There's so much more to being a musician than just playing the notes. You need to know the music, have good aural skills, good ensemble skills, and good communication. I had a gig this weekend that tested every musical skill that I've honed over the years. The concert was a Holiday-themed concert, with one rehearsal before the concert. This would be no problem if we were just playing Leroy Anderson's greatest hit over and over. I've written before about the strange animals that pops concerts tend to be, but this was not exactly a pops concert...
We arrived at the rehearsal to find the complete book for La Boheme on our stands, along with "Nessun Dorma." We were going to add the finale to act I of the opera to the concert. To save time, the conductor recommended several cuts. The problem here is that at some point, there are duplicate rehearsal numbers (at least in our part), and someone else had marked a different set of cuts in the part. So the other bassist and I wound up picking our way through ("Sounds like we're... here!"). This is tough music to do on one rehearsal because of all of the liberties with the tempo.
We then went on to rehearse Rimsky-Korsakov's entire suite from Christmas Eve, which no one in the orchestra knew or had played before (the conductor confirmed this by asking for a show of hands). We had the opportunity to play through it once. At some point, the bass part was inexplicably missing sixteen measures. I checked IMSLP on my iPhone at break to confirm that they had the score (and parts!) and we'd have those sixteen measures for the concert.
Johann Strauss's overture to Die Fledermaus was on the program as well. That piece I think is deceptively difficult. It's short and there are so many abrupt tempo changes/transitions. To make matters even more difficult, there are many conventions in that piece that aren't in the score (i.e., the Viennese oom--pah-pah; the caesura before the big waltz tune, etc.). It's a piece you have to have played several times before to know all those little details. We played it once through.
The real challenge came with the Nutcracker Suite, which we performed in a very unconventional fashion. The powers-that-be thought it would be great if the orchestra accompanied a video of the dances. A little bouncing ball cued the tempo for the conductor, and he was to follow that throughout (and we were to follow him). Due to the nature of the video, in rehearsal, we always had to go back to the beginning if we goofed up--you can imagine how much time that ate up.
The concert rolls around, and we arrive to find cuts for the Rimsky-Korsakov on our stands; the conductor cut about three pages (of the bass part) out of the concert. We hung on for dear life through that and the Nutcracker (which came off remarkably well in performance, considering all that could have gone wrong).
The second half of the concert was a little easier on the brain. The last number of the concert was a soprano/tenor duet of "O Holy Night," and the singers came in two beats early in the second verse. Most (if not all) of the orchestra caught it within a few beats and was back on track pretty quickly.
Never a dull moment... This concert succeeded because the ensemble consisted of a bunch of seasoned players who knew all the music and details, and naturally play well together. There were so many opportunities for catastrophe (and a couple of very near misses!). And people wonder why musicians can be so expensive...
We arrived at the rehearsal to find the complete book for La Boheme on our stands, along with "Nessun Dorma." We were going to add the finale to act I of the opera to the concert. To save time, the conductor recommended several cuts. The problem here is that at some point, there are duplicate rehearsal numbers (at least in our part), and someone else had marked a different set of cuts in the part. So the other bassist and I wound up picking our way through ("Sounds like we're... here!"). This is tough music to do on one rehearsal because of all of the liberties with the tempo.
We then went on to rehearse Rimsky-Korsakov's entire suite from Christmas Eve, which no one in the orchestra knew or had played before (the conductor confirmed this by asking for a show of hands). We had the opportunity to play through it once. At some point, the bass part was inexplicably missing sixteen measures. I checked IMSLP on my iPhone at break to confirm that they had the score (and parts!) and we'd have those sixteen measures for the concert.
Johann Strauss's overture to Die Fledermaus was on the program as well. That piece I think is deceptively difficult. It's short and there are so many abrupt tempo changes/transitions. To make matters even more difficult, there are many conventions in that piece that aren't in the score (i.e., the Viennese oom--pah-pah; the caesura before the big waltz tune, etc.). It's a piece you have to have played several times before to know all those little details. We played it once through.
The real challenge came with the Nutcracker Suite, which we performed in a very unconventional fashion. The powers-that-be thought it would be great if the orchestra accompanied a video of the dances. A little bouncing ball cued the tempo for the conductor, and he was to follow that throughout (and we were to follow him). Due to the nature of the video, in rehearsal, we always had to go back to the beginning if we goofed up--you can imagine how much time that ate up.
The concert rolls around, and we arrive to find cuts for the Rimsky-Korsakov on our stands; the conductor cut about three pages (of the bass part) out of the concert. We hung on for dear life through that and the Nutcracker (which came off remarkably well in performance, considering all that could have gone wrong).
The second half of the concert was a little easier on the brain. The last number of the concert was a soprano/tenor duet of "O Holy Night," and the singers came in two beats early in the second verse. Most (if not all) of the orchestra caught it within a few beats and was back on track pretty quickly.
Never a dull moment... This concert succeeded because the ensemble consisted of a bunch of seasoned players who knew all the music and details, and naturally play well together. There were so many opportunities for catastrophe (and a couple of very near misses!). And people wonder why musicians can be so expensive...