Having only realized today that we are supposed to have been blogging about our group practices, Ill be completing the information for each one so far.

We have had 4 rehearsals so far where all of our group members have been present. Our first session was stressful, trying to sight-read some pieces, with some mild disputes over which songs we would be playing. We finally settled on one for sure, and played through Frolicher Landmann a few times until it began to sound more impressive. We worked well on trying to fit together as a group, rather than overplayed and drowning out the less significant parts. By the end of the practice session, we had selected three songs for sure that we could play competently, and decided to settle on a fourth the next day.

Our next session was very successful. We efficiently powered through our four pieces and had the rest of the time to work on areas we struggled with. By having one person lead us in, taking apart 4 bar sections, and by repetition, we worked out the kinks and started to sound much better as a group. Unfortunately, the second half of the session wasn’t as productive as we would have liked, due to loss of interest in playing some slow pieces several times, but we were confident in the improvements we had made.

The next session was shortly after we had been informed of the professional level of this performance. We focused on timing. Each piece, we took apart who would bring us in and how, at what tempo we were playing pieces, and starting together. Again, this was a fairly frustrating practice session. We started and stopped instantly countless times because one of us would be off each attempt. It took a fair bit of work before we became consistent in our openings. Once we became more confident in this, our playing as a group continued to improve.

Today was probably the most challenging, in terms of working on specifics. We treated our presentation like a performance. If we made a mistake, then wed get up, come back in, and try again. Sitting down took a few tries. Starting pieces became a challenge because of the set up on the stage, and we had to figure out our best situation for coming in together. We played through every piece a couple of times, trying to get a feel for how we fit in together in the auditorium, how loud we needed to play, among other obvious new variables that the larger room brought into play. We finished well, felt confident for tomorrow, and look forward to our performance.

Playing in the quartet has certainly been more challenging that first anticipated due to the inaccuracies of not having someone to lead you. It presents many new complications in performance, and made this assignment quite entertaining in the learning process.