Today was the second day of our CoLab project. We arrived and began rehearsals at 10 and used our time looking at the rest of the pieces that involved the whole band (as some of them are smaller group improvisations).
Here is a video of us rehearsing a movement called ‘Rememberance’. It starts off with some really eerie string glissandi with an improvised piano solo over the top, before the flute and clarinet join in with the strings.
One of my favourite movements that we played today is called ‘Intoxicated Delirium’. It’s all about how you think and feel when you are intoxicated. It begins with a cool Cuban style beat and then has a folky tune over the top. The folk tune is first in 18/8 and comes back later in the piece in 4/4. I love this movement because it’s very rhythmic and exciting. Some of the rhythms are pretty complicated though and took some time to get right. I think it’s almost there though!
In the afternoon we broke off into sectional rehearsals. We had a string sectional, led by Nic Pendelbury and went over the exposed and tricky bits. We started off by playing one of the sections where we were providing the harmony and worked on our tuning as a section. We then moved onto some of the more complicated rhythmic sections. With Nic keeping time we played the interlocking cross rhythms, slowly at first, gradually speeding them up until we could play them completely in time. We also clapped and sung our parts (when we were playing across each other) to ensure we 100% know where we were supposed to play.
I’m looking forward to putting all of the sectional work together tomorrow and beginning to get a sense of what the completed work will sound like.
