When planning a summer chamber music series last year,
I suggested programming a 1980 string trio by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.
It sounded like a great idea back then, but when the performance loomed,
learning the music seemed overwhelming. We had other substantial works
to prepare, and time was of the essence. The concert was only a week
after our first rehearsal, and the piece was new to us and very, very
difficult. We couldn’t rely on a sound recording to speed the
learning process, because the only CD of the work was out of print.
We had to come up with creative ways to work quickly and efficiently.
Our ultimate goal was to convey the music effectively at the concert,
but we would have settled for getting through the work without having
to stop to pick up the pieces.
As Dan Stepner, first violinist of the Lydian Quartet
points out, putting music together with little time to rehearse is
all too common. "Having to learn an ensemble piece quickly is
one of the unfortunate realities of professional musical life, and
apparently this is not new. I don’t know of thorough rehearsing
being talked about until the 19th century (for example, in the Joachim
String Quartet), and even then it was probably the exception rather
than the rule. One hears much more often of first performances that
were barely ready for the public."
Practice,
Practice, Practice
So how do you rehearse effectively and efficiently?
Absolutely the first requirement is that the individual players do
some serious wood-shedding at home, and really know their parts before
going into the first rehearsal. This will provide a good starting
point for putting the work together. Says Stepner, "It goes without
saying that each player should have the music well in advance and
work out the technically difficult passages before the first rehearsal."
Make your at-home practice sessions as efficient as
possible. This is especially important in contemporary works that
present new challenges to the player. If you’re learning a new
piece with difficult or unusual intervals, for example, try minimizing
the distance. Ann Jeffers Brown, a soprano, has a tip that works well
for strings as well as voice. "When learning a new work, I take
some very high notes down an octave for practice purposes. New pieces
often have very wide intervals like ninths or tenths, which can be
difficult for singers because of changing voice registers. Hearing
and singing them first as seconds or thirds helps take the strain
out." If you have a note that is a leap from where you’ve
been, you have a much better chance of hitting it if your ear knows
what to aim for. Playing those "leap" notes down (or up)
an octave will help get your ear attuned to where you are going. The
next step is to isolate the actual leap until it is solidly in your
physical memory. Then you can put it back in context. This is particularly
important in nontonal works. You want to be absolutely secure of your
own pitches and intervals, so you won’t be swayed when you hear
the other parts for the first time.
Know the
Score
You need to spend as much rehearsal time as possible
actually rehearsing, so get to know the score before the first rehearsal.
Stepner says, "It behooves every player to know the score at
least well enough to have marked rhythmic cues into the part, so that
no one has to conduct and no one has to count rests. This takes more
time preparing the parts, but saves hours of rehearsal time."
Reinmar Seidler, cellist of the Arden String Quartet, concurs. "It
is tempting, when you have little time, to just start playing,"
he says. "But that is inefficient. It really helps if everyone
has a grasp of the score at the outset–whether it’s a brand
new piece or a challenging one from earlier centuries. Unfortunately,
that is something people often overlook. The large things–organizational
principles, or sonorities, or harmony–should become apparent."
One Thing
at a Time
You’ve made it to the first rehearsal. Now what?
Seidler stresses the importance of pinpointing and tackling those
"large things" right at the start. This is all the more
important in newer works. "With modern pieces, the language is
so variable. We don’t have the general basic agreement about
what’s important in a piece; it’s uncharted territory. It
is useful to agree on what to approach first. Do we need to work out
what the compositional form is? Is it best to start by figuring out
structural elements? You need to have a plan of attack."
Soprano Martha Elliott suggests you prioritize your
goals. "Don’t try to deal with everything at once,"
she says. "If the piece is new or hard, I would say getting the
rhythm figured out and coordinated is the most important thing to
do first." We certainly found this to be true with the Zwilich
trio. We all agreed that the first movement was the most challenging,
and needed immediate attention. It became very clear that certain
recurring rhythmic gestures needed to be rock solid. We began with
those gestures–at a very slow tempo–with a metronome as
arbiter. Seidler stresses the benefit of this kind of approach. "It’s
often useful to try to do just one thing at a time. This is really
difficult to do–to work on one thing, and then another–and
only then to combine them. If you’re trying to work on rhythms
and it becomes apparent that something is really out of tune, you
might start to work on fixing pitches. But then you’ve lost your
focus. Instead, postpone discussion about other issues, even if they
seem very urgent. Try to make mental notes of those things you want
to tackle at a later stage. This takes a lot of discipline, but it’s
worth it." You could take physical notes as well, to aid your
memory.
Sectionalize
Another excellent suggestion that Seidler makes is to
delineate sections. "A lot of pieces are sectionalized–it’s
really useful to get used to the sections individually–and leave
the transitions until later. Whether the sections are defined by tempo,
sonority, or dynamics, get them the way you want them first. If, for
example, there is a very soft section, work on just getting the softest
sound possible. Then you can work on the transition into it. If the
group is totally solid on the sections, particularly when different
sections are in different tempos, the transitions become much easier.
Because you know where you’ve come from and where you are going."
Stepner takes this idea even further. "One thing
I found immensely helpful in rehearsing a work–whether in a leisurely
or rushed fashion–is to have done a cursory analysis of the form
and to rehearse along the structural lines of the work. For instance,
if a movement is in sonata form, first rehearse the first theme, then
go to its return in the recapitulation. Then rehearse the second theme
and its reprise. Then and only then do the development section. One
will have a much greater appreciation of the way the piece is put
together, and how the composer is inventing and improvising in the
development and varying the returns. If the work is a rondo, rehearse
all the A sections first, then work on the B sections, and so on.
If the composer is interesting, you will thereby get a better sense
of his or her powers of variation and formal control once you put
the pieces back in order. [Violinist] Rudolph Kolisch suggested this
method to me."
Begin
at the—Middle?
Don’t spend too much time on any one passage. In
working on Zwilich’s trio, we tended to get stuck right at the
beginning. At one rehearsal, we opted to start with the final section
of the movement and work backwards. We found this very liberating
and it built up our confidence. Once we reached the beginning, it
didn’t seem so bad because it was put in the perspective of the
whole movement.
Slow
Down
Even when you feel rushed, you’ll find it worthwhile
to do some slow intonation work. As Stepner explains, "At some
point in each rehearsal, it’s good to slow down and refocus on
pure sound and careful intonation. As well as the obvious benefits,
this can serve as a meditative break in the normal tension and speed
of a rehearsal–always a healthy thing." With the Zwilich
piece, we found this "meditative" approach worked well at
the dress rehearsal. Playing through a complete movement at a slow
tempo got us listening and helped to shake off preperformance jitters.
Hard Stuff
If certain passages are difficult for the group as a
whole, reserve a few minutes of each rehearsal to work on them. In
the Zwilich trio, for example, there were certain tone clusters that
were hard to hear, and a few nasty, exposed unison passages. We played
these both slowly and in tempo at each rehearsal. Whatever the hard
passages are, plan to concentrate on them every time you get together.
Easy Stuff
We learned the hard way that you can’t take anything
for granted when there is little rehearsal time. Again, with the Zwilich,
we had focused mainly on the hardest movement. The rehearsal time
paid off, because in performance, that first movement went very well.
However, after that, we let our guard down, and the straight-forward,
under-rehearsed third movement suffered. Mistakes–particularly
counting errors–crept in. Luckily, we had identified many places
in which we could reassemble if we got apart. So make sure you know
where you can get back on track if things momentarily disintegrate.
By the way, "train wrecks" can easily occur in performance
if not all players take a marked repeat. Take a moment before the
concert to confirm repeat schemes.
Keep It
in Perspective
Remember that when you perform, you’re offering
something to the audience. If the music is new to you, it most likely
will be new to your listeners, too. The audience members have no idea
how much (or little) rehearsal time you’ve had–they are
there to listen and enjoy. While it’s challenging to prepare
works in a limited amount of time, it can be rewarding, too. Says
Stepner, "There is something positive about having to think carefully
about how to budget the time when preparing something with few rehearsals.
One is forced to think about which passages need the most drilling,
and about the ‘effects’ (moods and colors) one wants to
project. While fast preparation is not ideal, it can still be efficient,
effective, and even enjoyable."
Stepner concludes with some wonderful advice. "Have
a good pencil handy. Develop a personal language of annotation that
helps you see things before you get to them, and that saves you having
to try to remember a lot of musical and technical details, leaving
you free to inflect improvisationally. Leave something to the imagination
and the inspiration of the moment."
Photo by Barbara Gelfand.
