0:15
One of the challenges we have as conductors
is sorting through all of the sound that
is coming to us with all its various
elements of notes, rhythms, pitch, balance, et cetera.
It's coming to us at the same time.
And it's a pretty reasonable thing to say, I don't,
how can I possibly hear all of these things at
once, all of these elements that I'm supposed to be
listening for, coming from all these different members of the ensemble?
With all these different notes how can I hear them all at once?
Well, the first thing you have to realize is you
don't have to listen to them all at the same time.
What we're, what we need to do is calibrate our ears selectively.
Which means we're going to listen to certain elements
at the same time, but not all of them.
We have a brain and the brain uses say as 100% of it ability.
We can't go past 100%.
But so we can we say, oh I'm going to give 50% of this and 50% of that.
If wind up saying, 1% to everything, well we wind up doing everything pretty poorly.
So for example, especially early on the rehearsal process, we
might put most of our brain's energy on notes and rhythms.
We're going to calibrate it to listen selectively.
For those issues.
So we'll be conducting along and that's
what we're really working hard to evaluate.
Other things might be going on.
Other things, well we might be aware of
them, but that's not where we're putting our emphasis.
That's not what we've calibrated ourselves to do.
And then you can see how we can just simply change that calibration.
We might say all right, we going to listen to notes an rhythms and for balance, okay?
So that's what we're going to emphasize as we go through.
We might say that notes and rhythms are always there at some level.
There's always 10 to 15 to 20% of our
brain's energy, word about notes, because that's the foundation.
If notes and rhythms are not secured, well then to
build other musical issues on top of that is, is fruitless.
2:15
So we might layer on top of that low level notes
and rhythms, which is always running in the background balance, pitch.
All right.
Balance and pitch, as we go.
In addition to, whoop, that's a wrong note.
Okay.
Oh, that's out of balance and okay, that's out of tune and I'm going to need to fix
that depending on what our plan for the
rehearsal is, we can be more specific than that.
Instead of just balance, we can say all right,
I'm calibrating my ears to listen selectively for notes and
rhythms of course, but also for balance in the
trombones and balance in between first and second violins, okay?
Or for pitch.
I listen selectively for pitch in octave, all the octaves that
are occurring I want to make sure that those are in tune.
3:32
And it may not be true but it's a
great story either way, that he would go into a
rehearsal perhaps with an unfamiliar orchestra, and he would just
listen to the viola line for example during a run through.
It's all he would listen to.
He'd conduct away, he's cueing folks and doing all sorts
of musical things, but really his ear is on the viola line.
And he gets, he gets to the end of the
piece and then you stop and say, hey violas in
measure 28 on the end of four the 16th note
was just a little bit sharp and a little bit early.
And they think oh, how did you hear all these notes going on and
how did you hear that level detail in the viola, in the line?
Well, that's all he was listening to or so the story goes.
But we can use that to our advantage.
Where we're not going to listen to everything at the same time.
We're going to calibrate our ears a little bit.
4:27
Now this doesn't mean that if you're conducting along and you
hear, you're calibrated, let's say for balance ,or rhythmic ensemble, or
a specific issue of rhythmic ensemble between these voices and the
way the chords are balanced in the clarinet and bassoon line.
You're, and then something else goes really
wrong rhythmically or pitch-wise with the double basses.
It's not that you ignore that, because well, no, I'm
listening to that and I don't care what happens anywhere else.
Of course you can stop and say, oh well that popped out too.
Because your brain is going to be listening to more things at once.
But don't be too intimidated by the idea that,
I don't think I can listen to everything at the same time.
You're not expected to, especially early on.
Through your planning, you're going to calibrate your ears to listen selectively.
So what do we do in a concert or on a run-through?
What do we choose to listen to there?
Well, there we're calibrating for big picture sort of issues.
Are we together?
Are we shaping the phrase in the right, in the right way?
Are there wrong notes and rhythms that are popping out that we need to fix?
These sorts of things and you might calibrate a little more generically.
So you might go more towards 4% on that, 4% on
that, 4% on that, 4% on that, because we want to monitor everything.
We just have to accept that we can't
monitor everything at full power, unless we know.
Okay, we're going to run it, but I've got to be
very aware of how those crescendos are working, and the strings.
Very aware of that so we calibrate that way.
So get in the habit of thinking like
this, and planning in advance what you're listening for.
And of course, not only planning in adv, in advance what you're listening
for, but what you're expecting and looking to come out of the ensemble.
It' snot simply enough to say, I'm calibrated to listen to phrasing in
the second violins or in the violin line or in the melody line.
That's not enough.
You have to know what the phrase is
supposed to sound like, what you think based on
your score study and based on your own musical
instincts what that, what that line should sound like.
Calibrating your hears to listen selectively.
Dr. Evan FeldmanAssociate Professor & Wind Ensemble Conductor
