I hope you are all having a fabulous long weekend :) With our WAIL off book date coming up (April 15!) I know everyone is hard at work memorizing their music. Christina and I wanted to share some memorization strategies to help you along in this process! Of course, everyone learns in different ways, so some of these may work for you, and some may not! But, maybe there will be a new idea that will help you to get all of your music really solidly memorized!
- Listen lots! Put your WAIL playlist on your iPod when you're on the way to school or work or keep it on while you're doing stuff around the house. Amazing how much you can absorb just by listening!
- Sing the piece through with the recording (remember we use the recordings for notes, words, and rhythms, not expressiveness). See if you can do sections without the score, then work up to the whole piece
- For tricky bits, learn the piece in sections (a section can be as small as a few measures!) and then gradually knit the sections together until you're feeling solid about the whole piece
- To help with memorizing words, write out the words to a piece of music on a separate sheet of paper. This helps not only with learning the flow of the text, but also with understanding the meaning of the piece if you can see the words as poetry!
- Practice both by yourself and with others. Working in same-section groups can help solidify your part as a section, and working in a small, mixed-part group (ie SSAA) will help you to feel independent on your own line! You can feel free to make mistakes in a low-pressure environment, plus it is just fun to get together :)
Remember that it's not just music - movement has to be extremely solid as well. Here are some tips:
- For each piece, listen to the recording and do a "walk through" first in your mind, then with your body.
- Double check all cues (ie "hands come down on beat 3" or "start moving when you start singing")
- Draw yourself a map for each piece of where you move throughout the song so you know where you start and end up
- Make note of any places where you need to be by specific people or a specific section
- Again, practicing in groups can be a great way to facilitate movement memory and make you feel really independent - especially if you have mixed groups where people are doing different things at different times.
- Don't forget expressiveness! If it helps you, reference the story chart that we gave you at the beginning of the rehearsal period, and write in what is happening in the story at the top of each piece of music!
Hopefully this is helpful! I know you are all working hard and that we are going to blow our audience away on May 11 & 12!!!!!
Have a great rest of your weekend and see you soon!
xox Claire
No comments:
Post a Comment