Can You Trust Your Ears?

It’s been a busy couple of months at Greysen. We’re in talks with interstate schools to run some conducting courses over a weekend up north, we ran a foundation course, we’ve awarded the Greysen Award at the Australian National Eisteddfod, we have taught some professional development to the staff at the Goulburn Con and we continue to provide course options for ANU BMus students. It has also just been announced that Geoff has been appointed Music Director of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds Arena Spectacular, coming to a city near you in 2015!

 

But for now, on with the blog posts!

Do you hear what I hear? The inspiration for today’s blog post is this YouTube video about auditory illusions:

This video succinctly demonstrates certain things we need to watch out for in rehearsals, and especially on the concert stage.

Volume

Last week I was chatting to a professional drummer about hearing protection. It was after a concert band rehearsal where I had had the pleasure of sitting up the back among the percussionists, only to be deafened by a cymbal roll. The player seemed unphased while I was blocking my ears in agony 2m away. According to my drummer friend, there is a metre-or-so “cone of silence” (okay I just made that up, it’s not remotely silent), around a drummer, where they will hear only a fraction of the sound they are producing. The example in my conversation was a rim shot – a sound that will cut through the band, but isn’t actually that loud in the drummer’s own ears.

How does this affect your rehearsal?

As the music director, you’re the person most closely resembling an audience (you already know that!) Point being, don’t be afraid to be clear about the balance of the ensemble, as there is a chance the player isn’t hearing what you’re hearing. And this doesn’t just go for percussion. Because this is a matter of perception, it will change from player to player, so adjust as you go. Players will learn to judge this for themselves according to their own perceptions.

Tempo

Tempo is a massive one. Have you ever listened to a live performance of yourself, thinking “hmm. I don’t remember it being that fast!” Maybe you’re a portrait of grace under pressure, so it seemed slow at the time. Or maybe you were nervous and raced the tempo – too stressed to realise it was too fast. I wager that you’ve never been too SLOW in a performance – not even in Nimrod!

We usually say you ‘lose’ about 10-15% of skill on the concert stage. That means long breaths are a bit shorter, tricky passages are just that bit trickier under the fingers, and unfortunately for directors, judgement on tempos can vary too. Mathematically, if you’re 15% out on a steady moderato (100bpm) - that brings you either up to 115pbm (allegretto) or down to an andante. That’s a scary realisation!

So how can we fix it?

In rehearsal, keep a metronome on the podium. Use it on silent (flashing lights only) to maintain a standard, controlled time keeper. Warning, though! It will distract you from creating music if you rely on it too much – just check your tempo and then go back to doing what you do best – drawing the music out of your musicians.

The “trolley car” effect. Years ago I arranged a piece of music marked “tempo de trolley car“. The Trolley Car song has a catchy tune and a tempo that’s hard to mistake. Get the feel of this one in your mind and you’re unlikely to ‘miss’ on a song of a similar tempo. Think of a couple of bars of this one before you bring the band in, to get the feel going.

Don’t be afraid to go slow. Slow says “I’m in control, you’re MY audience and you’ll hear our amazing music in good time!” Slow shows maturity in both musical expression and not losing control on stage.  Sometimes this is more about musical shaping and rubato than about tempo, but I encourage you to pull out an old recording or two and see how you went with your tempo accuracies.

For the instrumental players among you, by the way, the only way to overcome this 10-15% change is to practice. As the saying goes, “amateurs practice until they can get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong”.

Whatever you do, enjoy your music!

GG