Rehearsals with Progress, Not Perfection
Although many students are pleased to get nine out of ten questions correct on a math quiz, band directors know that nine out of ten notes played correctly does not quite meet the standard. During rehearsals, band directors can focus on correcting errors made by the ensemble. Correcting rehearsal errors can be a tedious and necessary part of teaching. However, the pursuit of perfection in rehearsals at various points of the year can distort or skew the progress the student and the ensemble have made.
It is admirable to practice a passage until you cannot get something wrong. It requires tenacity and grit – two qualities that are valuable in music and life. In an imperfect world in which students have seen their lives and sense of normalcy turned upside down, directors need to notice progress. Band directors know that some of the concepts and skills they help students acquire do not happen instantaneously. While the pursuit of perfection in performance is a goal, progress is the barometer by which directors need to gauge their students and ensembles.
An instrumental music curriculum that lays out reasonable and sequential goals and skills for students to achieve will in part dictate the choice of repertoire for the year. The availability and strength of individual students and sections within the ensemble are also a factor in repertoire decisions. If the goal is to have students develop a life-long connection to music, directors must build and develop these insights and skills through daily rehearsals, emphasizing that progress on the journey is as important as the destination.
Band directors need to plan and prepare as it is paramount to the success of the student and the ensemble. Band directors should examine the basic metrics of their rehearsal planning. It may be helpful to directors to work backwards from the concert date to effectively budget the amount of rehearsal time available or establishing checkpoints for specific sections within a piece. Establishing a rehearsal schedule for each concert cycle (quarter or semester) is beneficial for both directors and students. Consider the following example for a Middle School/Junior High Band that often performs Grade 1.5-2 repertoire for their Spring Concert:
- 2 Full rehearsal each week for 40 minutes.
- 10 Weeks to the concert with 80 minutes each week.
- 800 minutes of rehearsal time to allocate towards 4 pieces (2 at Grade 1.5, 2 at Grade 2 difficulty level, and the sum of the grade level of works is 7).
- 300 minutes of rehearsal time allotted for warm-ups (long tones, scales, technique building, unison etudes, and tuning) – 15 minutes of each rehearsal
- Remaining 500 minutes allotted for repertoire rehearsal divided by the grade level sum of 7 = 71 minutes per grade level of the song.
- 107 minutes of rehearsal time allocated towards the two selections at Grade 1.5 (e.g., Softly Speaks the Night by Carol Chambers, Awake the Iron by Scott Watson), and 142 minutes of rehearsal time allocated towards the two selections at Grade 2 (e.g., Rejoice, Dolce and Dance by Quincy Hilliard, Friends of Freedom by Timothy Loest).
As directors develop a long-term plan for a cycle or semester, they can focus on specific sections of the repertoire for each rehearsal. Directors should map out when specific sections of the music will be rehearsed. By providing this schedule, students can better gauge what they need to prepare, and how they will grow and develop over the concert cycle. Directors can further anticipate how to better use the warm-up time in the rehearsal to help students make progress toward the annual goals of the curriculum (e.g., ability to play major and minor scales, ability to perform different articulations). They can also identify and incorporate concepts from the repertoire. As they link these concepts to the warm-up activities, students can apply these skills directly to the repertoire. Ultimately, the director shares the plan with the students and ensemble for their growth and development. Through that process, everyone will have a better sense of their individual and group progress.
Performances of any kind for an ensemble serve as a culminating assessment for the students. Adjudicators, audience members and directors evaluate the ensemble in the moments that a performance takes place. Directors should not lose sight of the progress that the students and ensemble make in preparation for the performance. In some cases, the progress is more valuable than the perfection in the performance. In every rehearsal, directors, students, and ensembles need to celebrate each victory on the path of progress.
