Nov 17 2008
I have no voice: running your rehearsal without talking
I tried an experiment with my middle school ensembles a couple of weeks ago. I ran three entire rehearsals (two bands and one choir) without talking. All my directions were given with a conducting gesture or short bullet sentences on a white board.
The result? I had some of the most productive rehearsals since the start of the year. One of my students came up to me afterwards and said, “That went well today. We should do that again…”
What started as a sore throat for me turned into a great opportunity for my ensembles. Some observations:
*I wouldn’t recommend this until your ensemble has a particular routine for the start of a rehearsal (warm-up, scales, solfege work, etc.). Once that is established, the rehearsal can begin as expected; then when they notice you are not giving verbal directions, the fun begins.
*This will force you to rely on your conducting to do what it’s supposed to do: communicate with a gesture that is clear and meaningful. You cannot just beat time; you will need to know your score and use your baton or hands to communicate what you want from the music. Extremely difficult, but worth the effort.
*Have fun with exaggerated facial expressions that communicate joy, surprise, confusion, disappointment, you name it. You will have a captive audience looking and responding to your non-verbal cues.
What other ways have you conducted a rehearsal to get your students to focus? I look forward to your comments below.
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I was forced to run a few rehearsals voiceless. I was hoping for the best, but not expecting nearly the productivity we had for those couple days.
Not only did I have to improve my conducting technique, but the students became better at marking their music, as well.
I love the silent rehearsal technique and have had much success with it in the past. My college band director used to do a silent rehearsal once a month and they were always the most intensely focused and productive rehearsals we had. I think the advice you gave to not attempt this without having established clear expectations and procedures for students is well stated. Without established expectations and procedures a lot of precious time can be wasted.
A couple of weeks ago I taught a morning of piano lessons this way. I found that it was more effective with upper elementary than with lower elementary kids, as the younger ones didn’t always understand the non-verbal cues as quickly. I also had to work hard to communicate encouragement and positive reinforcement. It was much easier to make a face or gesture when something was wrong. I would love to try it with a group rehearsal.