Closed Rehearsal

 For project 1 in my block 8 Intermedia class I performed a piece I called Closed Rehearsal. In this piece, I looked to my personal history as a choral singer. I've been singing in choirs for about 12 years and I have been a member of professional choirs for the last 6 years. As a member of countless ensembles and large chorals, I have performed Handel's Messiah innumerable times. Most recently, I performed it with Cornell's Concert Choir during the 2016 Christmas season. With all this experience, it is very easy for me to read music. Like a lot of people read text on a page and can hear their own voice reading out loud in their head, I can look at a musical score and more or less hear myself sing what's on the page, whether I've seen the piece before or not. I spend a lot of time "rehearsing" this way, just looking at the page and studying it. While I am performing, I have my music as a reference in front of me, but because of my studying I can usually imagine what the music on the page looks like and memorize my music that way. So when deciding on a piece, I thought I would do what I do so much in the afternoons at Cornell, before and after choir rehearsal- read through my music. I have my own score of Handel's Messiah, which I've owned for years. I turned to the must recognizable piece from the oratorio, the Hallelujah Chorus. For my piece, I sat down in front of the audience and read through the entire piece, in correct time, and "listened to the music" in my head, as I do. When I'm doing this, I'm following my line (tenor) in the score and moving the muscles in my throat and mouth how I would while singing, but I do not open my mouth, articulate vowels or actually sing. This is how you practice for choral music. It's all about muscle memory. When I got to a part that I hesitated on or didn't remember what was next, I started the phrase over and did it again. I occasionally tap my foot in time, and lean in and out with the phrases. I move a lot when I sing!

Overall, I was not happy with my piece. It lacked substance and depth. Personally, I understood it because I do this all the time and as far as I'm concerned, I'm making art! Well...practicing making art. But as a performance piece, I thought it was boring for the audience. I was really unsure how to make this better. It was pointed out to me the similarity between mine and John Cage's 4'33. I didn't think of this piece when I was making my own, but I see the connection for sure. For the audience, the experience is similar.

I didn't reperform this piece because I was unsure of how to improve it and make it significantly better so that I actually liked it. Small details could be changed, like the setting or what I'm wearing (concert attire?) but overall I decided it was best to abandon this piece and work on better projects I had brewing!