April has been an odd month. Easter has fallen very late
this year so there have been two weeks of school holidays in the middle. Families
go away but for different weeks. So, not always the same blend of voices at
each rehearsal. Plus we also had a one week break and breaks always make a
difference.
We’re coming to the end of an intense period of rehearsal
and heading towards a busy schedule of performances, with just those two at the end
of March to kick-start our year.
So, it was good to conclude the month by going through
virtually everything we know. What a lot there is. But: or rather two buts.
·
Despite whipping through each song very quickly
and working from about 7.10 to 8.05 and then 8.25 to 9.15 we didn’t quite cover
everything.
·
Some we didn’t know as well as we thought we
did.
This really was a good opportunity for us to see where the sticking
points are. And there were some surprises:
·
Some pieces we’ve always been very confident
about – including one that’s almost become our signature piece – need tidying
up.
·
One we’ve not tried for a while and have always
found tricky worked rather well.
It seems that with some pieces we can get overconfident and slightly
bored. We lose concentration, start making mistakes and even reinforce those
mistakes. Conversely we seem to carry on improving on something we haven’t
touched for a while. Is it perhaps just a function of concentration again? We
know this is going to be challenging so we really focus.
Yes, yes, we should really focus all of the time but when
you’ve had a challenging day and the music feels easy, the mind drifts. Good
that at that point we’re pulled up.
Still, it was very encouraging to realise how diverse and
extensive our repertoire is and to be able to pinpoint where we need some more
work.
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