Sectional Rehearsal Reflection

Today, we worked diligently as a section to perfect our music. To convey this, we have a group reflection to show how we’ve grown as a group, then another individual reflection to show how we’ve grown as individual players.

St. Paul’s Suite: We spent a lot of time on this today mastering the basic tune and rhythms. We also employed stylistic techniques Tess, Eliana, Maggie, James, Sophia, and Zeinab remember from when they did The Jig from St. Paul’s Suite. This includes practicing the bowing and the dargason folk style, as well as dynamic emphasis.

España: We focused on A-B especially, because that is the section that we need to focus on. It sounds bad when we play it in groups because there is partial dissonance and consonance, so we focused on pitch to tune it to be as accurate as possible. Additionally, we are highlighted here, so it makes sense to make this as good as possible. We also took a “break” to work on scales here, as they are heavily highlighted throughout the piece.

Hungarian March: We did not spend as much time on this piece due to our work on the other 2.  However, we made up for it in quality. We focused on intonation here, especially in the opening passages, and worked on getting the fast chromatic accuracy we need.

Personal Notes - Jane: This sectional rehearsal went well. We were able to work as a section to get through some spots that I think we needed to practice, such as the fast chromatic runs in España. This will benefit us because the violas are more prominent in this concert with harder parts than in previous concerts, and our part needs to be clean and confident to get good ratings at Festival. Personally, I collaborated with other violas and we discussed style, phrasing, and melodic emphasis for the St. Paul’s Suite Finale; this was beneficial because I have previously played the Finale and know about the technique appropriate for this piece. Combined with other’s knowledge of the St. Paul’s Suite, we were able to synthesize our knowledge and gain a good understanding of the piece. The violas have a very important role involved in this piece, we often hold the basic melody while other sections play count melodies and secondary harmonies above us. Overall, this sectional rehearsal was very beneficial to us as a section because we all grew more familiar with the pieces and feel better prepared for Festival.