Photo by Andreas Wagner
When you first start playing in ensembles it can be overwhelming. We all sometimes experience imposter syndrome - the feeling that everyone else in the group is better than you and you really shouldn’t be there. Can I tell you a secret? You’re not alone! In any massed ensemble there will be others who are feeling exactly the same. What are they doing differently? It’s probably just that they’ve developed more survival skills over the years and have learnt how to cope when the music gets tough.
A student on one of my courses asked me about this earlier this year. She felt she needed to learn the art of ‘self rescue’ and that term struck a chord with me. Professional players are expected to be on top of every note we play; able to cope with whatever the music throws at us. But then we’ve spent decades honing our skills to do this. As an amateur musician you no doubt have equivalent skills in whatever you do for a living. For instance, a surgeon knows what to do if a patient unexpectedly goes into cardiac arrest, or a driving instructor can often predict when their student might need an intervention to prevent an accident. If you’re still developing your recorder playing skills there are bound to be moments when you feel overloaded and unable to cope. Don’t give yourself a hard time - instead, realise this is completely normal!
Over the years I’ve met many very intelligent musicians who feel they should be able to do things in music through the power of their intellect - the idea that if I can understand something I should be able to do it! It’s a painful realisation, but sometimes this just isn’t possible. Don’t give yourself a hard time if you fail to achieve perfection. Perfection is something that doesn’t come easily to any human being - even us professionals! Instead, use your intellect to be critical (in a positive way) of your mistakes and try to understand what you can do to improve your playing and make fewer errors further down the line.
My aim today is to share some tips with you which will help when you’re faced with these mental overload moments. Survival techniques which will help you keep afloat and ease your way. These will help you survive a challenging ensemble session unscathed, having learnt from the experience and with a better idea of what you need to practise to find it easier next time.
Before we look at survival skills, lets briefly consider some things you can do before you start playing. These will improve your chances of playing well and getting the most from your rehearsal.
Warm up yourself and your recorder
Doing a few simple stretches to limber up your muscles can be immensely helpful. If your muscles are warm and relaxed you’re much more likely to play well. Think about your overall posture, ensuring you sit well - this’ll help you breathe efficiently and prevent aches and pains caused by slouching. Don’t forget your hands and arms too - recorder playing makes many demands on the delicate structures in your hands, as well as the tendons and muscles in your forearms which control them. An athlete wouldn’t dream off going for a 5k run without warming up first, yet many recorder players think nothing of sitting down for a two hour rehearsal without so much as a single stretch!
The British Association of Performing Arts Medicine have an excellent sheet of warm up exercises which you can print out and keep in your recorder case. There’s a permanent link to these in my Members’ Area for Score Lines subscribers or you can download them from the BAPAM website.
Once you’re warmed up and ready to go, don’t neglect your recorder! Playing in cold churches and village halls often results in fogged up recorders, which sound like you’re playing through cotton wool. This is caused by a build up of condensation in the windway and, ultimately, the swelling of the recorder’s block. The best way to combat this is to get the head joint up to body temperature before you play a single note. Doing this ensures the moisture in your breath is the same temperature as the instrument, so the water doesn’t condense onto the block in droplets.
A simple way is to pop the head joint under your arm for a few minutes - you may have spotted me doing exactly this in some of my consort videos. Smaller instrument head joints can be put into pockets or tucked into your waistband for a similar result. With larger recorders this is less practical so I’ll sometimes use a warm (not hot!) wheat bag (heated gently in the microwave) or a hot water bottle against the head joint. I recently saw this tip shared by the Von Huene recorder workshop in the US which might offer an alternative (albeit somewhat unsightly!) solution.
However you do it, warming up your recorder before playing will avoid the need for perpetual clearing of condensation from the windway and keep your sound clear and beautiful.
Take regular breaks
If you have a long rehearsal to get through be sure to stop at least every hour or so. Get up and walk around to improve your circulation and do some more stretches to loosen the muscles you’ve been working so hard. Chat to a friend about something unrelated to the music, allowing yourself to switch off from the piece you’re studying. You’ll come back refreshed and with improved concentration.
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Now let’s look at some practical tips to help you keep afloat in ensembles and, where necessary, perform some ‘self rescue’.
Hone your sight reading skills
Being able to read new music swiftly and accurately is an important skill. The ability to efficiently assess and implement musical notation is one that takes time to develop but it’s worth the effort. I wrote a post about this very topic recently so I won’t repeat everything here. If you click here you’ll find masses of tips to help you improve your sight reading and it’ll open in a new tab so you don’t need to lose your place here either!
You don’t need to play every note
It’s easy to get hung up on the need to play every single note. During an initial sight read perfection isn’t the priority. Instead your aim should be to sense of the lie of the land, form a basic understanding of how your part fits into the whole and hopefully spot the bits you need to come back to and practise. Remember too that occasional groups of fast notes (perhaps a couple of semiquavers here and there) are often the least important, musically speaking. They’re probably just the means of travelling between two larger notes but because they’re quick we instinctively feel they must be important. The result is often laboured and slows the music down. Instead, don’t be afraid to slur them together initially if that helps, or even drop a few of them on the floor! I often jokingly say to groups that we can sweep them up later and it’s not a disaster if you don’t play every note on the first reading.
The semiquavers in this piece by Schmelzer are mostly decorative and provide a means from getting one place to another so you can skate over them in sight reading rather than getting bogged down.
Conductors will often do a first read through of a new piece at full speed. This is because we know that taking the music slowly at first will set that slower tempo in the players’ minds and it’ll be all but impossible to speed things up later. Working on things slowly comes after the first read through, after you’ve got the ultimate tempo fixed in your mind. The ultimate tempo may be prove too much of a challenge at first, so try to focus on the main beats rather than every note, aiming to be with at least the first beat of each bar.
Learn to edit on the hoof
When I was studying for A level music we were all allocated another student to accompany. Our task was to attend their instrumental lessons and to play the piano accompaniments for them. I was allocated a baritone singer called Chris who had a penchant for Vaughan Williams. My pianistic skills were rather less developed than my recorder playing so I often felt out of my depth. But playing for Chris’s lessons taught me a vital skill - that of on the spot editing. Faced with a piece in five flats, I knew I couldn’t get to every note initially, so I learnt to leave some of them out! In piano terms this often meant keeping the bassline going at all costs, while thinning down what went on in the right hand (treble) part. By doing this I could provide Chris with some important harmonic support, while keeping the pulse consistent so he could focus on his singing. Over time I gradually added more of the detail back in to give a fuller picture of the music.
In recorder terms this might translate into cutting down some of the whizzy runs. If there’s a long run of semiquavers, perhaps aim initially to play the first of each beat. As you become more familiar with the music you can gradually complete the picture with more notes. The key benefit of developing this skill is the way it allows you to keep up with the pulse at all times - a vital skill for any ensemble player.
Use your conductor, if you have one
As Walter Bergmann was fond of saying, “Your conductor has been paid for. You waste your money if you don’t look at him.” Assuming you have someone standing in front of your group offering a regular beat, you would be wise to make use of them! At the most basic level, a conductor will show you the speed of the music and their beat patterns can be immensely helpful.
If you can ensure the first beat of each bar you play occurs when the conductor’s hand is heading downwards you can be sure you’re in the right place at least once in every bar! If the gestures given by conductors has ever puzzled you do take a look at my blog post, Do you speak the same language as our conductor? Here I explored the gestures we make with our hands, what they mean and much more. A good conductor will convey much more than just the pulse in their gestures so it’s worth learning what some of these mean.
Ensure you can see your conductor
As we get older our eyesight changes and it’s not uncommon to need different strength glasses or contact lenses for music reading. Reading the notes accurately is important, but if you neglect to ensure you can also see your conductor’s beat you’re missing out on some vital information. The most important thing is to be able to at least see the beat in your peripheral vision. It’s surprising how much awareness you can have of your surroundings even while you’re focusing on the music. Your conductor won’t mind if you’re seeing a somewhat fuzzy image of him or her but they will object if you completely ignore them and play out of time! Try adjusting your music stand to different heights until you find a combination that works for you. Many musicians end up buying single vision lenses which are set for the distance of their music stand. This allows you to set your stand at a height where you can easily see both the music and the conductor, even if their movements are a little blurry.
Understand your music
Before you play, glance through the music and look for significant moments, such as key and time signature changes or tempo changes. If you don’t know what the Italian (or maybe French or German) terms mean you could quickly look them up online. Alternatively, look at your conductor and you may well see some clues. I often ask groups what a given term means and there’s almost always a chorus of, “Watch the conductor!” in response. There’s no harm in making a point of learning the meaning of the most common terms and Wikipedia has a great online dictionary of them here.
Read ahead to avoid surprises
One of the most important skills to develop i your sight reading is the ability to read at least a few notes ahead. In slow music you may only need to know where the next couple of notes are leading, but in fast runs it’s helpful to be able to look a few beats ahead. This takes practice, but in time you’ll find it helps remove a lot of the surprises in the music you’re about to play.
Beware of line and page breaks
No matter how good you are at reading ahead, certain danger spots remain - usually points where you move to a new line or page. When you see a line break coming up try to read ahead a little more so you’re ready for what comes next. Such spots are governed by an unwritten law that the trickiest parts of any piece inevitably occur just after a line or page break - just when you’re least expecting them! In old manuscripts you’ll sometimes see a custos (or guard note) written at the end of each line - a warning of the first note you’ll encounter on the next line. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t write such symbols into your own music if that helps you prepare for the line ahead.
The little squiggle at the end of each line in this Sammartini Duo is a custos, indicating the pitch of the first note on the next line.
Navigating your way around bar numbers
The quickest way to restart in the middle off a piece of music is to use bar numbers, or sometimes rehearsal letters. Bar numbers come in different formats - sometimes at the start of each line or perhaps every 5 or 10 bars. It often surprises me how hard musicians find it to navigate around a score so it’s worth having some handy tricks up your sleeve. Just as an air steward warns you the nearest emergency exit can be behind your seat rather than in front of you, sometimes it’s easier too count backwards from a higher bar number rather than on from an earlier one. For instance, bar 88 is closer to 90 than it is to 80.
Rehearsal letters are handy if the music has them, and conductors will often shout them out if they know some of the players have come adrift. These letters (or occasionally numbers) tend to be placed at points in the music where something significant happens - perhaps a double bar line, key change or a moment where the mood or character of the music changes. These can be handy landmarks to check you’re still in the right place.
Learn to count rests efficiently
Apologies if this sounds like teaching grandma to suck eggs, but if this helps one person it’s been worth it! With blocks of rests, count the beats in the bar but with each successive bar replace the number 1 with the number of bars you’ve counted. So, four bars in 3/4 time are counted 123, 223, 323, 423. Counting this way will help you easily keep track of how many bars have passed.
Do you get flummoxed by large blocks of rest? When you pass ten or twenty bars it can be easy to miscount. Don’t be afraid to use your fingers as an aid! Lots of professional musicians do exactly this so you’ll be in good company. You can do so in a subtle way, with your fingers on your lap or your recorder. You can even use a two hand approach, counting each successive ten on one hand and the intervening bars on the other hand.
Finding your spot amid blocks of rests
Blocks of rests can also be problematic if your restarting point occurs in the middle of one, especially when the conductor is keen to get going again. A useful trick is to identify the bar number of when your part resumes (say, bar 72). Once you know this simply count on from the bar number where you’re restarting (say, bar 68) until you get to the point where you need to play again. Using the examples I’ve give you’d count bars 68, 69, 70 and 71 then play in 72. Much simpler and quicker than figuring out how many bars are left to count, especially if you’re faced with a long block of rests.
Don’t play in ‘bingo mode’
This is the term I use for musicians who bury their heads in the music (eyes down, as you would at bingo!) and ignore everything that’s going on around them. When you first start playing in ensembles listening to the other players can be a distraction. Conductors will often implore musicians to listen more carefully but there may well be a small voice in your head saying, “In your dreams, matey!” If this sounds familiar, try instead to listen in a general way rather than focusing on the detail. Especially when playing older music, which is in a style we’re familiar with as listeners, having an overall awareness of the sound can tell you whether you’re in the right place. Violent clashes or completely contradictory rhythms in a piece of Baroque music may well be a sign that you‘ve come adrift from the rest of the ensemble. Yes, it could be that you’re right and everyone else is wrong, but in all likelihood you’re the one who’s out place!
“If all the others are wrong and you alone are right, follow the wrong.”
Walter Bergmann
Don’t always trust your hearing…
Having implored you to listen, there will be times when your hearing won’t be entirely trustworthy. The acoustic qualities of a building can be misleading, especially if it’s a boomy church. By the time a note reaches you from the other side of the room it’s bounced off several walls and the ceiling and this takes time. A half second delay can be catastrophic for coordination, so in this situation be careful to play with your conductor’s beat rather than simply trusting your ears. If everyone does the same, the combined sound reaching your audience will be in time. The same applies if you play multichoir music, where you’ll often be geographically spread around the room.
Take the best seat in the house if you can
When you have the opportunity to play with large groups of players (perhaps a massed playing session at a course or festival) don’t underestimate the effect of where you sit. So often I’ll see the musicians with the least confidence or the poorest hearing sitting right at the back, usually struggling to keep up and hear what’s going on. Instead, grab yourself a seat in the front couple of rows. You’ll find it much easier to hear and see the conductor, keep in touch with the music and you’ll have the support (musical and technical) of those around you. Conductors very rarely bite so you needn’t fear us and, even better, you’ll hear the full tonal range of sound from those behind you!
Listen to the conductor’s advice
My job as a conductor isn’t just to keep everyone in time - I’m responsible for shaping the music too. Along the way conductors will often sneak in snippets of technical advice too - tips about fingerings or perhaps the best articulation to use. Don’t underestimate the power of these tips - listen carefully and you might pick up something that’ll benefit your playing beyond the current rehearsal.
Don’t chat
If your rehearsal is also a chance to see friends try to save your chitchat for the breaks. At the very moment you’re nattering with each other mid-rehearsal you might miss out in a crucial piece of information from the conductor! Likewise, don’t tootle in the rests or when the conductor is talking - it’s very distracting for others.
Always carry a pencil and don’t be afraid to use it!
A pencil can be a very powerful tool for a musician. Jotting in accidentals or highlighting repeats ensures you get those details right next time and frees you up to concentrate on other things. Don’t be precious about writing on music (always in pencil, never pen) - professionals do it all the time and needing to annotate reminders doesn’t make you less of a musician. Remember too to write in your music in such a way that you’ll understand what it means later. It’s no good writing something cryptic in the music which you can’t translate next week - it’s always better to call a spade a spade!
Add some cues to your music
In orchestral music parts often include cue notes - small notes which show what’s going in in other parts of the score. These can be immensely helpful. For instance, during a long block of rests, you’ll hear another line playing a melody at the moment it’s marked in your score, confirming you’re in the right place. Sadly such markings are rarely used in recorder music, but there’s no reason why you can’t add your own. You could take a look at the score and pencil in a snippet of the melody from another part, but even having the words ‘tenor melody’ or ‘dotted rhythm in basses’ jotted in can be reassuring.
Don’t get hung up on trills
Trills often reduce recorder players to quivering wrecks. But in an ensemble situation don’t get too hung up on them, at least at first. If you have the spare mental capacity to put some of them in that’s great, but the main notes are more important, especially when sight reading. When you’re comfortable with the music perhaps start adding the simpler trills, which don’t require complex alternative fingerings. As you gain control of them you can gradually add in the others. If trills make you tremble why not take a look at my recent blog about these decorative delights?
Take the music home to practise if you can
If you know you’re going to be working on a piece over several sessions don’t be afraid to ask to borrow your part between rehearsals. Practising ensemble or orchestra parts can feel unrewarding, especially when faced with a passage of long notes or off beats. However, spending five minutes each day practising that tricky semiquaver run will undoubtedly give you more confidence at the next session.
Don’t worry about nerves and don’t look back!
Playing with a new ensemble or orchestra can be nerve wracking and there’s no shame in having a few butterflies. A little nervous energy will make you concentrate harder and you’ll soon find your feet.
Inevitably you’ll make mistakes (we all do) but when you’re in the middle of a run-through don’t look back at errors and berate yourself for them. Doing so will almost certainly distract you from what’s coming next and cause you to make more mistakes. Instead, try to remember where you went wrong so you can come back and fix it later. I’ll often mark trouble spots with a pencil mark in the margin to remind me to practise those bars at home.
Fake it until you make it
You often hear this phrase used to encourage people to blag their way through a situation, with the idea that if you have enough conviction everyone else will believe you. While this is frequently an oversimplification of what’s required to be successful, there is an element of truth in the saying.
I often hear recorder players being tentative in ensembles, assuming that if they try and hide no one will notice their mistakes. I can understand the logic, but in reality that strategy doesn’t often work! Tentative recorder playing tends to result in weak tone quality, poor intonation because you’re under blowing, and the rhythm often becomes mushy too.
A better approach is to ignore that scared voice in the back if your head and instead play with conviction and positivity. As a result you’re more likely to produce a good tone, be better in tune with others, and play more rhythmically. This positive experience will probably boost your confidence and help you to keep doing the same again. Yes, you’ll still make mistakes, but no one will die as a result and you can easily fix those later!
Don’t forget to breathe
Breathing in is a good thing to do, whether in music or everyday life. It’s easy to get caught up in the moment while wrestling with a difficult passage, only to run out of breath. There’s always somewhere to breathe (even in Bach!) and if the place isn’t obvious just take a breath anyway - the extra oxygen will help you think clearly as well as improving your tone quality.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
If you lose your place while playing don’t be afraid to make eye contact with your conductor to seek help. If I see someone doggedly look down at their music, wiggling their fingers while I’m conducting I have to assume they’re ok. On the other hand, if a player looks up at me pleadingly I’ll do my best to get them back in, perhaps at their next entry after some rests or by shouting out a rehearsal letter. If I don’t know you’re lost I can’t help you!
Remember, you’re doing this for fun!
Ultimately an amateur musician (by definition) plays for the love of music. Whether you play every note perfectly, or with lots of errors, you should aim to enjoy yourself. Your life doesn’t depend on your playing so don’t let mistakes distract you from the enjoyment your hobby brings.
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Improving between rehearsals
I’ll finish off with a few quick ideas to help you get more from your ensemble playing.
Pick your level carefully
If you have a choice of different standard ensembles (perhaps at a festival or on a course) don’t be afraid to experiment. Sometimes selecting a session which is well within the boundaries of your technique will help boost your confidence. Equally, a level which stretches you just beyond your comfort zone can be a useful way to improve your survival skills.
Don’t forget that courses and festivals can be a great opportunity to find your feet with a new size of recorder too. For instance if you’ve just started learning the bass recorder you could give it a first outing in a large massed playing session (where there’s safety in numbers) or in an easier session which won’t stretch you beyond your abilities.
Take some recorder lessons
If playing in an ensemble highlights particular weaknesses in your playing don’t be afraid to seek out some lessons. A few sessions with an experienced teacher can be useful to help you understand what you need to work on to improve.
Practise regularly and strategically
It’s not necessary to practise for hours every day, but a few minutes spent on a few technical exercises can pay dividends for your ensemble playing. Maybe some long notes to work on your breathing and tone, and a handful of scales and arpeggios to build your finger technique - all of these will help you cope better in an ensemble situation.
Use ‘virtual’ ensembles to improve your ability to keep up
My playalong consort videos (and there are plenty of others out there too) allow you the opportunity to play ensemble music and they offer the same pressure to keep up as a real ensemble. Even better, you can rewind and repeat them as often as you like without the feeling you’re holding others up!
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The most important thing you can do to become a better ensemble musician is simply to get out there and play with others. If you wait until you feel you’re ‘good enough’ there’s a danger you’ll perpetually live in fear. Remember, in every ensemble there will be others who are equally worried about getting it wrong. We learn from our mistakes so go ahead and play, safe in the knowledge that every ensemble experience is going to help you develop as a musician.
Do you have ‘self rescue’ strategies I haven’t mentioned?
If there are things you do in rehearsals to help you keep going which I haven’t covered I’d love to hear about them. Strategies which seem obvious to one person may not be instinctive to others and I’d love it if we can all learn from each other. Please do leave a comment below with your favourite musical survival techniques.