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Leading from Within: How to Run a Playing Group With No Music Director
by Susan Richter
| | Set the scene: you are excited to be playing with a bunch of recorder players, just for fun! You may know one or two of them, but some might be unknown quantities to you. The group doesn't have a director, and you're not working on something to perform in public. It's “just for fun.” How will things go? | | |
A lot depends on the social dynamics of the group, and their willingness to establish some best practices about how to run things. When a group meets for diversion and entertainment, the whole goal is that everyone has a good time, learns some things, and feels good about the group. After all, you would like everyone to come back for the next meeting! This is true whether it's a group of players of roughly equal experience and playing level, or a group including players of varying levels, from rising beginner to upper intermediate.
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In either of these kinds of groups, with no designated director or leader, questions will arise about things like:
- Where will we get music to play?
- Who will decide the tempo of a piece?
- Who will start the piece?
- Plus many more aspects about phrasing, style, and so on.
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Consider Adopting Ground Rules
Of course, some people are more natural leaders (let’s not use the word “bossy”) than others, and they sometimes tend to take over a group. To make sure that everyone feels they are an active participant, think about adopting some ground rules for the group to follow. For example:
- At each meeting, either anyone may bring some music they would like to play, OR one person is assigned to bring all the music for that session. Newer players may not have music to offer. See some suggestions below of sources for free recorder music.
- Take turns around the group to choose the next piece to play, no matter who brings it.
- The person who chooses a piece gets to start it (or they can ask for help).
- Either welcome doubling if there are more players than parts, OR make sure that no one is asked to lay out on more than one piece in a row.
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Besides the “rules of the road” that help the smooth running of the sessions, there are best practices for group dynamics. Think of these as etiquette, or just positive encouragement.
- Agree to listen to everyone's feedback and ideas. Prompts might include:
- “How did you like that piece?”
- “Should we play it again?” [NB: I always think it's good to play a new piece at least twice through. It's better the second time!]
- “Should we bring this piece back to try some other time?”
- “Was that too (hard/fast/slow/gloomy/whatever)?”
- Have a variety of music so that some is playable by each level of experience in the group. They needn't all be super simple, but not all so difficult that some people are left out.
- Starting a piece is a great teaching/learning moment for less advanced players who aren't used to leading a group! Step-by-step: decide on a tempo based on the most challenging parts of the piece. Indicate the tempo to the group by gesture or by singing the rhythms. Develop your way to gather the group and signal “start.” Counting off aloud is a brute-force way of starting, but using gestures or breath can become the most effective signals.
- Especially if the group includes beginning players, it's wise and kind to pair each of them with a more experienced player on a part. We all learned by playing with people who were better than us, whether a teacher or just another musician. If it sounds like I'm encouraging every one of us to be a teacher – you are right!
- Encourage everyone to learn to play different sizes of recorder. No one should “have to” play bass all the time because no one else in the group will learn to play it!
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Helpful Resources
There are many places to find recorder music, now that we have this amazing tool called the Internet. The days of brick-and-mortar shops that had scads of recorder music to browse through are, alas, pretty much gone. But there are still online music stores that have a wide variety of music to sell. Each ARS Magazine contains an Advertising Index near the last page that lists not only the music stores that support the ARS, but sometimes also workshops and conferences that you might be interested in attending! Many workshops have music stores “in residence” that bring merchandise you can browse and buy. And don’t forget the useful reviews in American Recorder. They are written by people who have been in groups and actually played the music themselves!
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But what about free music? Glad you asked!
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The ARS Downloadable Music Libraries are a great resource, including both the printable sheet music and recordings to listen to. There is a very usable search function to help you find music of the difficulty, number of parts, and musical style you are looking for.
- People's own personal recorder music libraries/collections, including from workshops or conferences they have attended.
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Online "free music" resources like musescore.com (google “musescore free music,” then search there for "recorder quartets," for example). As suggested in an earlier ARS NOVA article by Wendy Powers, you should check out IMSLP.org (International Music Score Library Project) and CPDL.org (Choral Public Domain Library). Choral music is particularly well-suited to recorders, because SATB vocal ranges approximate the same recorder ranges.
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If you are looking for guidance about the appropriate tempo, phrasing, or articulation of a piece, the Internet is, once again, your friend. Listening to recordings of performances is a very quick way to pick up stylistic and tempo information. Just be aware that there are performances out there that may not be the most authoritative or reliable sources for you to use.
- ARS recordings. Many of the pieces in the ARS libraries also have recordings you can listen to. Some even have recordings in the “music minus one” format, where you can choose to listen to a recording that omits the soprano part (for example) so YOU can play soprano with it! Recordings of pieces contributed by ARS members are likely to be made at “performance tempo,” which can be faster (or slower, in some cases) than you might like to play for sight-reading, or playing for fun.
- YouTube videos of the piece being played by someone else. These can be of varying quality, so take them with a grain of salt.
- There may be commercially available recordings of some pieces, mostly more advanced or difficult pieces.
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In the early music world, Susan Richter's primary instruments are recorders and Renaissance double reeds: shawms and dulcians. Susan also enjoys singing in various church and early music groups. She has been a performing member of Texas Early Music Project (TEMP) and the Austin Baroque Orchestra, leads the early music community group Lauda Musicam of Austin, and teaches adult beginning recorder at Austin's Lifetime Learning Institute.
Susan is on the board of TEMP, was a Board member of the ARS 2008-2012,
is a music leader at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, and is Administrator of the Texas Toot early music workshops. She enjoys
tending her wild Hill Country yard, feeding and watching birds, and
traveling near and far with her husband, Win Bent. Susan is now happily
retired from gainful IT employment.
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