Inspiring Your Rehearsal

Edwin C. Powell, DMA, Pacific Lutheran University

It is important to find the moment that makes each rehearsal special. The Ah Ha that has
impact on each individual. This can be anything from the very simple to very deep. The
moment of clarity and understanding that makes the time musical as opposed to mechanical. The
perceptive teacher can recognize when those moments are near and steer a group toward the
experience. The more these moments are experienced, the more the group is motivated to
achieve them, thus working even harder. It is also a way to elevate awareness of what is musical
and teaches them how to think in such a way that fosters deeper musical understanding. This is a
way in which the hard work of practice and rehearsal becomes very pleasurable and fulfilling. It
is also how to foster a culture of success within our programs.
Rocks and Sand
A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When
class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill
it with rocks, rocks about 2" in diameter.
He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So the professor
then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.
The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students
laughed.
The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled
everything else. "Now," said the professor, "I want you to recognize that this is your life."
"The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health - anything
that is so important to you that if were lost, you would be nearly destroyed. The pebbles
are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is
everything else. The small stuff."
"If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles, and the rocks. The
same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, you will
never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that
are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical
checkups. Take your wife out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the
house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal."
"Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is
just sand." (Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill, First Things
First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy, 1996)

THE BIGGEST ROCKS (in order)

Repertoire! If we are what we eat, nourish your band well and they will flourish. Be
diligent and very critical. Make sure the music is worth your time to learn as well as your
groups. Use your musical skills, tastes and knowledge to make the right decisions, not
just what will be easy to prepare for a strong festival rating. This is your HIGHEST
priority.
Tone! Do your students know how to produce a characteristic sound and can they
Listen, Balance and Blend with others?
Time! Do your students have a strong internal clock and can they subdivide?
Pitch! Do your students know their instruments well enough? Can they play in tune
with themselves? Can they match others?
Technique! Do your students have enough technique to be of service to the music?
Awareness! Do you students know how they fit in as part of the whole? Do they listen
beyond themselves?

ROCKS AND MURPHYS LAW

Steven Coveys philosophy can be applied to rehearsal and often helps to focus us when putting
together a thoughtful and comprehensive plan. Winging it rarely accomplishes much and a
scattergun approach never really helps us complete our tasks. Therefore being thoughtful,
prepared and diligent is the only way to enable a group to reach their full potential.
Anticipating problems before they occur is often the single factor that makes what would be a
mediocre rehearsal great. If we subscribe to a process before product mentality, knowing that
with a great process in place a great product will follow, a tremendous amount of responsibility
is then placed on the conductor to run efficient and meaningful rehearsals. Being proactive in
our preparation is a major factor toward accomplishing this goal. Therefore we must identify our
biggest rocks for our group and knowing Murphys Law is the first step because. . .if it can. . .it
will.
For the most part, our collegiate education does a thorough job preparing us on a strictly musical
level requiring many hours of practice, theory, history, and concert attendance in hopes that we
gain the ability to recognize artistry and thus see the destination for our future students. It is
obviously important to set the bar high and maintain high artistic standards. Where universities
often fall short is in specifics or in sequence. Instrumental pedagogy courses are often taught in
the freshman and sophomore years, at night or very early in the morning, and cover so much
more material than any one credit hour course should ever cover. They are set up to be forgotten
from the onset. So, what good is knowledge of the destination without a clue as to how to get
there? Once students are out and teaching they are often left to wonder what if. . . or If only I
could remember. . . . The proactive young teacher will go about acquiring and supplementing
the skills they need in order to be successful via mentors or conferences and clinics. The less
proactive teacher can unfortunately fall into a habit of making excuses for why they can not
achieve excellence. Remember, you are the only one responsible for teaching your students.
It is imperative, regardless of level, that a teacher have knowledge of the specific pedagogies and
techniques required for each member of the ensemble they lead. This enables proactive

preparation and greater rehearsal efficiency can be achieved through thoughtful score analysis
with an eye toward pedagogical planning. Simply put, they create valid and relevant lesson
plans. The benefits of pedagogical planning are obvious and certainly the old adage of being
forewarned is forearmed is applicable.
In the large rehearsal it is not always practical to get into the nuts and bolts of each instrument
as rehearsal pacing will slow to a crawl and boredom will set in for those left unattended. This
type of teaching is more suited for private lessons or sectionals. However, this does not absolve
the conductor from knowing these individual techniques. This knowledge allows the conductor
to effectively counsel and guide the individual as well as lead the whole. Though the statement
seems obvious, the stronger the individual members, the stronger the whole. Problems specific
to one individual or a smaller group can be noted for later during sectional time or one-on-one
teaching.
There are some universal concepts that tend to cross ensemble boundaries. These are what, for
the purposes of this presentation, will be deemed the BIG ROCKS. These issues are general but
if kept in mind will speed the solution process. Eugene Migliaro Corporon writes in the first
volume of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band about Tone, Time, Tune and Touch.
Certainly these concepts can be thought of as some of the biggest of our rocks and the issues that
follow are loosely organized around those four categories with that hierarchical priority.
TONE & BLEND
The character of the music is the determining factor with both tone and blend. Players tend to
play with one tone quality and are unaware of how that sounds when combined with other
instruments. Players should always strive to make a beautiful sound and understand some
amount of timbral manipulation is permitted dependant upon what the music requires. Some
passages call for a bright sound, others dark. Some passages clearly call for the instruments to
create a composite sound that are equal parts of all. Others require that one voice is colored by
the other instruments. Sensitivity to register is important and players need to be encouraged to
compensate as they move throughout their range. I like to think of blend as color mixing, much
like a painter might. There is an interesting effect that happens when you mix red and blue. If
you blend it thoroughly you get purple. While purple is a beautiful color it took two colors to
make one. This is what happens when instruments are over blended. However, if you swirl blue
and red together carefully you have now made three colors. Blue and red keep their integrity but
where the two intersect you get purple. In my opinion, this blend is much more interesting. The
example of saxophones and horns come to mind. Saxophones are constantly being told they
should sound more like horns thus removing the characteristic quality and expressiveness they
can bring to the sound. Saxes should sound like saxes and horns should sound like horns and
they both should be taught to tailor and compliment each other.
BALANCE
Balance is a huge factor in how the listener perceives a group. Players tend to perform in their
comfort zone. For brass and percussion this is usually forte. For the rest it is mezzo-forte. They
will rarely explore the extremes of the dynamic spectrum. It takes a good deal of time and

control to develop skills in tasteful loud or soft playing. Needless to say, it is also very difficult.
For non-terraced dynamics give students a mental guide to compare against. An example of this
might be that while playing mezzo-forte, they hear themselves an equal (50/50) to the intensity of
the rest of the ensemble. It is important they understand the relative nature of balance. A trio
mezzo-forte is very different than a solo mezzo-forte or a tutti mezzo-forte. Giving them a guide
that is flexible to most situations is best. Robert Halseth, Director of Wind Studies at California
State University at Sacramento taught me one way to accomplish this:
Fortissimo (80/20) hear yourself at 80% and the rest of the ensemble at 20%
Forte (65/35) hear yourself 65% the rest of the ensemble at 35%
Mezzo-forte (50/50) hear yourself 50% the rest of the ensemble at 50%
Mezzo-piano (35/65) hear yourself 35% the rest of the ensemble at 65%
Piano (20/80) hear yourself 20% the rest of the ensemble at 80%
Pianissimo (5/95) hear yourself 5% the rest of the ensemble at 95%
This can be illustrated to an ensemble by having them play concert F and instructing them to
play Mezzo-Forte. Then tell them to play so that they hear themselves 50% of the whole while
hearing the rest of the ensemble 50%. The actual volume of the sound does not always change
but the composition (balance) of the sound often changes dramatically resulting in voices that
often are covered having a chance to be heard. The beauty of this exercise is that it works if the
ensemble has 120 members or 3, it is all relative. Specific percentages can be debated of course.
As soon as players enter into the more extreme dynamic ranges the conductor needs to be aware
of the potential consequences to pitch and tone quality. Given no direction, players will play
louder rather than softer and unconfident players will try to hide.
Higher and lower extremes tend to project leaving middle voices covered.
TIME & TECHNIQUE
Where Professor Corporon in Volume One of Teaching Music Through Performance in Band
separates Time from Touch (technique) and for good reason, I will discuss them together
since many issues from one category will affect another.
What rushes?
Fast tempi
Black notes
Short articulations
Slurred articulations
Scalar passages
Upward melodic lines
What drags?
Slow tempi
White notes
Longer articulations
Heavy articulations

Loud dynamics
Polyphonic textures
Increasing harmonic tension
Movement toward cadences
Upper registers

Large leaps
Extreme low ranges
Thick harmonies
Soft dynamics

Dense orchestration
Accompaniments
Relaxing of harmonic tension

Downward melodic lines

Low instruments

Other Tempos Issues

Pulse placement (front, middle, back) dependant on style
Entrances into ongoing music are often late
Distance from the conductor causes dragging
Instruments that do not need to breathe are often in front of those that do
Often the single largest problem with tempo is the ensembles collective ability to internalize and
maintain pulse. Once again, this starts with the individual and works outward to the ensemble.
Work with a metronome is helpful at times as are subdivision and rhythmic exercises. There are
many ways effective ways to skin this cat and what works for one does not for another. The best
way to tackle this is to start early in the players development and keep at it. The more you can
encourage good practice habits, scale and rhythmic work with a metronome at home, the less
time will be needed in rehearsal.
RHYTHM & METER
The perception of a rhythm is often influence by the rhythms that immediately precede or follow
them. For example, on-beat pulse is often obscured coming out of syncopation. Hemeola
influences the performers accurate placement of rhythms causing them to be often out-of-tempo
or out-of-meter.
The perceived relationship between pulse and rhythm becomes increasingly distant the greater
the complexity of the rhythm, especially with notes held over bar lines or into the es and as
of a beat.
The relationship between meter and rhythm cant be overlooked. Obviously a rhythm in duple
meter is very different in feel from an identical rhythm in triple meter. Inexperienced players
will try to execute them with the same feel.
Diagramming rhythms and notating down-beats is time well spent.
ARTICULATION
There is almost an infinite variety of gradation of attack. Most players use one and it is usually
too heavy (Gunther Schuller, The Compleat Conductor, 1992).
All notes happen in time and have a defined shape as determined by the style of the music.
Younger players usually only consider the attack. Only more advanced players concern
themselves with the body and release of notes. The conductor should make this a top priority.
The note shape is then what guides the specific execution or technique. Certainly strings have
many bowing techniques that will determine the shape from front middle to end that are guided

by speed and pressure. With winds it is guided by the tongue and air. Specific syllables will
often help shape the notes. It is helpful to complete the word and not just say TA or DA,
thus paying attention to a notes other parts. However this is accomplished the entire note has to
be considered. Too much of our time is spent at the front of each pitch ignoring its sustain and
release.
INTONATION
Certainly entire books can and have been written on this topic. In order for entire ensemble to
play well in tune the player must:

utilize good technical mechanics when producing a tone. The saying you cant tune a
bad tone is true. Air flow and embouchure are critical
know the individual tendencies of their instrument in all registers. Every instrument is
individual but they each have bad notes (i.e. multiple valve combinations for brass
instruments, throat tones on clarinets, open C# for saxes and flutes)
play the tempered scale so that all pitches are in tune with surrounding pitches. Tendency
charts are very helpful in helping the player learn their instrument and if done correctly,
yield surprising results (see Pitch Tendency Chart)
know the harmonic function of the pitch they are playing as this drastically effects the
intonation of the chord. This requires that ear training be a part of the regular routine (see
Chords of Just Intonation Chart)
be aware that there is no Im right, youre wrong in music. It is either in tune or not
and the listener does not care who is at fault. Think, Listen and Adjust always!

The following is an exercise that helps ensembles members at all levels to develop sensitivity to
harmonic function even at early stages in the ear training process. Labels can be applied later to
the chord voices once they are thoroughly internalized.
Step One: Build a B-flat or F triad. Place the lowest instruments on the root and
distribute the rest of the ensemble members equally on the third and the fifth.
Step Two: Bring in each voice one at a time. Ask the players on the root to play and
hold their pitch at a mezzo-forte. Once the root is in tune and stable, ask the
fifth to join them. Once the fifth is balanced and tuned, you should be able to
hear upper harmonics. Now bring in the third and make the 14 cent
adjustment that occurs normally. Once the triad is tuned the room, no matter
how dry, will begin to resonate. You can especially hear this if the chord is
released together. Have them feel and internalize what this is like. See if you
can repeat the results.
Step Three: Manipulate the individual voices. Using hand signals (or whatever you
like), raise and lower voices creating triads of differing qualities (Major,
Minor, Diminished, Augmented). Teach your students the adjustment and
have them experience what it is physically like to play the triad in tune. (See
the Chords of Just Intonation Chart to guide your instruction.)

Step Four: Rotate. Each player should experience the adjustments needed for each
voice.
This activity can be repeated often as part of a warm-up and will dramatically change the sound
of the band. Singing the exact same exercise is EXTREMELY valuable especially if you are
having trouble tuning the initial triad. Students become proactive and intuitive.
Awareness
Chamber music is the best way to develop awareness. It also fosters accountability and quickly
makes players better. It is often surprising to find that young really do not listen to the sound
they make, they just go on feel or auto pilot. Richard Floyd at the University of Texas sets up
chains of trios in his bands. This way all players are linked and have specific listening
responsibilities. It is only through intense focus and awareness from every individual in the
ensemble that musical nuance can happen. It takes work and should not be ignored. Chorales
and ballads are good ways to free the players mind from the worries of technique. Also getting
students to evaluate articulation and note length transfers well to listening to more than just their
part. It also provides a more complete musical experience.

Pitch Tendency Chart

Name

Instrument

Date

Instructions:
Using a reliable tuner with that measures pitch in cents, select a time with your tuning
partner to record your pitch tendencies. One person will play without looking at the tuner. The
other person records the results (+ or in cents) on the tendency chart. For best results, make
sure you are warmed up and in tune at A = 440. To learn the most about your instrument and
how you play it, use all possible fingerings. Be honest and do not try and adjust, this is the only
way you will learn where you place these pitches.
Pitch
A
A# or Bb
B
C
C# or Db
D
D# or Eb
E
F
F# or Gb
G
G# or Ab

Oct. #1

Oct. #2

Oct. #3

Oct. #4

Alt. #1

Alt. #2