Music Ensembles Confront Pandemic Challenges with Creativity

It’s time for orchestra rehearsal. When you enter the room, you expect to see the familiar rows and rows of faces and instruments — but this year, awkward smiles greet you from muted laptops, and your stand partner waves to you from his room across the country. In these new socially-distant rehearsals, music ensembles are finding ways to replicate the in-person experience with new practices such as conducting score analysis and playing with backing tracks. 

This school year’s new academic schedule, which was specifically designed to accommodate remote learning students in various time zones, presented many hurdles for ensembles regarding scheduling. Every ensemble has had to shift their rehearsals from their traditional evening time slots to daytime class blocks. Ultimately, Symphony Orchestra was designated to meet during D block throughout the week and String Orchestra during H block on Mondays and Thursdays.

Conflicting schedules have meant several former orchestra players were unable to rejoin the ensemble this year. The time-zone differences and in-dorm quarantine posed challenges even for members who were able to participate, preventing them from playing with the group during the designated meeting times. 

Recognizing the impossibility of coordinating convenient rehearsal times for every member, Instrumental Ensembles Director Mr. Gene Wie shifted the focus of music rehearsals this year to score analysis and sight-reading, which can both be done asynchronously. 

During synchronous rehearsals, in order to simulate the familiar orchestra environment where students play with each other concurrently, Mr. Wie created a backing track using Logic Pro to paste the music score and generate a sound sample through the recordings of a professional orchestra. During rehearsals, Mr. Wie plays the backing tracks over Zoom, allowing students to hear the full score and play along with their own parts.

Graphic by Tony Lee/The Choate News

Although the current arrangement cannot completely substitute the experience of practicing together with other students in a full orchestra or small sections, Paloma So ’23, a fourth form violinist in the Symphony Orchestra, enjoys the online rehearsals. “I would say this new format is much more diverse because we are looking at new repertoires from a performance point of view rather than an academic perspective,” So said.

Mr. Wie has also taken advantage of the new digital format to familiarize himself with Canvas and other learning management softwares. During future rehearsals, Mr. Wie plans to make notations on scores for different sections and upload them onto Canvas so students are able to review their feedback afterwards.

“Technologies can be very efficient and effective when applied to music ensembles,” Mr. Wie said. “This is something we should have been doing a long time ago, but we didn’t because we teach in a very traditional field that is highly resistant to new technology.”

After the quarantine period ended on Monday, the majority of students returned to socially-distanced, in-person rehearsals. Mr. Wie placed tripods with mounted IMS camera systems in different sections to ensure students who are learning online will share the same experience as those learning in-person. For example, remote students who play the violin joined the violin Zoom meeting, which is connected to a specific camera. Through this intricate system of section-specific cameras and Zoom rooms, students who are learning remotely can interact with other musicians in their section and share the same viewpoint of the conductor as if they were sitting in their usual seats.

“All the creative methods that online music ensembles are exploring are to guarantee that everyone is involved and participating meaningfully,” said Mr. Wie. “I feel the frustration and disappointment when people who are Zoom-ing in across the globe cannot be heard, and we are trying every possible way to make them feel connected.”

Since students are unable to rehearse altogether, Mr. Wie used this opportunity to explore exceptionally challenging pieces that the orchestra would not normally play, in addition to film soundtracks and video game theme songs, such as those from Nintendo’s Super Mario games, a silver lining in these challenging times.

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