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In this video we're going to discuss some issues about using your voice.
And I mean this not in the sense of singing or
modeling as we've talked about in other videos, but really just talking.
The most common mistake that we see or
hear is that people just don't talk loudly enough.
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So if your in the back rows of
the ensemble, the conductor just can't be heard.
If you pay attention to how the ensembles reacting when you speak, you'll see clues.
If your in a community ensemble, and
as older members, you'll literally see this sometimes.
And you can tell, they're having trouble hearing you.
For all ensembles you might find that the symptoms
are that half the group doesn't know where you're starting.
Or that you see people talking, talking to each other
quietly trying to figure out well, what did he just say?
Where are we going to start.
Or it will just be explicit they'll just say, where are we starting?
If this happens to you a lot, then it's
very likely that you need to talk more loudly.
It doesn't mean yelling.
It just means to project.
This is something that you can practice and
you can get constant feedback from the ensemble.
Just ask, are you able to hear me now?
Don't be shy about that because it's going to pay dividends in the long run.
The second most common problem, and something that I am guilty of and
I'm constantly working to fix, is the idea of talking too quickly, or mumbling.
And this is the same sort of issue, that if you do that, people
are not going to hear what you're saying, and you'll have to say it again.
And so you might as well just work on slowing
down just a bit, and enunciating a little bit more clearly.
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Another people problem have when addressing a group is
that they don't look at the group while they're talking.
This is especially true for when you're dealing with an issue in the score.
And the reason is pretty straight forward, that we're rehearsing
something, this music and the stand is below us and
so we look down, and our, the bell of our
instrument or our voice is straight down into the stand.
Now we're losing the score because we want to be able to
find what measure number to remind us exactly what we're talking about.
Get in the habit of using, putting the stand, and using your eyes in a
way that you can look down at the
music without necessarily turning your entire head down.
And we'll get in the habit of looking
down very briefly, getting the information you need,
and then addressing the ensemble without too much
of a break or at least back and forth.
But you can imagine that if we are totally
into our score and looking, and just talking, we don't
even know if people are paying attention or if
people are listening, or if people can even hear us.
So try to get your voice, and the bell of your voice out into the ensemble.
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We can also talk about some issues of pacing.
And our voice can be an effective way to make rehearsals
seem more interesting, more exciting, more intimate, depending on what we need.
So you can imagine if we need to add some
energy to the ensemble, we can increase the volume of our
voice, we might speak a little bit faster and we might
make the pace of rehearsals, could that be a little shorter?
Good, start at the same place please.
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And we can use that kind of energized pace effectively.
The problem is you can't overuse it.
It'll get you burn out and the ensemble will burn out
out on it quickly, so we have to dial it back sometimes.
Sometimes we might speak more softly, more slowly to
say, violins we have an issue with the bowing here.
I wonder if we could think of an alternate solution.
And speak more intimately, kind of connect
with them as if you're having a conversation.
Figure it out, then move on to something else.
These are good ways to kind of change the energy and the flow of the rehearsal to
make it seem, to make it effective without burning out on a specific sort of tempo.
This is really the same concept that Muzak uses
If you've ever listened to elevator music,
it was originally designed to help productivity.
And there are points in the Muzak where it increases it
intensity, and then it'll relax because they knew if you were
intense the whole time with fast, incredibly aggressive it, it was
great for a little while and then you kind of burn out again.
If it was too soft, and too mellow for too
long, well then you lost energy, and you lost productivity.
It was a combination of these peaks and values of energy and relaxation.
And we can use our voice to help create those in rehearsal.
Dr. Evan FeldmanAssociate Professor & Wind Ensemble Conductor
