goes pear shaped whose fault it is, because the teacher who coaches us also coaches a quartet who I hear are rather good!

So we have tomorrow and Thursday lunchtime, and possibly up to two more depending on how things go...hope I'm not being over-optimistic but I think we might get through this!

It's really quite amusing when I go and book rooms for our extra rehearsals - when the teachers hear that we're having extra rehearsal without the teacher they are really impressed with how keen we are...I have to tell them that it's more the fact we're really, really bad that means we're doing extra practice!

Thanks for the update. Good luck!

Bit of a postmortem for you...

The concert was this evening, and we'd actually had four extra rehearsals on top of our weekly ones with the teacher, which impressed me! in typical last minute fashion it really came together today due largely to a eureka moment where we dissected a cadence and the conversation went something like this:

Me: so what's everyone's last note of that phrase? mine's F#
2nd violin: F#
Cello: F........
Me & 2nd violin: sharp. Well that explains why it sounds so shocking.

Of course after that we kind of broke down in giggles every time we got to that cadence - I guess we probably looked like we were enjoying our performance at least!

It was actually fine...we stayed together time-wise and the famous F# cadence was fine. I kind of squeaked in all the upbeats where I played on my own...but apparently not too noticeably. Does anyone know when you stop squeaking for good? I don't on a regular basis but clearly I still can when under pressure!

Some of the other groups were amazing, and of course all the best people were 2/3 years younger than me.

Thanks everyone for all your help and advice.

Well done Rosie!

Glad to hear it went well in the end