Ta-DA!!!! Here's your first recording of the semester. It's...not great. BUT!! BUT!!!!!! You're going to come up with a plan for how to fix it. After listening to today's recordings, submit (either here or written) a plan for how you are going to approach these three pieces. BE SPECIFIC if you want full credit!
Bailes
Clair de Lune
Perseus
First off, I think we all should find ourselves a metronome (of some sort) and count out our rhythms and difficult spots in the music; first by listening to the professional recording, clapping, plucking, and then playing, and gradually increase the tempo to the correct beats per minute.
ReplyDeleteIn Bailes, there is intonation issues that can be easily resolved by tuning your sound to match those around you while playing. Secondly, counting and rhythms seem to give us the most issues throughout the piece (without the help of solos). To help me, I would listen to the professional recording while looking at my music in order to have an understanding of when and where my part may come in after a long few measures of rest. Ultimately, we need to practice on our own time out of school.
In Perseus, there is a lot of intonation issues, guessing on where to play after a rest, and trouble with keeping at tempo. Just like in Bailes, I would suggest listening to the professional recording, clapping, plucking, then playing and gradually increase the tempo. In the viola section, I can personally say that we do drop out in the fast moving measures and rely on others in the section to keep it moving. We as a class need to take the initiative to practice outside of class and school.
Clair de Lune has a lot of intonation issues among sections. Because of the many accidentals, people need to match the note with the people around them and find that happy medium. Also, practice outside of school. Once we have all "Mastered" our own pieces, we should be able to fit our piece around others while playing as a group. Lastly, clap and count the difficult rhythms in the piece so we are not guessing on how the section sounds. Because this piece is 'blurry up close', we need to make our rhythms near perfect so they can mingle with others sections and make the 'big picture'.
In order to get better or learn the three pieces I would suggest at first that everybody should practice them at home even it is just for about 10 minutes a day. Then you get familiar with the pieces and then I would listen to the pieces on YouTube to know what it is supposed to sound like. Then during class I would play hard measures like in Perseus first violin measure 91-97 and 168-172 just (for example) slowly to get the rhythm together, and in measures 101-122 the changing of the time signatures. Next I would play the pieces slowly and not from the first week in the original tempo. We can have sectional rehearsals, to hear everyone better and we would be able to realize specific mistakes in each section. Then everyone should realize that everyone is important in there sections, so in order to make that sure everybody should play as if they are the only instrument in their section. For Claire the Lune I would play it with the professional recording to fix the hard rhythm and play it slow with a metronome. And at last for Bailes para Orquesta we should definitely play it with a metronome to could through the long pauses and all of the changing of the time signatures especially on the 4th page.
ReplyDeleteKlara Storz
Well the obvious is to spend quality time on all three pieces at home or else...
ReplyDeleteBailes:
I think we need to pay attention the variation in the overall mood of each dance. They are all extremely different and the mood needs to be emphasized in order for this to sound good. Overall intonation can be fixed by going through our music and highlighting or circling accidentals. In order to fix counting issues and rhythm, we need to go through the difficult sections in class and work them up to tempo with the metronome on. I think this has to be something that has to be addressed in class in order for us to hear how the piece fits together. Writing in the counting for difficult measures will help us with transitions. Dynamics are a huge part of this piece and we need to pay attention to this and make them extremely dramatic.
Claire de Lune:
This song is extremely well known so I feel like we have to make sure it is extremely sentimental and emotional. Watching the video of Oceans 11 helped and maybe finding other videos to help capture the mood may be helpful. Intonation is pretty awful in this song right now. It's super obvious because its all chords so I think we should build the chords up from the bottom to improve intonation.
Perseus:
This song needs to be aggressive, be be aggressive... (#sorrynotsorry) Intonation is awful in this too but I think highlighting accidentals and writing in fingerings will help. I think we should continue doing what we did in class today where we slowly increased the tempo throughout the crazy time signature changes. Writing in counts will also help with this. We also need to make changes in dynamics super dramatic in this piece.
Claire de Lune- Personally I believe that Claire de Lune is the easiest of the three to fix. Rhythmically I believe we are very close; counting while playing at a slower tempo and the gradually speeding up will definitely help us rhythmically. Style isn't a HUGE problem in this piece but it can definitely be improved. Listening to the professional recording and trying to mimic that "lovey-dovey" sound should point our style in the right direction. Think lighter bows and French stuff I guess. I believe that intonation in each individual section is the biggest problem that we have in this piece. Most notes are too sharp or too flat and it just doesn't sound like Claire de Lune should. I as a cellist need to fix my intonation in measures 35-43 and can do this by practicing at home or even splitting up into sectionals in class in order to first learn the part within a section and then piece it together with the other sections.
ReplyDeleteBailes Para Orquesta- Bailes has a lot of stuff that needs fixing. Most of this fixing shold come from practice at home: counting rhythms and playing at slower tempos in order to achieve the intonation we want and be able to play the notes correctly. I think confidence is one of the things holding us back in this piece. Confidence will come over time and more practice and will help achieve that "Hispanic" style that we need to reach. Clapping rhythms and practice practice practice, that's what will help fix this piece.
Perseus- This is definitely the toughest out of the three pieces. Mixed meter throws us off, different rhythms in random places, accidentals thrown everywhere, but most of all speed. Speed will come with time and practice, first we must learn the rhythms and the right notes. Playing alongside a professional recording could help with the intonation issues and clapping the rhythms at home should help with rhythmic issues (that is if you clap the rhythm correctly). All these different time signatures aren't actually that bad when you take a close look at it, this Soon Hee Newbold guy is just a jerk who hates string players. Conquering the time signatures is definitely possible; subdivision actually works! Who knew?
-David Coroama
I think that it would be beneficial for the orchestra as a whole to find 30 minutes or so a night to practice with a metronome. When practicing at home, you should start super slow, working out all the kinks. I would suggest first focusing on intonation and counting, then dynamics and style. Only when you have a piece nailed down should you speed it up. Moreover, I think our music shouldn't just be technical; it should be fun! When playing at home (when no one is watching), I think it's really great to get a little wild and over-emphasize the dynamics and style. I suggest this because it's easier to take a little crazy back from your playing than to add passion into it (so don't be afraid).
ReplyDeleteBailes para Orquesta: For this piece, I think two two biggies are intonation and staying together. With that being said, I think once we work those two things out we can really give this piece flare by having fun with the loud sections and really emphasizing the accents. Then we could add excitement and suspense by almost whispering (with our instruments of course) the quiet parts to give the piece some mystery. We can make the piece really vibrant by adding vibrato into slow parts. For example, I think adding vibrato to the cello part from measures 33-76 would create interest; otherwise that section i kind of blah.
Clair De Lune: Not too shabby :) but it still needs work. I think that we should really listen to the professional recording of this piece for style because this piece is so romantic and legato. For all sections of our orchestra, I think one thing that we should focus on is picking prettier substitutions for ugly notes like open A. Really any open string won't do the job in my opinion. Picking pretty substitutions for ugly notes by shifting along with delicate dynamics and vibrato are what will turn this piece from good to great.
Perseus: This piece is so adventurous and exciting and I could tell that we liked the piece because there was so much energy going into it. We can make this piece really speak by wielding our energy so that each section sounds epic in contrast to the other pieces. For the cello section in particular, the maestoso section measures 75-85 are our melody. I think we should find the icky notes and use nice substitutions and make the section really legato.
Well that was really special. Thanks for putting that on the interwebs and all.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, I believe that one of the most obvious problems in all pieces is intonation, but when isn't that an issue? Unfortunately, we won't be able to really adress that until we can actually get through these pieces. Also, in every song, I can't hear the basses and we sound like a bunch of slackers, so that's gonna have to change. I guess it's time to man up and play Alex Butenko loud. But those were the problems that appeared in all of the pieces.
Bailes: Bailes is going to need a lot of work because it is so long, and because we are playing it so slowly, it makes the song drag on and sound never-ending. Also, I noticed that I few parts just sounded really long and repetitive (like 33-58), so we're gonna have to really work on the tempo to speed it up and really accentuate accent marks, staccato marks, ect.
Clair de Lune: Clair de Lune is going to have to require the whole orchestra to actually listen to each other because right now it just sounds like a bunch of people playing but not together. I think once we do that, we can fix some of our intonation issues and really begin to blend. Also, the bases really will have to work on their dynamics and play louder because we really are needed to ground that piece.
Perseus: Perseus is just a hard piece in general, so EVERYTHING is going to have to be worked on. Everyone is going to have the count the whole entire time so that we are coming in exactly when we need to. Also, we are going to have to slowly work on different passages and progressively makes them up to speed because some of this song (like 31) is just plain difficult.
First thing we need to do to improve these three pieces is practice more at home ! In Clair de lune intonation is the big problem, well its actually our biggest problem in all of our pieces but its easily fixed with practice working on each and every measure slowly with a metronome. Measures 19; 21; 27-28; 39-42, we need to count more in measures 9-12; and 15-16. in clair de lune we need to play the notes more fluidly and gentle, with softer bow stokes.
ReplyDeleteIn Perseus, there's a few spots that need to focus on getting in tune, 11-19; 23-33 which is really bad; 39-42; 72-74; 84; and 128 to the end . we need to subdivide and count in measures 85-87; 101. we need to practice on making each note softer on the strings in 60-70.
now to Bailes Para Orquesta, in measures 9-20, we played it were nice ! :) but in measures 21-25 we need stronger accents along with counting in 94-98; and 127-130(<---and also intonation). work on intonation in measures 24-25; 94-98; 138-139; 194-203. we need to practice 264-end. but overrall we need to work on getting it up to speed.
Well, these are certainly not our best recordings.
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure what to say about Bailes. I do believe we deserve a redo, as we were not used to playing without solos, which led to mass uncertainty and awful playing. Scratchy, half-hearted, and timid playing atop pre-existing intonation and rhythm problems made this piece a flying spaghetti monster of doom. On the bright side, it can only get better (one hopes)! Ignoring the circumstantial errors, this piece still suffers from many issues. First thing to do is to familiarize ourselves with the piece by listening to better recordings and practicing rhythms. Next is to focus on intonation, repeating passages constantly to get the right notes down. Next is speed, getting faster while remaining accurate, and dynamics. Dynamics are one of the most important ways to express the emotions in music, and utilizing them would make us sound much better. The final steps would be blending, style, and listening to other parts to really understand the piece as a whole.
Now for Clair de Lune. It wasn't awful, but with this piece being our easiest technical piece, we should be doing better. Using the metronome as we are in the recording is an effective way to practice, and is the best way for us to get intonation and rhythm down. Honestly, the violin melody is extremely important in this piece, and until their part is perfected, we cannot advance in this piece. After basically learning the song, we should ditch the metronome and move to focusing on starting to feel the piece and reacting to the emotions it implies. Listening to any recording of this piece, one can tell that this piece is very emotional and has a loose structure tempo-wise, giving it an extra romantic feel. Dynamics and style techniques are largely important in Clair de Lune, and we should try our hardest to use those tools to make this piece sound decent... after we get intonation down.
Finally is Perseus. This piece is rhythmically insane. If we can't figure out the strange time changes and syncopation in this piece, we'll get nowhere. On the intonation side, we sounded a little better than in our other pieces, and we only need to work on certain parts. In Perseus, I believe that rhythm and tempo will be our main problems. After practicing rhythm to death, we'll need to work hard with a metronome to get up to speed. The dynamics in this piece are, while still present, less prevalent than our other two pieces, and should come easily if we get Bailes and Clair down.
We need to practice privately, especially regarding how much time we have until LGPE.
Perseus- 1.)For the intonation we need to be playing the problematic measures a few times a class period (like we usually do) in order to cement the fingerings into out minds and a get the pitches as close to perfect as possible. I.e. The last 15-ish measures
ReplyDeleteClaire de lune- The only thing that needs to be worked on in this piece is the sense of "together-ness." We just need to play the piece more in order to become familiar with it and gain some confidence, which will allow us to incorporate that sense of togetherness and make us sound like a real ensemble.
Balies- There's not much to say about this until we incorporate the solos. As of right now i feel that the main issue is the fact that no one has learned their parts yet. Once we really dig into the song more issues will become prevalent.
Holy dearness... Well uhh.. Goodness... I would say our BIGGEST issue for every single one of the pieces is the counting. They all have the tricky rhythms of 3/4 to 6/8 to 5/8 to 9/8 etc... but I think our main problem is not counting in eighths and trying to count some other freaky way. Then, of course, after getting the counting down the obvious issue is intonation. We sound so unsure of the notes that we're playing so in turn we sound like an orchestra of tiny, out of tune mice. As Spongebob once told me, people play louder in order to sound smarter, or in this case like a normal orchestra.
ReplyDeleteJudging by the previous comments, we're also really beating ourselves up over these songs that we haven't worked on for very long. If we have a mentality of "Oh we suck and we will never perfect these pieces" then the negative energy will absolutely be heard in the songs.
I think we just need to put our hearts and souls into these songs and work as hard as we can on these and take them seriously. When we do, these songs are gonna rock the socks off of those judges at LGPE.
I think, at least for me, counting and intonation are the things that need to be worked on most. I am still struggling with some of the notes, especially like those in Perseus measures 153-160. To fix or help these issues, practicing on my own time is best. It’s just repetition, over and over again, learning the notes properly. I don’t think class time should be spent on that kinda stuff. We should focus more on the counting and intonation in class, as a class. Using the metronome has helped I think, and I enjoy clapping out the rhythms to help understand how to count passages, like in Perseus measures 101-111. I would still like to practice in this manner with other passages such as 182 and 160 in Perseus. I know we’ve gone over measures 160 but I still need to work on it. Everyone at that part needs to work on the tempo change there. It never sounds quite right. I mean, in general, all the pieces sound unsure and timid sorta. I think it comes out most in Clair de Lune, where rather than a sweet loving romantic feeling, we get something that is definitely not that… I think the overall piece is starting to sound the way it should, rhythm wise. But I think some parts are slow, like I catch myself switching notes slightly late, which might have to do with counting. Intonation is a bigger issue in this piece though, especially some of those high notes which make me cringe. Sectionals would probably help with this. Then we could hear our parts, match each other. That would help it be more in tune. Clair de Lune is coming along though, and I think it can totally be there. It’s just gonna take a lot of work. Bailes has tempo issues; its slow. That’ll come I think the more we practice it, and I really enjoy doing that thing where we start the tempo slow and make it faster and faster. It makes it kinda of challenge, like competition to see if you can manage and keep up each “level up”. Idk. I think it helps. This song is entertaining to me, and I think if everyone practices it on their own then we won’t sound like we’re sight-reading it. Well, duh. But, my point is, everyone needs to kinda get a feel and learn it on their own time, so were not wasting class time on the basics of the song. Class time would be better spent on focusing on the details for this one. I would love to play with the dynamics in this, also the pizz and arco elements.
ReplyDeleteI think overall, we all need to spend some quality time with the music. Maybe take it out on a date, get to know it, take the time to learn all about it… You know, the way men should with girls. We girls are important like the music is important. I think that sums it up…
-Brandi “the hawk” Hawkins
Bailes: Intonation is the biggest problem in this one, and the only way to solve that is to sit down and really study all the notes then practice fingerings that'll make it easier to play in tune every time it is played. Also, we need to make the tempo less painfully slow, which we'll need to do by playing the more difficult passages over and over while steadily increasing the tempo we are playing at (as we have been doing pretty regularly in class). Becoming more comfortable with the rhythms by practicing more at home and clapping out any misunderstood parts as a group should also be a thing.
ReplyDeleteClair de Lune: The tempo and long, drawn out nature of this piece is our biggest problem, along with the style of it. We need to make it flow more smoothly and be more together when we're playing it in order to keep it from sounding just annoying. Bowing with longer, smoother bow strokes and more floating the bow across the strings rather than exerting unnecessary pressure will help with this. Also, it would be much more "togethery" if we all listened to each other and to the other sections more closely.
Perseus: As with Bailes, the weird measures that we aren't really very comfortable with need to be looked at closely and repeatedly replayed until we can confidently play it correctly at a relevant tempo. We all need to figure out some good fingerings to get written in and memorized in order to get every note in and keep them from sounding gross or getting left behind. The last twenty-ish measures should be looked more closely. Really sitting down and getting to know it better regarding dynamics and rhythms and such at home will help a lot considering how little time we've got to perfect these pieces.
Bailes: Because Bailes is such a difficult and generally strange piece to play without the solos, it would be best for us each to individually practice each phrase at home and understand our part of the phrase rather than play through the whole piece at home. If we play it straight through every time, it can get confusing, so it would be better to practice each section or phrase carefully on our own, that way when we play in class and add the solos, we will understand how the phrases are pieced together and there won't be too many surprises because we already have our own parts down. Plus if we can at least grasp the general idea of each phrase on our own it will make a lot more sense and be easier when the solos are added. Dynamics, style, and articulation are KEY in this piece because there are so many "stories" being told throughout the piece and if we do not change our style, the audience won't recognize the different stories being told. We did a little bit of style change, unfortunately, not playing because were confused doesn't quite count as a style change. So for now learning the notes is certainly the first goal.
ReplyDeleteClair de Lune: for the most part, we have the notes down. Rhythmic issues are certainly a problem, however with individual practice at home by finding the most difficult rhythms and working through them by clapping or "ti's and ta's" like the olden days :P, we can fix those and focus on the more important aspects of the piece. Similar to Bailes, phrasing, tone , and style are particularly important. As we discussed in class, it's hard to find exactly where each phrase begins and ends since it is supposed to be an "impressionist" piece, however by listening to professional recordings and understanding how YOUR part fits into each phrase, we can learn the dynamic and stylistic changes that we must make so we can highlight the correct section at the correct time and the audience can appreciate the "full picture." I know sometimes it's hard for the 1st violins to understand the fact that we don't always have the melody, and in order for the audience to recognize other sections with the melody and not only the 1st violins all the time, we must pay particular attention to dynamics and write in our parts the areas that focus on us and the areas that don't (again by listening to professional recordings) so we don't take away from the "impressionist" aspects of the piece. Also, we must be careful not to hold out notes too long, no matter how lovely they are, so we continue moving forward in the piece.
Perseus: One of the major issues in Perseus is that there are several sections in the piece that are fast paced and aggressive and we cannot do them justice because we don't know the notes well enough so we just try to mumble through those parts. Unfortunately while we may think no one will notice, it is quite evident when we don't know what were doing. Even though we've practiced Perseus several times I class since this recording, there are still areas that we just stumble through and never fix, and it's usually not because we don't know the notes but rather we can't handle the tempo. In order to address this, individual time spent on these difficult sections is critical, and it would be best to start playing the section slowly and make sure all the notes are accurate so we can understand the finger patterns before we move on and bump up the tempo, which is best done slowly over time. Since tempo is most likely going to be the hardest issue in this piece, we MUST practice in this fashion at home in order to ever be able to be close to the correct tempo. Another thing that would also help as we pick up the tempo is to use short bows in the areas that have several consecutive notes very quickly. This way, we can reduce drag and keep pressing forward.
Well, this is awkward. I don't think I've ever missed a deadline in my high school career. I'm bummed that I did, but I'm hoping I can still redeem and contribute to the conversation on how to improve these awful, sorry excuses of music that I just heard. It was painful. To me, given the limited time we have till LGPE and the difficulty of our pieces, the question Mrs. B is asking us is how we're going to practice at home, because I think that a lot of the garbage can be fixed through practice at home.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I've noticed in these recordings of the stuff we play is a chronic lack of bass. I don't know if it's because I've got bad computer speakers or the microphone just doesn't pick us up that well. Or, at least I'm hoping that's the reason that you can never hear any bass, because I traditionally throw quite dynamics out the window, a bad habit I know, and play my heart our. You guys have seen me play. Anywho, with that being said, I think that the basses shouldn't be afraid to play out, especially in Clair de Lune. For the most part, we're the only people that play on the big beats. As far as the other pieces go, we don't need to go overboard, but when the music allows us to play, we better freaking play. This goes for all of us too. Our dynamics as whole were, well, lets just say that we have a total of about one whole dynamic--maybe...
I personally, in order to make my part in this production the best it can be, am going to have to practice a few parts at home and count and subdivide anything that I hear just for the practice. In Biales, like the other songs, the tempo and meter are all over the place. Sometimes we count in 3 in a 6/8 measure, sometimes we count in two for them. There's odd time signature changes and without practice with counting and such, there's no hope for me, or any of us really, to play together. Same thing goes for Claire de Lune, and with those two crazy sections in Perseus. It's not even that I'm playing anything during all of these crazy changes, but if I don't count, I can't rely on every cue I need, because Mrs. B's head might explode. And that would be bad. I've got to count the whole time so that I know when I'm supposed to start playing again and I start with everyone else. Speaking of playing with everyone else, we all need to practice with a met. We're seriously screwed if we don't, especially in Claire de Lune. I don't know what Debusssy was on when he wrote this, but in order to get it to sound as beautiful as his crazy mind intended, we've got to change notes, chords and phrases at the same time. We all have our own versions of how it should sound in our heads--all of them perhaps equally as beautiful, but when we all play our own versions and our own rubatos at the same time it's just rubbish.
There's really only a couple of parts in each piece that are complicated for us basses. Big shocker, I know. But, these parts are just super fast, and playing fast is not on the short list of things that I'm very good at. I've got to work with the met stepping up the tempos of certain sections that have a long string of 16th. notes or something like that. There's a few of them. Basses don't do 16th. notes, till now at least. We've got to step up our games to make them sound clear and in tune.
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