The Rehearsal 5 – W.I.N. – Or the Art of Time Management

You can’t fix everything in one rehearsal.

It is the inescapable truth.  There are too many different issues at play.  So you have to make choices.  You have to pick your battles according to the situation at hand. The conductor is going to have to make choices according to the artistic and pragmatic needs of the ensemble in the moment.   I mean, somebody’s gotta do it, so it falls to the conductor.

Legendary football coach Lou Holtz had a simple way of stating this.  W.I.N. – What’s Important Now? In rehearsal, you as the conductor will have to decide what is more important – run through the whole piece? spend your rehearsal time on the hardest section while ignoring the easier sections? Break into sectionals? Work on tuning? Rhythm? Tone? Bowings? Balance? Dynamics?

You will develop a feel for how you use your time as you continue to do rehearsals.  But, I believe that the best thing for any conductor, beginning or otherwise, is to make lists.  And be systematic in your approach.  Make lists of techinically difficult spots, make lists of what balances need to be fixed, make lists of areas that need to be focused on for tuning.  Listen to the ensemble, make lists, go through your lists, keep listening, make new lists.

You are never going to have the time you really want to have, so you have to make the time you do have work for you. Be smart about the programming, be systematic about how you rehearse it, and always keep in mind - What’s Important Now?