Rehearsing well III

This is the last (I think!) in the series–although as my choirs know, when I say, “one more time” . . . I’m rarely going to do that!

 

Let me first give a link to a wonderful article: http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/

 

This deals with individual practice, but has much to do with choral rehearsal as well.

 

“Deliberative practice” is a term that comes from researcher Anders Ericsson, first popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which looked at the amount of practice (10,000 hours/10 years) to achieve a high level of excellence. Deliberative practice is different than simple, mindless practicing, however:

To be successful, then, in our rehearsals, we have to build the choral culture (see my series on building a positive culture in your choir) so your singers can focus and be able to do this kind of intense, deliberative practice, have to have clear goals in your rehearsal (and manage to communicate them to your ensemble), focus on the small details that will make the difference between an OK performance and a great one, and listen closely and monitor how you succeed (or not). This then becomes a cycle of hearing what progress is made, revising goals or setting new ones, and continually move the level of the performance higher.

 

Truly effective rehearsals will move your group strongly in a specific direction. All the things I’ve said earlier about pacing, the need for variety in rehearsals, etc. apply, but the more time you can spend in this kind of focused, deliberative practice, involving your ensemble deeply in the process of learning and improvement, the better they will be.

 

Think about your own rehearsals: are they focused? Do you have clear goals (clear to you and your ensemble)? Do you monitor closely and honestly the results of your work? Do you then reformulate goals to keep the ensemble moving ahead? How much do they improve (or are you mindlessly going through the music)?

 

In a sense, your rehearsals are also deliberative practice for your own rehearsal skills. As someone has said, do you have 20 years of experience, or one year of experience repeated 20 times?