One of the things I have been doing more and more of over the last couple of years is recording my rehearsals. I have always done it, but at first I would only record a couple of times. Maybe once a couple of weeks before festival, maybe at a pre-festival concert, and occasionally towards the end of the year so the kids could hear what they sound like. It wasn't that I didn't want to record them regularly, but it so much more difficult before all of these hand-held recording devices... Now I try to record on a regular basis. There are a many reasons for recording your ensemble, depending on the time of year and what you hope to achieve.
During the first part of the year, I spend a great deal of time working on warm-ups and fundamentals. We work on music for our concerts as well, but most of my attention is given to fundamentals. So, often I will record all or part of the warm-up. This is usually a clip of about 10 to 20 minutes. I am listening for ensemble fundamentals such as blend, balance, uniform articulation, etc... Sometimes group balance will sound different on the recording then in person. This may be because of how I am feeling, where I am standing, etc. When we work on various articulations and note lengths it helps to be able to listen several times. This allows to listen differently each time - maybe one time I am focusing on the reed instruments, next brass, etc. This saves a great deal of time in class, because I know exactly what to address each day. I don't bother recording concert music early in the year, because I am more concerned with the fundamental aspects of performance.
As the year progresses I will start to record music. I do this probably around November for our Winter Concert music, and I still focus primarily on fundamentals. By this time of year, the fundamental skills are stronger in warm-up, but the students are still working to transfer this to performance. While they have learned to match articulations and blend during warm-up, they may not be correctly applying it to repertoire.
As we get closer to festival time, I begin recording rehearsals to work on musical detail and interpretation. When we first start preparing the music, I am listening for pretty basic things - note and rhythm errors, pitch issues, etc. Someone told me once that there isn't much point in recording until it is almost ready for performance. I disagree - it is important to record early and often, as you may find things that may not have surfaced until later. It is much easier to correct something that has been wrong for 2 days then 2 weeks. The longer it goes unnoticed, the harder it is to fix! As the performance gets closer, I will start listening for more the sophisticated aspects of musical performance - effective dynamic contrast, stylistic articulation, etc. Often times I will record shorter segments, as short as 8 or 12 measures, to listen for as many details as possible.
The bottom line is, once you record, you get to listen as many times as you want. Before I recorded this often, I would get to hear it once, and would have to rely on my memory of the rehearsal to plan. Sometimes it really helps to listen s few hours later, with fresh ears, to really hear what happened.
Do you record your rehearsals? Why? What do you listen for? Please share!
