Performance Team Rehearsal

A Tuning the Air Journal

Monday, October 17, 2011 – Performance Team Rehearsal

Continued detail work on the more complex material.

We began with a circulation in A minor, which is on the setlist as the set up for “Space Circus”. We had noted on Saturday that we are not circulating enough in rehearsal, and that our live circulations are suffering a little for that. So we are now making time at every rehearsal for this. It is not a skill issue. And A minor is certainly as close to a harmonic no-brainer as they come. But circulation is really about the connections between players. Although most of us have been playing together for many years, this is something that needs to be constantly exercised and renewed.

Carl was back, but Greg out of town, so once again we went to work on a slightly limping session with the B Minor Prelude. Practicing circulated compositions with missing players is actually a very enlightening exercise. The very absence of a particular part serves to highlight their role and function. We, as players, become a bit more discerning about the individual components and how they relate to our own part. Still, there are a couple of things we would like to be able to explore that really require the full team, and Saturday will likely be our first opportunity, if everyone can stay healthy and in town.

Some detail work on “Mad World”, beginning with a discussion of the target tempo. It has been inconsistent, and was pretty fast in the last performance. With a bit of trial and error we settled on a tempo a bit faster than our original target, but slower than I’ve been counting it. This was followed by some refinement work on the melody, and one minor change to the arrangement involving dropping 4 bars in the middle chorus which tightened the piece up considerably.

A couple of runthroughs of “Fallout”, with focus on the transitions.

During the break, Darlene arrived, and so the second half of the rehearsal focused on pieces with the oboe. First we continued work of “Gnossienne”, with the aim of consistency and continuity in the melody as it is passed from player to player.

A short discussion of the two candidates for the Sgt Bones slot in the set, settling on Odd Socks for this week, as it features the oboe.

Then to “Larks’ Tongues”. The plan is to have both violin and oboe in the heavy rock section. After listening to a run or two, the idea was floated and adopted to extend that section by 4 phrases. We ran the new section several times to ensure our sense of the new length, and then ran the whole piece.