how to learn your orchestra part really well
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- Опубліковано 12 бер 2017
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so i'm currently the 'lame duck' assistant timpanist for the met orchestra - i want to show you how i'm preparing my timpani parts for upcoming performances.
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ABOUT ME
i'm a percussionist in the metropolitan opera orchestra in new york city, and i create videos and blogs to help you stop sucking at drums and master your craft. there's so much more at www.robknopper.com.
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shot and produced by rob knopper
edited by adam tan
how do YOU prepare for orchestra? leave me a comment below and we'll have a chat! thanks so much for watching :)
"my only goal was to not get yelled at by the conductor" ...
too relatable omg
still my goal :-D :-D
Or get the angry glance from the conductor lol
Hi Rob,
Sometimes I find I need to practice looking away from the part so that I can be ready to look at the conductor. I'll practice glancing around the room while playing, or try following the blinking light of my metronome with the sound turned down. It's a good way to test if I really know the notes yet.
Your video is great. It shows what REALLY THOROUGH PREPARATION could and should look like, so I'm sharing it will all my flute students.
Not knowing when to come in, not being sure if a piece is starting in two or in four, not realizing my part is the only thing going on---these are some of the most uncomfortable moments, and they can all be avoided by taking the time to LISTEN to the music a lot, as you say, around 5 times!
Actually playing along with the recording helps me a lot. It makes me notice things I wouldn't have during the regular listening. I find it does't have to be great playing, as in, being well in tune with the recording--its more to "try it on", get the feel of the tempo. Both with and without headphones would have its advantages.
Thanks for your helpful posts and videos -- Aralee Dorough (Principal Flute Houston Symphony)
thanks so much for your tips, aralee! yes looking away from the music is so important, that's one reason you have to know the music so well.
everyone else... copy and paste aralee's comments into your notes for future reference!
I'm an amateur timpanist in a few youth orchestras. I travel a lot by bus and train and always listen to the music I'm about to play. It keeps me occupied while travelling and the music seeps right into my subconcious, which allows me to develop an idea of my role in the piece way before I get to practice it. It's not the most time efficient method to get into a new piece, but when I'm in the orchestra I feel like I understand my parts better than most people around me
I prepare as same as you do, and I have a very nice story about that.
one day I got a mail saying that I playing timpani in the symphonic orchestra of the conservatory I'm learning at, a week before the first rehearsal. and I didn't play timpani before. I got my first timpani lesson day after, and then I just set in the rehearsal hall all the week to learn "festive overture" by shostakovich. and I was the most prepared player. since then, this is my way to learn my parts and today, in 2 months from today, 4 years later I'm the assistant of the principal player and the timpani player of the Youth Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (YIPO).
awesome!! great job!
Would love to see a what's in my stick bag vid, also maybe a guide to buying mallets, what types of mallets you should use for beginners. Great video!
good idea!!! i just got a new stick bag and i would love to do a video about what's inside. thanks for the idea :-D
Great information, exactly how I prepare for a piece. it's easy to listen to pieces now with UA-cam.
This is another great video. I usually play more snare drum than timpani, so when I do play timpani, I tend to become overly detailed about my study and note keeping. I will write in every little thing that I do, so there are no surprises. I want to be so prepared that I feel like I can't make a mistake. One thing that I've found over the years is that I get more out of practicing more times, than to think that I can cram it in with fewer sessions. The things that you are able to keep in your brain between practice sessions are the things that you are truly learning.
great points. yeah if you are super super prepared not only are there no surprised but you can start feeling comfortable with the musicality of the piece rather than just hoping every note is placed correctly. and doing more sessions definitely helps to internalize what you've learned more.
Definitely, study the full score. (Mallets in a concert band here). UA-cam vids of the full score often means low-rez images, but it’s something. Great material, good sir. Thanks.
Great advice, Rob! As a community orchestra player who does not own a set of timpani, I prepare by grabbing the part from IMSLP, then studying as I view excellent orchestral performances (Digital Concert Hall, UA-cam, etc.). My goal is to execute my part so well that I have the flexibility to further adapt to what our maestro asks for that might not be in the notes. Loved your Sibelius 2 story. When I was prepping for my first shot at that awesome piece, I also reached out to some FB buddies who are top professionals, and they were very generous in giving feedback on my specific questions about interpretation, mallet choices, etc. By the way, the Cleveland Orchestra performance in Tokyo (just before Szell died in 1970) was a real go-to for Mr. Duff's musical contribution to that work.
thanks and this is fascinating! not sure i've ever heard the cleveland/szell tokyo version of sibelius 2. but it's definitely a masterpiece.
brichpmr - I like your idea of reaching out to professionals you trust. Such a great way to improve... in any career path. 👍🏻
I love your emphasis on listening to the music. Its such an important part of learning any piece/except/solo.
Along with that, as a student or session players with an orchestra I'd always look for recordings of any performance with the conductor ill be working with to see if there's any preferences or changes they might make to the part.
agreed! and if you can make friends with the recording engineer who often records the group you can sometimes find unreleased recordings in the vault to get a better idea of what it sounds like.
Thanks for the tips!! I'm a horn player in community orchestras. I started using a score about a year ago. It improves my overall understanding of a work, so much more than just listening to recordings. When I have time, I'll construct a horn score with all parts including dominant and simpatico lines. I learn so much through this process and I gain a global view of my part within a work. For unfamiliar works, I'll rewrite long rests to fit phrases and sections and also indicate cues. To make my practice more interesting, I'll play drop the needle to see if I can find my place in the music or I'll play with a recording without counting rests to test my knowledge of my entrances.
yeah, nice ideas here. i'll tell you one thing my teacher used to tell me to do that was really helpful, was to actually take out the score and try to play all the chords and melodies on piano. it was super hard, especially for transposing everything, but it started to help me understand what all the instruments were doing to quite a bit more detailed of a level than i had before.
I remembered writting what certain sections of pieces sounded like familiar tunes or a certain feeling i had to make sure I didn't get lost. Defintely using a pencil is a must!
yes totally! sometimes i'll write in little innocuous cues that only i understand, like "polka time!"
Lol. I studied with Jim Atwood, principal Timpanist of Louisiana Philharmonic and studied under Cloyd Duff with the Cleveland Orchestra, and he showed me some ways to mark timpani parts. One way Cloyd Duff marked his parts such as a pitch changes by writting on the new and original pitches on the left side margin and putting lines on the top of certain notes. It baffled my teacher for awhile on what it meant with the lines, but he learned later that it showed where to put his feet before certain sections of the new pitch changes. Pretty cool way to mark changes.
yes, thanks for the detail. everybody reading this should realize that they need to start developing their own method for how to plan, mark and practice pitch changes in addition to actual playing.
This is a great, super practical approach that is basically a full-scale version of what I do. i usually listen once or twice making notes in my part, then list to chunks and play back immediately, then play along with the recording. Something else I think is very important is to do your research ! on the composer, the piece, the period in history when the piece was written, any social implications the premiere had, etc. This can really change your own approach and interpretation of the piece!
thanks tori and awesome to see you here on youtube! :-D that's a nice way to work on it and it's a little more integrated than my way. there might be a few days between when i study the music and when i actually play through it but you're doing it all at once. if i had that much time with the instrument i would probably do the same thing, but those damn timpani are big and my neighbors would be pissed if i brought some into my apartment hahahaha
yeah and that's also a great point about knowing some context of your piece to understand what to do with it.
Rob, just discovered your channel and I love it. Fantastic resource.
I use basically the same system as you to prepare for first rehearsal with orchestra - just not as many individual steps. Your ideas have me reexamining aspects of my playing. This is good as we never want to get into a 'rut'!
- Percussionist, Knoxville Symphony (25 yrs) and high school band director
that's awesome that you basically use the same system! glad to hear from you and thanks so much for the kind words.
I love your videos Rob! When I rehearse timpani music, I listen to different orchestra versions first, so I know what the song sounds like. Then I practice the rhythm on the snare drum to make sure I'm getting that right. I make notes on what root note each drum will be tuned to and what other notes I will need to use the pedal for on each one. Then I play along with the orchestra a few times, and finally, I play the timpani part by itself, over and over, hoping to have the melody in my head, and end up with my own interpretation of the story of the song. Sometimes I actually succeed at all that!
thanks so much for watching, tris! that is a really thorough process and probably puts you in a great position for showing up ready to nail your part.
I always get ready like listening the recording with my notes and with the score just like you do, but thats all I can do 'cause we don't have a hall or something similar, so we can not practice with the instruments before. So I go to the first rehearsal a couple of hours earlier so I can practice it on the instrument and decide sticks or this tambourine or this triangle ect. Playing with the recording could be very helpful, I will try it next time !
Thanks for the video.
Seçil Kuran that's a good way to get on the instruments!
Really enjoy the video. I prepare and learn the timpani parts or any percussion part from the percussion section by just listening recordings of what we're going to play. Always thinking about in get the best interpretation and the best work. The sound of the timpani, the pitches, the sticks and the mallets i'm choosing, what others instruments are playing while i'm playing to ... Always thinking in every detail to make the best work.
nice! yeah and when you're learning a percussion part, often there will be fewer notes to play so you can think even more broadly about how you're going to make those notes sound.
I usually start with importing all the music in my DAW, so I can set markers to jump directly to certain pieces or parts, loop them etc. ... then I listen to one piece at a time to get an idea of the music, after that I repeat listening and write down some cues, figure out tuning if I´m playing timpani ... if there are difficult parts, I practise them first without the music ... next step would be playing through the piece with the music and writing down some comments on parts that didn´t work, so I know exactly where to start in my next practise session.
And then there are these "last-minute-calls", where I don´t know my parts until the first rehearsal ... some kind of sightreading-survival-trip ;o))
This is actually really fantastic advice and I think it applies to non-timpani parts as well, especially the part about reading the score! I'm a relatively new percussionist in the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and I sort of how great it was reading the score "by accident". I used to NEVER look at the scores because I thought they would be super overwhelming. But one day my friend, a music major, and I weren't playing in a concert (it was a concert that played Beethoven 3 and Sibelius 2 so there were only timpani parts) so we decided that we would listen to the entire concert following the score. And it was the coolest experience ever because you knew exactly who was going to come in. And so I decided to rent the scores from the music library for our next concert set, Rachmaninov 2 and "The Rite of Spring". I play glockenspiel for the Rachmaninov 2 and triangle/tambourine for Rite of Spring and never have I been so prepared. So the moral of the story is that scores are awesome and incredibly helpful.
cool! glad to hear you figured that out. that will be really useful in the future.
Gotta love those Firebird cues ;)
Hi Rob, my way to practice my part is that, I listen the origin music that I already download lots times, then I start to practice the timpani with it, use the pencil to mark where you should came in, how other instrument sound, as well as the dynamics of the plot and also where I need to pay attention. In my school orchestra, you can't make the same 3 times. So I often write down where I need to be notice. Also after the I write those marks down, I will start to play the music while I was practice my own part. If there is a huge rest before your part, then you have to study the music. Then you should have more practice for the beginning to the end. I am look forward your reply :) hahahahaha
glad to hear you have a system. i'm curious.. what happens after three times of messing up? how do they enforce that?
Great video and analysis! I began playing along to vinyl when I studied with Rick Holmes and then Roland Kohloff but now I leverage the power of UA-cam for listening and studying. It's a bonus when there is a great conductor/orchestra combo. For example, I'm playing Mozart 36 next month and am using the Kleiber/Vienna video. I'm a huge Kleiber fan so I got lucky there. I set up the iPad next to my music and score. When I'm ready to start playing I begin with a pair of practice pads set at timpani height, then move to the actual drums closer to the first rehearsal.
that's awesome ted! great combo of teachers too... there are lots of huge kleiber fans in the MET orchestra and there are some old markings of things that kleiber asked for in the percussion parts that have become tradition. must have been an inspiring guy.
Indeed! He was a reclusive genius and a fascinating character. The knowledge you're putting out there is fantastic, btw. I would have given anything for a info like this back in the day :)
thanks! me too, tbh...
My first time playing timpani for orchestra was actually on a band arrangement for the Mahler 7 finale. I knew there were few big solos for the timpani so I practiced really hard. I got through all the technical stuff and scanned through lots of recordings. I even had to check up my German vocab since there were so much German performance notes.
nice job! thanks for sharing this!
The eternal fear of playing wrong....Thank god I became a jazzmusician ;)
I think about the other instruments that I need to play with in order to melt with their sound. Then, all my play must be coherent with the orchestra
great point. if you're playing with the trumpets, you're going to make different decisions about tone and sound than if you're playing with the cellos.
Hi Rob... Thanks for the great videos! For timpani I try to prepare by going through my part first and marking all the pitch changes and writing in any oddball rhythms or stickings. Then I usually listen to a recording (or multiple recordings if I can get them) and follow along with my part. If I can get a score I review that with the recording too...and then write in any cues and reminders for myself (stuff happening over long rests, quick changes, tempi, etc.). If I can I try to look into the period to help with mallet selection, tone, and interpretation - but my music history is really rusty so I sometimes struggle with that aspect. I almost always still feel underprepared though that's probably more a confidence issue than preparation issue.
BTW - Like John Frederick, I also struggle when trying to prepare for multiple things at the same time.
haha oddball rhythms. yeah those can trip you up. sounds like a great system you have there.
Wonderful video, Rob. Thank you for all you do. As an aspiring orchestral musician and teacher, your videos are monumental towards my career. Thank you.
I was wondering if you could do a video on overcoming multiple projects at one time. Solo rep, percussion ensemble rep, church gigs, orchestra, teaching on the side, school work, everyday struggles, etc. Whats a good way to tackle several projects at one time, because that seems to be where I struggle the most.
Take care,John Frederick
John Frederick ooh! good idea - i think time management and how to prepare for multiple things at once is a great topic. thanks for watching and hopefully i can make this soon 👍
I know this is an older video but my process will be to listen to just the recording with no music in front of me to purely get the music in my head. I will listen to the recording a lot if I can't him to the piece or sing a long with my own part I did not listen to the piece nearly enough. Then I'll listen to it again with my part and I'll listen for cues which other instruments I hear that I'm blending with. After I take the part to a metronome and play each passage 150 times starting 20 clicks on a standard quartz metronome under tempo I'll work through the entire piece this way until it's all at tempo then play with the recording til I physically cannot miss a note. it is a long process but it has helped me so far and was taught to me by my boss of a wind ensemble professor.
cool! as long as this works for you, then it sounds like a good system!
I like to listen through a piece and follow with my music. Always penciling in helpful cues. I also to write starting stickings for complex crossover passages on timpani it really helps me out with alternating hands when moving on the drums. Im no professional with percussion, but any advice helps!
yeah that is always important to work out the choreography of what you're doing so that you don't get tripped up during the execution of it. sounds like you're on the right track matteo!
1. Listen carefully while studying the score
2. Play through with a recording until you're familiar with it
3. Practice difficult/technical passages with metronome and proper sticking
4. Smoothen your rolls and polish other technical stuff
5. Play some mean timpani at the show :)
When starting to play 4 mallet marimba solos I was wondering if you could make a list of the best pieces of music to help me learn and grow as a mallet player. I really like your channel and even though I am only in 9th grade I want to build my knowledge of what kind of things to keep an eye on as I start my journey in the field of music. Thank you and I hope you continue making videos. :)
Jacob Molea thanks jacob! that's a great idea. i'll think about this and make a video with some recommendations. good luck 👍
Love the video! On timpani I tend to do one more round where I'm listening to a recording and trying to decide where I should place the tones. For example, the notes C and G. If It's a loud part who needs a lot of power and clarity, I place them on 29" and 32", and if the tones should be warmer and have higher range of overtones, I play them on 26" and 29"
thanks henrik!! that's a great idea to think about note placement and tone. i'm sure you're already doing this but it's also important to think about placement on the head and what type of stroke you're using (eg. bright and staccato vs. dark and legato).
I do. All the time.
Now I'm working with my teacher about the length of the note, and also different length of the upstroke and the follow through.
Do you have the same method when you're working with timpani excerpts?
i dig a lot deeper with excerpts. since they're shorter i have time to listen to many recordings of the same excerpt. here's a little bit about the process: www.robknopper.com/blog/2014/10/12/how-to-choose-a-tempo-for-anything-in-4-steps
Hi Rob,
I like your system. This is what I do and the following steps.
1. I listen to the music first without the score to get an overall impression of the piece and the character of each movement.
2. Print the score if I can and mark the score where the timpani comes in and listen to the music while reading the score
noticing which instruments are playing with and finding my tuning notes with that particular group. Here I will also look at the function of the timpani within the music and the particular instrument groupings. e.g. does the timp play the motif or part of one, does it double a bass line, does it accompany, does it signal other instruments coming in.
3. Read the score with my timpani parts marked on the score from the above or on my instrumental part. I then mark the phrasing on the timpani part by itself and also take a look at other sections of the orchestra to see if the timpani part has the same phrasing or does the timpani part with its own phrase is part of a larger phrase, eg. does the timp start the phrasing with other instruments, is the timpani part in the middle or end of a larger phrase in the orchestra, does it appear within the larger phrase and reappear later in the same phrase. Here one can see the timpani my have a signal that something is going about to happen or ends the phrase. I often see this in Sibeliuses symphonies.
4. Listen to the music. Mark my timings, look at any technical tuning problems or where I need to change sticks. I do this before I practice as I can make adjustments or reflect after I practice the part.
5. Practice the parts without music to learn practice tuning, tuning changes, logistics, technique rolls, articulation, phrasing, dynamics, stick changes, nuances etc.
6. Practice with the recording 2 -3 times depending upon the complexity of the work. I find to play the work once for me is not enough as you are now learning the part by actually playing the work.
thank you so much paul! i really appreciate you detailing your system here and i hope people enjoy it!
I also try and find videos from other people on "how to play this", especially if possible from the people who I'm trying to impress (e.g: looking at the LSO's Neil Percy giving tips on scheherazade and firebird for the UA-cam Symphony orchestra)
good idea!
great video, thanks rob!! too bad we violinists have so many notes to play that learning them takes the majority of our prep time, i'm afraid... definitely not leaving enough of it to go through the score 5 times!!! but it's an inspiring goal, especially for me having a trial for my dream job coming up next week :) ... speaking of which: have you done anything about passing a trial??? :) i've had probations etc. before and they all went well, but this job is really THE thing, and there are more candidates competing this time... so i would be super duper grateful for any advice!!!
passing a trial and getting tenure is a whole different project. you should look up some of the articles that people have written about this subject. i haven't done anything with it, but there's definitely some good information out there. sorry i couldn't be more helpful!
I begin by listening to the whole piece with the score. I then listen to the whole piece following along in my part. I then play the piece or movement(s) with a recording, and then practice anything that I feel like I needed to work on. (I might practice my part a little bit more specifically before I play with recording depending on how demanding it is). My final step, in a perfect world, is to play along with a recording like I am performing, imagining the hall, which dream orchestra and players I'm sitting with (no breaks in the music), the whole piece or even the concert like it would be.
nice! i love your step of visualizing playing this with a dream orchestra and being in the hall. which orchestra and which hall do you usually choose?
Usually Chicago or LA. If I'm playing with a particular recording, I like to pretend I'm with the section that was there during that year (sans the part that I'm playing)
sounds good. i've also heard of people practicing for and doing mock auditions with a picture of the conductor on the stand of the orchestra that they're auditioning for. it's a good mental trick!
I always try to keep to a bare minimum of playing 1: with part (marking up on listening); Playing 2: with score, marking up; Playing 3: try to play it :)
nice, sounds like that would work 👍
rob knopper Also, my biggest "bam... wrong note" moment happened in Bizet's Farandole from Carmen, where the conductor decided to put a general pause before the coda.. which I on timps and the percussion all missed in the show. Cue sheepish walking off afterwards...!
wow, yeah that could be embarrassing. at least you weren't alone!!
Lmao once at an honors concert I broke a tambourine by picking it up
oooops
Rob, when studying a piece how do you incorporate listening to multiple recordings in your process as opposed to using just 1?
great question. if i'm doing the process of studying a full piece of music i will usually only use one recording. sometimes i'll choose a few moments in the piece that i'm curious about (or they're big exposed solos) and reference some other recordings. when i'm studying excerpts, on the other hand, i listen to tons of recordings... sometimes more than 10.
Five times? Not bad. When I do Abide with Me I play the original 8 verses so when I play the modern 5 or so verses it'll be easier
For me it's less about adding and more about deleting the aspects of preparation that aren't necessary. I play horn and once I was concerned about endurance on Sibelius 2, so I played it through 4 times in a row in its entirety with a different recording each time. Now I think it's maybe better to do a bit less playing and more critical thinking and more making
sure! it's better to start with doing too much and then cutting it down once you learn the most effective elements rather than doing too little.
Great Video!
How does your process change when you are preparing a snare drum, or mallet, or bass drum part?
i would say the process ends up being a little bit less involved just because there are fewer entrances. it takes less time to figure out what's going on in the orchestra because of that, but then you can use that extra time to go experiment with sounds, mallets, and tone on the instrument. have fun!
@@robknopperstudio Hey Rob! I just wanted to let you know how much your advice and this video have helped me. I entered music school right after I posted this comment and I graduated this past year. This video really helped me prepare the lots of repertoire that was thrown at me (war requiem, carmina, firebird, prokofiev 5).
@@elevenvideola wow!! that's awesome to hear. congrats on graduating!
Hey Rob I can't help but noticing you referred to a Brian Jones... Would he happen to be playing for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra right now...? Because I might be in his tutelage right now haha!
nope that's the brian jones in the dallas symphony - i didn't know there was another!
Doesn't practicing with headphones on timpani affect the way you hear/ perceive pitch? Or have you found that it's harmless? Great vid Rob!
Eduardo Ortega yes and of course you shouldn't always practice with headphones on. when i'm focusing on learning how to play along with the orchestra accompaniment i'll sometimes use headphones with one ear on and one ear off so that i can hear the recording and the sound of the instrument. ideally you'd have loud speakers playing the recording so you don't have to use headphones.
Ahhh gotcha, thanks!
listen to recordings from other orchestra's so you can memorize (and learn) the structure of the score a little bit
good idea! thanks jitse :-D
Hey Rob, question- what do you do if you cannot find a score to study off of, like a newly-composed piece.
Kyle O good question! well the good news is... if it's a new piece then no one in the orchestra will know if you're making a mistake! ha, yeah, but really all you can do is use the information available to you. check out the score from the library beforehand if you can, and find a recording if it exists. if there's no recording, you can just go through the score and write in information from the score. if you're feeling ambitious, try playing through some of the parts on piano - you'll REALLY start to learn the piece that way. if there's no score, try to count along with the recording and write in everything you can.
Usually, I will listen to the whole piece with my score, then practice and look if there is anything that needs more attention. Lately, I have been trying not only to count while playing in the orchestra, but also try to follow the music and mark parts of other instruments. That helps me to familiarise myself with the music and find the right spot if I am lost.
Rob, could you please say something about the CD pre-audition? should I take it as a normal audition? Or are there any special tricks I should focus on?
that's great that you're focusing on listening to cues of other instruments. it's also just nice to be deeply engaged in the music as you play...
about the CD pre-audition, you need to get inside the head of the judge. the judge knows that you have as many times as you need to try recording it over and over. little mistakes or missed notes are not acceptable because you're competing with people who will spend days getting the right take. make sure to record each piece over and over starting in little chunks and making every little detail sound exactly right. then when you record the whole piece, don't stop until you get the take that you feel really proud of and will compete at the highest levels during the judges' listening session. but... good idea for a video topic - thanks!
rob knopper Thank you so much for your answer! Yes, it would be great to hear more about this topic,especially, if you have had a chance to listen to this kind of pre-audition recordings as a judge. Looking forward to see your next video!
I am a sax player and play principle in a local concert band. I prep by using recordings, reviewing my part, marking, then playing with the recording, etc….. but I am not always successful in finding the correct arrangements on YT. Where do you get your recordings? I know, orchestra pieces are easier to find, but I am betting you know more about where to find these things than I! Thanks.
hi - usually spotify or apple music has a huge selection! if there are no recordings then that means it's an obscure piece. if that's the case then it levels the playing field because NO one in the group will have studied the recording.
In the first rehearsal, the pencil is almost as important as the instrument
totally agree.
calma por favor.....vc é muito ansioso, muito agoniado, atropela os assuntos, fala fala fala e acaba causando uma confusao, da pra ser melhor, vc tem talento