Sunday, December 7, 2008

Rehearsal

The only time we ever really got a chance to rehearse was about an hour before the concert. I was feeling pretty good about it though, because I was working with really good musicians. I knew it would be alright! haha
We began the dress rehearsal at around 5:40 or so. I was a little disappointed at first because I dnd't ahve all o the equipment I needed with my drums. The hi-hat and floor-tom were missing, but luckily I was able to get mine for the rehearsal. The first two times we ran through the piece were a little stressful. Because the violinist and I only have parts we couldn't see where we were if we got lost. However, after a few more run-throughs everything was fine. The last run-through was great, we never had to stop and go over anything. I was a little nervous for the concert, but excited too.
So I finally found a way to finish my piece. People in the class (and Dr. Ross) suggested that I end with something really climactic, a "big bang". This is pretty easy to do on drums and even on piano, but I needed to find a way to bring this to the violin. What I ended up doing was bringing back the tritone idea heard earlier in the violin part. I started it off in the piano and then the violin came in with it. To really build up to the last little bit I had the piano and violin rise chromatically, fisrt in eighth notes and then in sixteenth notes. I really think this brought the tension up to the climax well. Finally, the violin part sustains a b (the key which most of the piece is in) and the drums and piano cue each other into the last two beats.