I would like to take a little bit of time to express my opinion on how rehearsals and programming should be done. A key to good rehearsing starts with good organization. This primarily includes:
- Having all of the musicians needed at the rehearsal when they are supposed to be.
- Knowing what the repertoire of the concert will be when you begin rehearsing.
- Rehearsing the difficult pieces in greater frequency than the easier.
- Having the rehearsals spaced as close together as close to the concert as possible.
It is important for the person who is hiring, or the contractor not to spend any rehearsal time figuring out what is being played or where their musicians are. Every minute you are not rehearsing is a minute that you are paying your musicians to do nothing. The “knowing where your musician’s are” issue is partly the musician’s responsibility (the ones who don’t show up or are late tend to weed themselves out of the professional circuit real quick) but if you, as some one hiring players, just failed to get all the pieces you need, or didn’t tell people when and where to show up, you are wasting money and time.
Decide what you are going to play for a concert before you start rehearsing. Reading through scores during precious rehearsal time just to decide on what you would like to play is foolish and frustrating to the musician who doesn’t know what to practice (who then wants to tear their hair out when you cut what they’ve practiced the most!). Of course, if you are having a reading session then go at it and have fun playing everything you can.
I haven’t had the experience of under rehearsing a difficult work to an extreme degree, in such that we barely rehearse something very difficult, and over rehearse footballs on a staff sheet. What does happen often, is that the same amount of rehearsal time will be dedicated to the footballs as the amount of time spent for Don Juan. This isn’t smart.
One issue I have encountered with having rehearsals spaced out with several days between rehearsals, is that everyone in the orchestra forgets cues, tempo changes and important dynamic instructions. Cramming the rehearsals up against each other stops that forgetfulness and builds on basic psychological principles of how memory works.
Keep these basic tenets in mind and your musicians will be happy and your rehearsals will run smoother. The end result will be better performances.