You Shouldn't Have Told US!!!!

December 4, 2008 at 8:03 AM

These were the exact words out of my quartet tonight when I told them that I was planning on recording our next rehearsal. The violinists lamented over hearing themselves once again in these recording, and the cellist just had this look of sheer terror on his face. However, everyone grudgingly agreed to a recorded session.

It is something I used to do a long time ago - record our practice sessions and burn CDs for everyone to distribute the following week. Listening to ourselves objectively is a great tool for improving our musicianship. Intonation issues, rhtyhm/tempo issues, dynamics, etc... are blatently exposed. When we listen to these self-recordings, we all tend to pick out our own parts and discover the areas we need more work on that we may not have noticed before. There are also the fun times that are captured for prosperity's sake, such as having to re-take the beginning of a section due to playing it in the wrong key - collectively - 4 times! ( I still listen to that recording on occasion for the giggles it gives me).

We've been focusing on K421 over several months, and believe that it is getting closer to a performance standard. Our collective rhythms and intonation are getting tighter with each other every week. The two violins were quite in sync tonight on a run of notes played an octave apart, and I finally nailed down a few tricky entrances and rhtyhms. We are now entering the realm of emphasizing the dynamics and bowing styles. A recording at this time will help pin-point those areas that we need to focus on more.

I just wonder if the batteries of my MP3 recorder will hold out long enough to record 2-3 hours of rehearsal....

From Paul G.
Posted on December 4, 2008 at 6:18 PM

Good luck with that! I am glad to hear your quartet is progressing nicely:)

From Ruth Kuefler
Posted on December 6, 2008 at 3:30 AM

Sounds fun! Yeah, recording chamber music is soooo helpful. I'm in a clarinet/violin/piano trio this semester and the balance is tricky! Recording ourselves helped a lot.

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