The musical has now truly invaded. It is now performance week, when we can't stop even if Marius loses his train of thought, or Javert forgets to put his hair on. Our musical, if you haven't guessed, is Les Miserable, my favorite show. The viola part is amazing and the story is inspiring and intricate. After watching the show several times I've come to the conclusion that it is a show about righteousness. And what the musical is saying is that the most righteous thing one can do is love another human being.
The cast is great, of course, and the pit is amazing, except when we play the wrong notes.
My orchestra teacher seems to doubt my ability to lead my section, as exemplified when she told us to move our sectional in the same tone a mother tells a child it's not a good idea to stick his finger in a fan. She patronizingly asked me later if we needed more sectional time to get everything done. Or rather "so you can do everything you're supposed to get through." I was like, "that's what we were doing..." but I only said that in my head. I nodded enthusiastically to her face, because we do need more sectional time to work out some tricky spots. But I cannot control the fact that a certain person in my section feels it is necessary to play as loud as s/he can and never practices and never once plays a rhythm or note correctly. I give out fingerings for complicated passages and make changes so it fits in together, I tell my section bowings, and I tell them to write phrasings into the parts so we all know how to make the piece sound. I can't make them do anything more. (unless I turn into a n evil tyrant of a section leader.)
My orchestra teacher is also frustrated that we did not sign up for any trips this year. She doesn't consider the fact that perhaps the trips are simply too expensive for the amount of fun we expect to have on them, or that we cannot afford to miss school right before AP tests.
I just wish we were more cohesive as an orchestra.
3 comments:
Oh, dear. Maybe there should be more communication between everyone. Of course, if your teacher refuses to listen, I guess you'll just have to get creative about doing what she expects.
... Then again, my former band teacher once told me she puts certain people as section leaders because, to her, they have the most to gain from the experience. Your orchestra teacher could just be challenging you to see if you can come up with a solution to the problems she hasn't quite managed to work out on her own just yet with everything going on.
The thing is, our section leaders win the spot by getting the highest score in the playing test. So technically, that should mean that we are the best players and the best for the job. Since I've been section leader for more than a year in a row, I assume that this is the case and it wasn't just some randommistake other people made on their tests. So I have experience, and I know what I'm doing. It just annoys me.
*nods* We get playing tested into our spots as well. Except I think it's biased... :P I've noticed that the people who get into higher positions are the ones with formal training (which helps them do "better," maybe). I did just fine without formal lessons (sure, 2nd Flautist isn't exactly Section Leader... but my band teacher said that those second to the section leaders actually learned more. It was an honor).
X) And so long as you know what you're doing, there is hope. If others give you hard time about how you do things, they're just taking the easy way out and flaunting how they aren't the one trusted to do what must be done at the time. Stay strong (lol, even IF your show is over :P)!
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