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What is it like being a Music Scholar preparing for Cadogan Hall 2020?

Lizzie, Year 12, writes about what it is like being a music scholar preparing for the large WHS concert at Cadogan Hall later this month.

As the annual Cadogan Hall concert draws nearer, everyone involved is working hard to rehearse the music and make final preparations for the day, striving to improve upon the standard of the previous year. This is especially true of music scholars, who play various vital roles within the music department.

All musicians have the important task of individually practising their parts and potentially asking peripatetic teachers for help with really challenging passages to ensure they can not only play the music, but engage with the effect each piece is trying to convey. It is crucial that each and every part in the orchestra and choirs are learnt individually if the ensemble is to sound brilliant together. It means that the rehearsals, which are more limited in time than private practise, can focus on developing cohesion and emotion in the music in order to make it really impressive.

Violin players
Violin II section performing at Cadogan Hall in 2019 by Zest Photos

As a music scholar, I also have the role of brass section leader which entails many different things. These range from encouraging other musicians within my section to practise their parts at home, helping to tune in rehearsals and performances, and making stylistic decisions about how our part should be played so that it can sound within the overall emotion.

Section leaders also go through all of the music themselves and note down difficult passages that their section struggles with in order to help highlight them to Mr Bristow, who directs the Orchestra. We then focus on perfecting these few passages in sectional rehearsals, where the orchestra is divided into smaller groups to provide more attention to each part. This is key in making sure that all of the music is ready for the performance, giving each and every pupil in the orchestra the confidence to play to the best of their abilities.

There are also other student-led preparations that must be made and are carried out by scholars such as putting together the programme. This year a meeting was held to re-evaluate the normal design of the programme and to put forward new ideas in the hope that the programme will be not only informative for the concert, but also become more valuable for the pupils as a souvenir of the performance. In addition, scholars are each given a piece to write a programme note for, which contextualises the music for the audience. This requires researching the composer, piece itself, when it was written and then collating the information a brief but interesting way.

Music scholars, especially those in older years, tend to be much better at controlling the nerves that come with performing than other performers due to having more experience performing, like at the scholars’ recitals each term. On concert day it is always really nice to see that everyone is sharing in the excitement and anticipation ahead of the performance, but also helping to make sure that no one is getting very worried or anxious.

WHS 2019 Cadogan Hall Concert, by Zest Photos

One of my other favourite parts is the inter-year bonding within the music department, stemming from shared interests, which displayed and strengthened every year at Cadogan Hall. From the manic and cramped atmosphere in the changing rooms, to the sad realisation that when it is over the leaving year 13s have performed their last ever big Wimbledon High concert, it always feels like the department has come together and achieved its goal of being even better than the year before.

If you would like to come to the concert this year, do visit the Cadogan Hall website to get more information on repertoire and information on how to buy tickets. The concert this year takes place on Monday, 30th March from 7:30pm.

https://cadoganhall.com/whats-on/wimbledon-high-school-2020/

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Rehearsal, Rehearsal, Rehearsal – how repetition helps us learn

Anna, Year 13, discusses not only how rehearsal is the key to a good performance but also how the repetitive nature of rehearsing can aid studying.

For those who favour the more ‘academic’ subjects, drama may seem like a discipline which requires substantially less work than the sciences due to the propagated belief that a student does not need to revise as much, as well as the active nature which makes it more of a practical subject than academic. However, while there is certainly more action involved than with other subjects (with ‘acting’ being the most vital part of theatre for an audience), the claim that revision is not necessary is entirely false.

When speaking of acting, an audience member often reviews what they can see in front of them in one moment as, more often than not, they are not privy to the behind-the-scenes rehearsal process. While it is true that the audience impact is a vital part of theatre performance and theory, it is the rehearsal process itself which allows the final finished product to flourish; without it, the actor would not know how to act the line in order to achieve the greatest impact for the audience. Having studied drama myself for the entirety of my Wimbledon High attendance, as well as gotten involved in various plays and musicals over the years, I have come to think of this rehearsal process as high-intensity interval training (without the exercise, thankfully) which results in muscle memory and allows an actor to create the intended effect.

Rehearsing is primarily an active, practical activity; the repeated action over time enhances memory, which then lets an actor read off book (without a script) without any doubt of what they are going to do next or what their line is. For my fellow kinaesthetic learners – who Professors Dunn and Dunn describe as ‘students who require whole-body movement to process new and difficult information’ – this is already a behaviour that we are familiar with; when I am trying to memorise tricky English quotes or mathematic formulae, it is not uncommon to see me pacing back and forth or jumping up and down in order to enhance my learning. Viewing rehearsal as a study form automatically demonstrates academic benefits, as this subconscious form of learning that is routine for a drama student or actor can be employed elsewhere as a studying technique where ‘spaced repetition’ (that is, learning the same thing over a long time with regular intervals) where repetition over a month will result in 90% memorisation. This allows for more consolidation of information, and so ultimately the person will remember more than if they simply crammed the night before. Not only this, but it allows for muscle memory (a form of memory where there isn’t conscious awareness of the actions) to be developed; with resultant feedback received in rehearsal from the director, it means that a person not only develops skills and learning but allows more information to be absorbed as a result.

Therefore, when considering the long-term repetitive nature of rehearsal, it seems logical that it can be labelled a form of active revision; the act of rehearsal instills both useful studying tools in a person without them even realising, as well as a fun way to showcase messages to audiences with the eventual performance.