Ensemble Rehearsal Planning Strategies: How to Strengthen Learning through Educationally Focused Rehearsals

School and community ensemble rehearsals typically become overly ‘performance oriented’ through various pressures and external expectations. These pressures generally lead to dependence on ‘rote repetition’ and ‘conductor-focused’ rehearsals to meet the technical demands of performance repertoire. Instead, effective rehearsals should provide for the introduction and reinforcement of member-focused learning activities. The research of Robert Duke (Intelligent Music Teaching), Edward Lisk (The Musical Mind of the Creative Director) and Daniel Kohut (Instrumental Pedagogy) among others, suggests that fostering individual ownership, promoting motivation, encouraging responsibility and reinforcing personal engagement ultimately lead to rewarding, lasting musical outcomes.

Professional ensembles rehearse because they are obliged to prepare concerts of the highest standard for public consumption. Educationally focused ensembles give concerts because through the rehearsal process they learn to apply both technical and expressive skills acquired through sequential training methods and materials. Therefore, rehearsals and concerts should be crafted to offer strategies and opportunities towards developing and trialling technical and interpretative skills leading to artistically rewarding rehearsals and performance experiences.

This Clinic explores learning connections and teaching strategies that employ systematic and sequential training activities to encourage personal learning processes through rehearsal.