In my last post we examined the associated components and benefits of effective rehearsal planning that can lead toward rehearsals that go beyond preparing for the next performance. 

Here are some additional thoughts with regards towards effectively planning for educationally focused rehearsals, potentially delivering long-lasting, valuable learning and artistically rewarding outcomes.

To continue from past discussions, rehearsal plans should regularly include provision for the sight-reading of worthy repertoire that is both suited to the strengths of the ensemble as well as incorporating the application of our training material and learning processes.  Remember that programming for successful outcomes, even in sight-reading should remain a part of our overall investment strategy.  Students will continue to invest in our performance ensembles if the rewards of their investment lead to rewarding outcomes!

Sight-reading of significant repertoire will also aid in fuelling the student’s desire to continue developing technical and musical skills so as to fully experience musical success in performance.  The more developed their skills and music intuition become, the more engaged and motivated they become in their music investment.   Their exposure to quality repertoire should inspire students to the greater possibilities of music performance.  Therefore a major goal of large, educationally based ensembles should always be to both introduce and familiarise students with the recognised, standard repertoire, which will, in turn include recognising each individual work’s attendant technical and interpretive musical challenges.  Another important function of sight-reading is that it can serve as a system check, allowing conductors and students alike to see how well their acquisition of skills and musical expression is progressing.

To this end, rehearsals need to contain appropriate learning and performance strategies for overcoming the reading challenges contained in sight-reading, firmly establishing the correlations between technical studies and performance practice.  It is important then to choose repertoire that will also provide the ensemble opportunities toward acquiring the expertise in meeting ever increasing technical and musical demands. One needs to possess the knowledge and passion for excellence that will grow their ensemble’s skills through exposure to attainable challenges, leading to positive outcomes through providing the necessary learning strategies and skills.

With the above in mind, one should be able to successfully define and conyey their musical and educative reasons for all or their repertoire choices, including training material, performance works  or sight-reading literature. 

To assist in understanding of the developmental needs of your ensemble, try writing a three-sentence profile on each of your students, outlining their known strengths and weaknesses.  Then write a four-sentence profile on your ensemble, outlining it's known strengths and weaknesses.  Ensemble rehearsals may constitute one of the few places in which the rewards of technical skill acquisition are clearly demonstrated and celebrated. Focusing solely on learning a specific work, without assisting members through introduction and application of practical practice strategies and a functioning learning process will ultimately lead to frustration and unrealised potential.  

Rehearsals should also provide group listening experiences that can offer our students opportunities to experience a variety of fine performances, both live and recorded.  Human learning is greatly assisted when models are provided and can often offer great impetus and inspiration.  My high school band director exposed our ensemble to the wonderful recordings of the Eastman Wind Ensemble under the direction of Fredrick Fennell.  In fact, one of my fondest memories of my high school band experience was when our director arranged for our entire ensemble to attend a performance of Puccini's La bohème, performed by the San Diego Opera Company.  It made an incredible impact on me.

Finally, we conductors must be willing to keep growing personally, continuing to seek and search for opportunities to learn, experiment, share and give.  We must remain impatient with the present limitations of our knowledge, seeking to move forward. The acceptance of the mundane and mediocre must remain a constant enemy. We must remain committed to the nurturing of our musical souls.

 Five keys to successful rehearsing:

• Love music (and value your individual ensemble members)
• Learn how to motivate your ensemble (through your love of music)
• Never tire of seeking for knowledge (tempered with wisdom)
• Bring a moment of significance to every rehearsal
• Be a person of integrity

“My rehearsal is my most important performance.”  Monte Mumford

If one agrees that educational ensembles give concerts because they rehearse, then part of the entertainment value, and its ultimate satisfaction factor should be derived from the communal joy of a successful progression from one level of performance achievement to the next.  School concerts, while entertaining the audiences of friends and families, should also provide reality checks for the conductor, the ensemble and each students’ overall musical and learning progression. One should avoid sacrificing the product-producing process gained through the mastery of fundamentals for the sole pursuit of the concert itself.

Therefore, concerts or the performance of substantial repertoire should never constitute ultimate destinations.  Instead, concerts should be viewed as vital stops on the way to the final destination; The laboratory experience that assists in producing independent life-long learners who will make the valuable connections of process learning to their overall educative experience.  It will be the day-to-day learning journey, of which rehearsals form a vital part that will ultimately remain and impact our student’s lives, empowering them to succeed in any endeavor.

In conclusion, school performance ensembles can provide excellent opportunities to reinforce and consolidate the individual student performance practice and attendant general academic training for their members.  They have the potential to give students the experience and tools necessary for enjoying  a lasting experience in music making, while forming a valuable part of their overall education.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and musings on developing and planning for educationally rewarding rehearsals.

Best wishes for a wonderful conclusion to your school activities.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

 

Warm regards,

 

Monte

In my last installment of planning for educationally focused rehearsals, I examined the philosophy and related benefits of effective rehearsal planning. I would like to continue this week by considering specific learning strategies and how they can assist us in developing both academically accountable and rewarding learning experiences through musical performance. 

Effective rehearsal planning should aim to create an environment in which students grow in their present performance ability and musical understanding towards increased automated technique facility and more independently motivated musical expression. We as conductors will need to effectively assess our student’s current musical understanding, ‘skill level’ and ‘knowledge base’.  We will need to improve our skill in interpreting the visual and aural cues that increases our ability assess their present understanding and performance ability.  To this end we need to assist students in determining their present technical skills, musical comprehension and expressive abilities.  Therefore, we will need to utilise strategies that enable students to both identify and address the technical and musical challenges contained in our performance repertoire.

To aid in increasing visual and aural recognition skills, conductors need to develop, employ and share with their students a clear set of evaluative visual and aural templates. A template can be defined as a correct skill, response, knowledge base or objective that is superimposed over a response which is observed as incorrect or out of alignment in order to identify and use the proper strategy necessary to improve the performance target.  A reasonable use of ‘attention to detail’ provides opportunity for a systematic employment of rehearsal templates.  Conductors will need to encourage and engage their ensemble’s ‘listening and observation skills’ towards specific targets throughout the rehearsal. This, in turn will assist students in acquiring their own set templates that they can apply towards their own individual performance. This will also aid in the students’ acquiring the ability to specifically identify and respond to both the technical and musical elements in music, assisting personal musical growth and development.  

 So, for what specific sorts of things should conductors and students be listening and looking?  Here is a suggested list for your consideration: 

•  Are ensemble members, both mentally and physically engaged in the rehearsal? (Posture can often provide an effective visual gage of active engagement. And, is consistent rehearsal attendance and being on time an issue?)

•  Is the ensemble/individual producing an acceptable characteristic sound i.e. tone quality, balance and intonation? How is this being addressed and achieved?

•  Is the act of achieving good intonation a question of 'sharp or flat', or of matching and adjusting?  What are the strategies/remedies for addressing and improving section, and individual intonation?

•  How does the ensemble exit or enter silence?  How effective are the conducting entrance and release gestures?

•  Are accurate articulations a part of the interpretive process, or 'technically' inspired?

•  Staccato, accento, marcato, tenuto, legato.  Is there a clear aural image for each of these articulations as derived from the musical context?  Remember: the performance of correct articulations is not optional, however this remains constantly variable as dictated by the musical context.

•  Correct pitches; are they centred and well rounded?

•  Is there consistent rhythmic vertical alignment within the phrase structure?

•  Is there clear evidence of expressive phrase shaping as dictated by the musical line, harmonic context and contour achieved through energised long notes and imaginative accompaniment?

•  Is the ensemble simply following the ‘notational instructions’ or responding to the musical intension itself?

Musical concepts are often difficult to convey.  It is important therefore that we are able to clearly define and explain our intent with relevant applications to the musical context. One of the most important and effective teaching tools can be found in the use of metaphors, analogies and narrative (illustrations and stories) to assist students in making the appropriate connections. The conductor should strive to increase their store of these revelant, valuable teaching aids.

 Conductors should be committed to continue personal growth as an informed, observant and passionate listener, both using and promoting visual and aural observation. 

•  Aim to become more aware of what is really happening within the ensemble through increasing the powers of visual and aural observation.  First, be sure to get your head out of the score and your attention off your conducting.  Secondly, be sure to always use a rehearsal plan, outlining your goals and specific points for attention for each and every rehearsal. 

•  Try sharing your rehearsal plans through weekly email communication, or at minimum on a whiteboard. Know your scores in relationship to the ensemble’s technical strengths and weaknesses and choose reading and performance repertoire accordingly.

•  Conductors must become self-sufficient, developing their own teaching/learning pedagogical strategies.  But it is also true that they should also observe and research rehearsal techniques for expanding their own strategies. 

•  It is the conductor’s responsibility to recognise and reinforce the ensemble’s strengths, which in turn will aid in addressing their weaknesses.

•  Conductors need to visually project through their rehearsals what it is they wish to create, shape and instill in their individual ensemble members. Do we as conductors ‘look like the music’? Would we rather ‘show’, or ‘tell’ the ensemble what the music requires?  

Rehearsal points for consideration ought to include:

•  The use of strategies for reinforcing and improving tone quality, timbre and intonation.

•  Strategies, training material and suitable repertoire the provide opportunities for acquiring and developing independent internal pulse, meter, and increasing rhythm vocabulary. 

•  Developing a passion for correct pitches, beautiful, centred intonation, harmonic sensitivity, aural/sight cognition and rhythmic accuracy. 

•  The desire to train our ensembles to hear, recognise and effectively perform what they see before them.

•  Strategies for developing key/tonal relationship awareness, including the connection with practical application of scale, chord and arpeggio skills to the performance repertoire.

•  Attention to finger patterns; automisation of manual skill dexterity acquired through utilising the skill of methodical, ‘mindful’ repetition.

•  The development of musical intuition, nuance and agility towards superior expression.

•  The need for creating phrase contour and shape in relation to the harmonic context.

•  Conveying the importance of articulation and inflection and its impact on interpretation.

•  Exploration of expression that is achieved through dynamic contrast.

•  The need to create harmonic balance with tonal blend.

•  The importance of personal musical intuition and sensitivity.

•  Encouraging personal conviction and ownership of the music through the process of sharing leadership responsibilities.

I know that I had alluded to the fact that this installment was to be the final episode.  However, I need to frame a fitting conclusion, so you will have to wait one more week!  

Warm regards and best wishes for your final few weeks of term and great closing performances!

Monte

Students often don’t know what they don’t know.  Practical music performance practise at times can be contradictory and confusing.  As we discussed last week, part of the role of the conductor should be to assist their students, through their rehearsal technique in the discovery of what they do not know and offering strategies on how to go about remedying that imbalance.  If we wish to become more than band correctors we need to be able to offer learning strategies that go beyond simply identifying errors towards offering strategies on how to correct, improve and perfect the technical and musical issues which need to be addressed.   Despite confidence, knowledge and enthusiasm, supported with a belief in the importance of a music ensemble’s educational validity, the conductor cannot continue to spoon-feed their students.  Conductors must be prepared to lead students towards independant thinking, learning, interpreting, planning and evaluating. Therefore, successful rehearsal structure will require careful, effective planning that includes opportunities for the sharing of both learning and leadership responsibilities. In fact, every rehearsal needs to begin with a plan that includes a list of identifiable and achievable targets. The plan will also contain a set of clear directions, which are formed with deliberate forethought and supported with knowledge, conviction, experience and authority.

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” George Harrison

In planning rehearsals it is important to focus on the specific desired ‘ideal’ outcomes.  What should the ensemble understand in regards to the historical and analytical aspects of the works to be rehearsed; what should the ensemble sound like?  What should the music sound like and finally, what proven rehearsal methods will assist our students in reaching the rehearsal goals? Above all, what will constitute an acceptable performance of the works being prepared?  Do our students recognise the hallmarks of a fine performance, and are they in possession of the criteria we apply informing us of their achievement of an acceptable performance? To this end we should endeavor to ensure that we have prepared our students to be able to make critical, artistic assessments and decisions with regards to our performances.

What particular elements then should a rehearsal plan contain?  The plan should begin with a timeline with the specific learning activities factored in.  The plan should include an ensemble ‘warm up’ routine that goes beyond simply tuning individuals and sections.  It ought to include vertical harmonic, chordal tuning/balance/blend and internal pulse development exercises such as found in Ed Lisk’s “Alternative Rehearsal Techniques”.  The use of rhythmic exercises, such as Ed Sueta’s “Rhythm Vocabulary Charts” should assist in developing the process of counting and subdivision in obtaining an ever expanding rhythmic vocabulary. It should also include the systematic, fundamental studies found in our band method book. It should certainly include opportunities for exploring the importance of the vertical and horizontal harmonic narrative such as found in Erickson’s “66 Festive and Famous Chorales”.  

The plan should then continue with the application of the specific learning strategies gained through the use of the training  material toward perfecting sections of the performance repertoire. This will include the dissection and reassembly of difficult technical passages for either specific sections or large ensemble continuity. The plan will also provide opportunity for further expansion on interpretational issues and sight reading opportunities.  

Nevertheless, it is easy for rehearsals to loose focus with attention to unnecessary detail. To keep the rehearsal pace moving forward one will need to know exactly what they are trying to achieve today with forethought for the next rehearsal’s goals. However, it is important to also recognise when an ensemble has been pushed beyond their ability to remain focused.  Remember to be sensitive in reading ‘body’ language and learn to listen and watch for the visible and aural cues, which reveal ensemble disengagement, frustration and loss of focus.  Human relationships and musical destinations are inextricably linked in ensemble music making.   It is important that the conductor aims to be positive in their critical assessment, while remaining realistic and encouraging in their demands of the musical outcomes through maintaining respectful interpersonal relationships.  

Still, one need not sacrifice their overall commitment to excellence and learning. Students in school and community ensembles also have their own set of learning expectations.  To this end one must carefully consider their rehearsal plan, in light of today’s achievable targets, avoiding mindless repetition in rehearsing difficult passages. Instead, focus on applying or reinforcing personal practice strategies such as the use of sub-division in addressing rhythmic imprecision, or employing slow, careful repetition in the acquisition of precision of manual dexterity.  It is best when the conductor can demonstrate successful problem-solving strategies through practical application in the rehearsal. Also, the use of generic rhythmic, melodic and harmonic exercises drawn from the repertoire can aid in developing ensemble listening skills leading to improved tone production and intonation, ensemble balance and balance, pitch clarity and rhythmic precision for ensemble unity. 

Please stay tuned in for the final episode on Strengthening Student Learning Through Educationally Focused Rehearsals.

In my last installment I discussed the importance of making provision for individual learning ownership as an essential rehearsal component that offers opportunities to include individual participation in identifying and addressing both achievement and failure with encouragement and accountability.

To continue along these lines, I believe that it is essential that conductors assist students in identifying the essential markers, targets or outcomes necessary for personal evaluation, thus affirming effective learning as well as enjoying the rewarding results achieved in mastering difficult passages. For example, on what 3 targets within a passage will a student identify and focus on? How will students measure their success in achieving those targets? And, are there other targets yet to be identified?  Are there bowings, articulations, correct pitches, fingerings, rhythmic accuracy or expressive inflection that need special attention?  What learning strategies will students then apply that will lead to skill acquisition and mastery? Once again, it is important that effective  learning/practice strategies are both shared, promoted and proven in rehearsal.

A valuable component of the successful transfer of individual learning into students’ hands is accomplished through the nurturing of the intrinsic self-evaluation process. Effective self-evaluation should lead students towards understanding both the value and intrinsic rewards of practicing a specific exercise or passage in light of similar learning applications.  When students become ultimately responsible for setting their own targets or goal criterion, they also begin to clearly articulate when and how they have met and achieved the technical and musical goals found in the specific exercise/passage in question. And, they will be encouraged to do it again!  

Educationally based rehearsals that introduce and encourage improved learning habits will require and employ effective and proven teaching strategies, supported with quality repertoire and teaching materials matched to the appropriate skill level of the ensemble.  Ensemble members should be encouraged to learn and master scales and arpeggios, rhythmic vocabulary, expressive etudes and solo repertoire so as to apply the learning process gained from mastering this material towards  meeting the musical demands presented in the ensemble performance repertoire.  An important point of rehearsal focus then is to use the essential applications of fundamental technique toward achieving musical outcomes through the rehearsal process.  The study of mathematics provides a fitting analogy in that mathematicians do not learn equations, save for the purpose of their application and usefulness in future problem solving.

To this end the conductor should both model and communicate the value of ‘process learning’ throughout the rehearsal, thus inspiring students to apply this ‘process’ independently outside the rehearsal. For when students’ ability to recognise both when and how the desired result has been achieved, the successful transference of the learning process is confirmed. However, to be effective in transferring motivation for independent practice, it is also important that students need to remain committed to the continued investment in practicing training material over the long term.  Conductors must assist students in resisting the temptation to neglect investing in the process of learning for the pursuit of short-term performance goals.  Professional sporting teams know the value of continued engagement of practicing fundemental skills! 

Conductors should then remain committed to providing opportunities for effective performance skills to be introduced, developed and perfected.  It is generally accepted that 70% of rehearsal time should be spent on interpretation, with the other 30% being used for mastery of technical demands found in the repertoire under consideration.  We must ensure that there is a correlation between our ensemble study material and the performance repertoire that can reinforce and assist in the mastery of fundemental skills!  Composers of significant repertoire generally assume an ensemble’s command of a prior knowledge and skill base will be applied to their work, leading to effective, rewarding musical performance. Therefore, a majority of the technical skills needed to allow our ensemble to focus on interpretation must to be addressed separately from the repertoire.

Keeping the above in mind, conductors of performance ensembles should regularly consider the following questions:

· What do we want students to have gained from ensemble participation?
· Are our students passionate lovers of music? 
· Are our students competent musicians, able produce acceptable characteristic tone, centred intonation       and expressive, intelligent well-formed phrases?
· Can our students follow, as well as lead?
· Are our students curious, purpose driven and independent learners? 
· Do our students possess sufficient reading skills?
· Are our students dependable and responsible?

It is easy to forget that rehearsals ought to also provide students with effective generic learning skills equally applicable to other subjects.  Therefore rehearsals should not be overly concerned with the goal of producing the the ‘perfect performance’, but aid in developing a personal approach to study that can be applied indefinitely to many learning targets. To this end conductors need to enable their ensemble members to become thoughtful observers, excellent listeners and articulate participants.  We should promote personal initiative and natural curiosity, but should resist the temptation to provide answers for them.  Instead, students should be led toward developing critical self-assessment criterion through exposure to great musical models and substantial repertoire, being given opportunities to experiment with their emerging musical interpretation without fear of failure, or intimidation. 

As a colleague recently pointed out  “Professional ensembles rehearse because they give concerts, whereas educators give concerts because they rehearse.” Craig Kirchhoff, University of Minnesota

With this in mind, conductors must be willing to shrug off the temptation of solely practising for the concert, and trust in the advantages of spending some of the precious rehearsal time in the gaining automated ensemble skills such as the acquisition of internal pulse, the use of rhythmic subdivision, understanding the importance of the harmonic narrative, tuning through key centre, and developing sensitivity to melodic nuance and inflection.  When ensembles are in possession of a well-developed rhythmic, harmonic and pitch vocabulary it is amazing how much more effective and enjoyable rehearsals become.  The benefits of planning educationally based rehearsals are seemingly obvious, but patience is needed, along with a willingness to rediscover the importance of ‘delayed gratification’ in the process of learning.

Duke Ellington once observed, “When a man finds out what he wants to know, well that’s the beginning of education.” But, one would do well to consider Plato’s quote, “All learning under compulsion has no hold on the mind.”  It is the conductor’s role to assist their ensembles in discovering what it is they wish to achieve beyond superimposing their personal will over an ensemble.  After all, great music performances are generally collaborative in nature, effectively combining the musicianship of conductor and ensemble, as well as between individual ensemble members.

Next week I hope to examine and discuss further both the benifits and the attributes of educationally focused rehearsals. 

 

Throughout my career, I have been involved with numerous educationally centred school, community, professional and semi-professional music ensembles, including jazz and music theatre.   Needless to say, during this time I have had ample opportunity to observe a variety of rehearsal styles across the spectrum of primary, secondary, university, community and professional instrumental and vocal ensembles. In my university positions of teaching future music educators, performance majors and conductors, I have continued to maintain a strong interest in examining and comparing various rehearsal techniques found between large school, community, tertiary and professional performance ensembles.  Consequently, I have formed a fairly comprehensive, overall picture of current ensemble rehearsal practices.

Generally, the ensembles I have observed consist of musicians who genuinely enjoy playing with other musicians in an ensemble setting for either musical development, pleasure or personal enjoyment.  The musical directors/conductors generally display confidence, knowledge and enthusiasm.  They also believe in the importance of their ensemble’s educational validity in preparing their members for a rewarding, successful and enjoyable music experiences.  And, there is general administrative acceptance, and support for their school or community ensemble programme.  However, as I have looked closer at what in fact is happening in many of these ensemble rehearsals, I have also begun to wonder as to the actual quality of the musical experience and its effectiveness with regards to the intrinsic educational, rewarding and lasting value of the rehearsal methods.

As I have observed these rehearsals over time, I have become increasingly concerned with the overall rehearsal process. I have noted that incredible energies are often expended toward ‘note perfect’ performance-based outcomes, such as concerts, festivals, contests or other performance related targets. The most common rehearsal pattern seems to begin with a 10-minute ‘tune up’ time. The rehearsal then continues moving directly on to the performance repertoire, employing a regimen of stopping the ensemble to address each technical difficulty encountered (usually wrong notes, incorrect rhythms or inattention to dynamic levels). After pointing out a detailed list of errors, the passage is then often repeated several more times in an attempt to correct the problems.  There too, appears to be little regard for the time expended on this ‘rote learning’ exercise, and little effort to offer corrective strategies.  Yet, the few times when conductors redirect the ensemble’s attention away from the error detection and correction mode toward musical interpretation, there are often exciting results.

 Nevertheless, during these successful rehearsal moments, conductors often fail to affirm the successful musical and technical performances of individual students, or of a specific section’s efforts and achievements. Missing too, are efforts to introduce, or reinforce specific, effective learning strategies, or to encourage personal ownership of a learning process through the introduction of self-evaluative skills. Generally members play through their parts, waiting for the conductor to identify and correct individual mistakes, in effect learning individual parts in rehearsal; not a particularly effective method in preparing individual parts when students often lack requisite performance skills to successfully meet the technical demands found in the music.

Considering the above observations, I have become increasingly interested in how one might redirect conductors’ use of ‘error detection and correction’ energies, and ‘conductor centred’ rehearsal management towards promoting individual ownership of self-assessment, imitative and self directed learning. To develop the effective nurturing of individual learning ownership, it is essential that rehearsals provide opportunities that include individual participation in identifying and addressing both achievement and failure with encouragement and accountability. Rehearsal methods should lead members towards developing personal assessment and accountability through reinforcing strengths and correct performance results along with recognising areas for specific personal improvement. If the constant stream of emails I receive from former students is any gauge, much of what participants gain from ensemble rehearsal training has multiple generic applications for lifelong learning.

Importantly, every rehearsal should contain opportunities for conductors to provide practical examples on how on how members can effectively prepare their individual parts outside rehearsal. Surprisingly, most technical problems encountered during rehearsals can be addressed before the rehearsal begins through the individual’s personal use of the effective practice strategies shared in earlier rehearsals.  This is especially true when the learning strategies have been proven to be successful through practical demonstration during rehearsals, and where members perceive the intrinsic performance goals shared in rehearsals are worthy of the effort to be expended in personal practice.  Members must then be strongly encouraged to come to rehearsals with individual parts prepared.  Without the element of individual preparation, ownership and personal responsibility, ensemble performance is doomed to mediocrity.  Therefore, building motivation for improving more effective personal practice habits is essential for successful learning and rewarding performance outcomes to take place.

In my next installment I wish to share how rehearsals can be structured so as to assist in developing and establishing ownership, personal responsibility and commitment toward excellence. 

As the school year opens once again with all of its opportunities and possibilities, I would like to share with you about the importance and necessity for maintaining our love of music, of teaching, and for the love of the students entrusted to our care.

In facing the everyday, mundane grind of living and working in the midst of on-going obstacles, setbacks, erosion of conditions, the need for support and recognition, fatigue and defeats, how do we keep our love of music, and our love for our students alive, while maintaining the fire of our personal passion for music, filled with purpose, commitment and positive energy?

I believe that these issues constitute one of our biggest challenges, so how will we meet it?

How often during the last year were we able to reflect on why we chose music over the many other opportunities available to us, and why we chose to share music with others in the first place?  When was the last time we reflected on memories of our past significant musical moments?  When was the last time we attended a professional performance, or made time to sit down and specifically ‘listen’ to one of our favourite recordings?  What is our continuing commitment towards playing our instrument for ourselves, playing with other musicians, or with our students?  How often have we taken a ‘musical bath’ at the end of a taxing day of teaching or rehearsing, immersing ourselves in an inspirational performance?  And, have we been willing to take chances in listening to, or exposing our students to music outside our comfort zone? 

I believe that staying ‘in love’ with music is essential to our effectiveness in sharing our joy and passion of music and music-making with our students.   As an undergraduate music education major, I distinctly remember my course advisor saying to me, “Monte, never let your students guess what instrument you play.  Play for them; play with them.  Show them how important music-making is in your life”. 

On the other hand, it is hard to keep our personal music-making alive when so much of our time and energies are given to helping, encouraging and inspiring our students.   And, let’s not forget the continual round of protecting, explaining and defending what we have, striving to strengthen the learning environment, while straining to sustain, preserve and create the opportunities necessary for rewarding and successful learning to take place:  not to mention maintaining our personal life outside our job.  Extreme juggling! 

Still, we must be careful to also protect, nourish and grow our own love affair with music by staying actively connected with the art form that originally captivated us.  It is important to remember that our students often feed off our passions.  In fact, they are aware of our inner core values more than we know.  As a part of their learning process they will generally love what we love, honour what we honour, value what we value and dislike what we dislike.  That is why we must be careful not to limit what we share with them as to what we think they will like, or limit our offerings to our own personal preferences.   

How many of us are musicians and music educators today because of a music teacher who inspired us?  What ‘artistic’,  and ‘people skill’ qualities did they possess? Were they passionate about music and teaching?  Were they actively engaged with their students?    As I recall the men and women who impacted and inspired me, what I remember most was their love of music, their love of teaching and above all else, their love for us, their students.  They cared about music and their student's welfare and were quite willing to share their personal love and passion for music with us!  Their willingness to become personally engaged with their students continues to inspire me to this very day. 

As I reflect on my teachers and their teaching style, I realise that these men and women were investors in ‘futures’, often encouraging me and my fellow classmates to be curious, to shape opinions; they often provided opportunities to trial our ideas and skills, even allowing for our failures.  They encouraged us to think and listen both critically and independently in order to form values based on observation and personal reflection.  They expected us to both develop and exercise personal integrity, responsibility, accountability, compassion, teamwork, respect and honour.   Above all, they encouraged us to be inspired by great musical models and heroes. 

Like them, we too can experience the joy and satisfaction of sharing what we love, believing that it can make a difference in the lives of those who have been entrusted to our care, for this may constitute one of our greatest contributions. 

Nevertheless, it is also important to remember that the joy of music-making should be pursued for the powerful intrinsic rewards of personal achievement, emotional engagement, excitement, wonder, joy and fulfilment. 

However, it is often easy to seek assistance in motivating our students through the extrinsic rewards of tours, contests, festivals, and yes, even AMEB or Trinity exam achievements.  While each of these constitute worthy goals and incentives, they can actually impair and detract our students from developing a lifelong love affair with music when we allow the extrinsic results to over-shadow the ultimate end of their endeavours.

How often have we met adults who have suffered the loss of their initial love, enjoyment and passion for music through the pursuit of transient, short-term goals, only to experience performance ’burn out’?  We therefore need to be careful that the pleasure and joy of experiencing summit moments in music performance is not tied directly to winning, losing, what an adjudicator thinks, or linked to marks or comments on a sheet of paper.  Helping our students to take personal ownership of their performance experiences through acquiring personal judgment, critical assessment and evaluative skills, in line with established and time-honoured criterion will go a long way in assuring that they continue to experience the joyful and personal fulfilling rewards of music long after their final performance in our music Programme!  

Having often served as an adjudicator for various festivals and contests, when presenting on-stage tutorials I generally begin with some general comments or questions, such as: “We are fortunate in that we get to do this; to make music” or “What did you enjoy about your performance today; what did you learn from your performance experience?” Some of the few answers I receive are quite telling…  

My good friend and mentor Craig Kirchhoff once remarked that one should never place the love of the ‘activity’ (like being a part of an ensemble programme) over the love and appreciation of music itself.  In a sense, this can be very true for us.  It is easy to pressure ourselves, or allow ourselves to be pressured into the pursuit of external achievements.  After all, music-making is more than belonging to a group that does things together.  As in all things, maintaining a balance is very important.  There is a time to pursue participation in worthwhile events, such as festivals, tours, exams and contests.  We just need to know why we want our students to participate in them, and how they will enrich our student’s musical and educational experience.  We can even stretch the ‘motive’ consideration to the repertoire we place before them, such as considering our educational rationale for our repertoire selections.   Incidentally, I generally have both educational and musical purposes and justifications for each work in the ensemble folder.

In closing, we must learn to care for, and nourish our own musical souls; only then can we genuinely share the art, beauty and joy of music-making with our students.  For the world in which we live and work today is not ‘over friendly’ toward an art form that takes so much time, effort, energy and expense to fully reap its benefits.  In fact, neither music, nor any of the other art forms can successfully compete with the culture of instant gratification and limited attention span that increasingly surrounds us today. 

With so many distractions and temptations for deviating from the pursuit of excellence, we must be careful not to try and support, or compete with these distractions, but overcome them through sharing the great intrinsic rewards that await all who are willing to invest in the pursuit and achievement of excellence and beauty.   

Making music disciples is a glorious quest.   So, will we see ourselves as the next generation of ‘futures’ investors, making a difference in the lives of our students through sharing the gift of significant and rewarding music-making?

   ‘Mission impossible’ you say?  No! We are privileged to share a great art form with our students and colleagues that has been inspiring followers since the dawn of time.  All we have to do is share our love passion for music, supported by our pursuit of excellence, and provide opportunities for music to speak for itself.  

In my last installment on Repertoire Choice I mentioned the importance of developing a personal repertoire grading system, as it can serve as great ally providing specific reference points when making those difficult repertoire selections for your ensemble programme.
2.      Technical demands, such as:

• Fingering, bowing, articulation, sticking and slide shift demands
  
• Rhythmic complexity considerations, such as syncopation and sub division issues.
• What are the expressive demands: Phrase length and articulations?
• How active and varied are the percussion parts?  Are there Key mallet and Tympani parts?

3.       What are the instrumentation requirements?

• What are the minimum percussion instruments needed to faithfully meet the composer’s requirements? 
  
• Do I have access to the necessary percussion instruments?
  
• Do the members of the ensemble collectively have the technical skills to meet the musical demands of the work?
  
• What are the ‘solo’ requirements within the work, and does the ensemble possess players capable of playing them with sufficient skill and expression?
  

A.  When considering what constitutes appropriate repertoire selection it is important that we should consider works that:

1. Provide opportunities for encouraging the love and appreciation of music: works that will aid in the nurturing and encouragement of musical creativity, comprehension, expression, inspiration and joy.
   
2. Introduce and reinforce theoretical music concepts and historical context.
   
3. Reinforce interpretive music concepts and expressive performance skills, which are introduced or addressed in the warm-up, technical development and chorale portions of rehearsals.
   
4. Provide opportunities to reinforce technical development, such as manual dexterity, rhythmic vocabulary acquisition, the use of articulations as well as expressive and stylistic considerations.
   
5. Present opportunities for exploring a wide range of human emotion: Works should include passages that present significant opportunities to experiment with expressive note grouping, phrase shape, rhythmic inflection, tempi variations and dynamic contrast. 
   

B.  Examining various evaluation criteria for the purpose of developing a more effective and academically accountable repertoire selection process:  We can begin by exploring the individual work’s compositional elements and related craftsmanship relating to how the works are put together.

1. Does the work exhibit the craftsmanship of a skilled composer/arranger?
   
2. Are the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic elements integrated, transformed, and developed in a skilled way? 
3. Is the form logically conceived? 

• is it expertly scored?
  
• Does the form shape the various elements of the work in a convincing way?
  
• Does the work reflect a historical context in relation to both ‘creative and stylistic’ expression of a specific era?   

   4.  Does the work provide opportunities to employ the use of aural, dexterous and transitive skills?
   5.  Does the work contain the potential for developing musical skills in a sequential way?
   6.  Does the work contain interest for the players, audience etc.?
   7.  Does the work interest you —do you ‘believe’ in the work and, do you really want to conduct it? Why?

C.  Repertoire Choice: Assessing the educational and artistic suitability 

1. Does the work lead towards achieving both technical and expressive educational goals?
2. Select music that inspires, and includes all students in various combinations
3. Coordinate your repertoire with your curriculum
4. Does the work provide for:

• Establishing and maintaining internalised pulse?
  
• Exploring the beginning and ending keys or pitch centres?
  
• Expressive musical interpretation in context: including dynamic contrast, articulations, note-grouping, phrase shape, form and the use of structure, rhythmic inflection)
  
• Opportunities for the stylistic entering and exiting of silence in expressive context
  
• Does the work fall within a standard grading system? i.e. 1 beginning to 6 Advanced? (consider developing your own*) 
  
• The repertoire’s instrumentation requirements? Do you have the required instrumentation as listed in the score? Can instrument substitution be facilitated without comprising the composer’s original intent? 
  
• Are the parts interesting, including the bass line and percussion section parts? Do you have sufficient forces to give a faithful performance of the work? 
  
• Are the technical/musical demands of the work compatible with the overall skill level of the ensemble?
  
• What is the general overall character of the music? 
  

I do hope that you will find these questions leading you to more investigative reflection...

We possess both the privilidge and the responsibility for choosing the foundatioal material for our performance ensembles.   Therefore choosing significant repertoire must form a vital component in a student’s musical education.  It is the interaction, and engagement between the human spirit and music that often initiates the spark of creativity and appreciation of beauty.

We need to the remember the importance of remaining discerning and able to articulate our rationale and defense of the repertoire we use as a critical component of our curriculum.

I do hope that you will find these questions leading you to  more investigative reflection...

In my next installment I plan to continue the discussion of repertoire selection through examining various grading systems and how we can best use them in assisting our repertoire choices.  

Please stay tuned in for my next installment on the importance repertoire choice!