Practicing is a musician's time to make what they have been taught their own--to build a relationship with a technique, method or piece of music. One of the essential ingredients in practicing is repetition. Where too much repetition becomes a problem is at the point of repeating something without assessing it, and finding and putting into play the necessary components to improve it. Without this kind of reflective approach, the repetition becomes redundant and soon can turn into a rut, which is not a useful kind of repetition, often referred to as "spinning your wheels."
Contemplation:
To get out of a rut, find a new route.
I agree wholeheartedly on your ideas set forth here. Indeed it is easy for a musician to get stuck in a rut in their own practice, and I'm glad you have stated this with the aim that it might wake somebody up - to actually make somebody's practice sessions more worthwhile...
ReplyDeleteHowever, sitting in orchestra rehearsal this morning, it dawns on me that MANY conductors and/or band directors fall into this same trap of mindless repetition. I find that when I'm playing through a passage in rehearsal, I often wonder what these people are actually doing on the podium. Are they assessing the current situation by ACTIVELY LISTENING to the music that these people are creating, or are they merely RESPONDING to the notion that the music doesn't sound like they want in their head?
Here are some common "responses" from the front -
Wrong note here...
That attack wasn't together...
I want you to play that with more (generic emotion)...
Less (instrument)...
That's out of tune...
(instrument) is too loud...
(you get the idea)
And then the next several minutes are spent running this passage over and over again to satisfy the conductor's need to fix these problems with sheer repetiton. This often concludes with a "sounds better" or "it's getting there..." from the conductor.
But anybody with an EAR and a BRAIN would conclude that nothing got better with this mindless "rehearsing." The ensemble is no more aware of anything different than before the rehearsal began. The same problems are still there, maybe even worse than they were, and many will continue to be there...
Isn't the point of rehearsal to gain a higher level of awareness? Aren't we striving to make musical connections with people that didn't exist before? Isn't it the conductor/director's responsibility to point out where there is a perceived lack in awareness, or to promote a connection that would so obviously be beneficial to the ultimate performance of the music? What is wrong with so many conductors that feel that the only route to a "great performance" is to "play it again"?