PLAYING IN AN ORCHESTRA

The project of playing in an orchestra is one of satisfying megatasking—multitasking divides your attention whereas megatasking integrates many inputs into one coherent whole. The experience of being a new orchestra player (possibly as early as elementary school) is to experience it as multi-tasking, but the experience in professional orchestral playing should be one of integration: listening, performing beautifully, constantly re-balancing your pulse and volume and phraseology to support the leading line, etc. You should be fully immersed in the experience when you are playing in an orchestra, and experiencing the joys and frustrations of playing with other musicians! You should understand the web of music you are helping create: the linear vitality of your own part, fitting into the vertical harmonic score of a larger ensemble.

In any orchestra:

You must play with the orchestra. Your pulse should be determined externally (by the conductor, the bass section, the timpani, or by the solo line you are accompanying, for example) but your rhythm must be meticulous within that pulse. Practice being a great orchestral colleague and section player by practicing grooving with your metronome. The difference between struggling to be with your metronome and being with your metronome is the difference between thinking about being flexible and available to support your colleagues and supporting your colleagues, being flexible for the conductor. Your colleagues will thank you and your conductor will give you tenure if you are available to offer great musicianship within someone else’s musical concept. Hopefully, you will also find it very satisfying.

You must be a good stand partner. You must bring a pencil every time you go on stage. You must use earplugs appropriately, not stopping to put them in or take them out while the section is playing. You must have alert posture (this will also help with injury-avoidance) so your colleagues infer that you have respect for the mutual project of rehearsing and performing together. You must not turn around to look at people behind you unless you are passing back a message, and you must pass back messages clearly and politely. You must take the space you need to perform at the highest level, while you allow your colleagues the space they need to perform at their highest level (this sometimes involves gracious compromise). You must try to blend with your section. You must not lead from the middle or back, or as an extra player. (If you think there is a dearth of leadership you must surrender to your role in the section!) You must know your part and how it fits into the whole. You must not rely on your stand partner to listen, write, translate, play so you don’t have to. You must turn pages appropriately, no matter who you are sitting with, and you must allow for a small amount of flexibility (and memorization) for a page-turning stand partner who has to make a choice about when exactly to turn the page. You must be polite when you ask your stand partner to turn the page a little differently. You must never ask your stand partner to play differently, which can be frustrating, surprising, and even chronically enraging. Find a way to solve as many community problems as you can without involving someone else accommodating your needs. You must warm up at a reasonable volume (usually this means NOT TOO LOUDLY) and if you have a colleague who warms up too loudly, consider wearing earplugs instead of asking them to tone it down. You must use reasonable grooming: bathe, wear deodorant, do not wear ANY PERFUME, keep your clothes clean, brush your teeth, bring the accoutrements you need not to sneeze on people or cough on them and prepare them so they are not disruptive to open, access, use.

In the viola section:

As the principal, or in other leadership positions:

The principles of section playing apply to the leaders of the viola section insofar as the viola section needs to be led to support other sections of the string family. The principal viola brings the section along with the concertmaster and the conductor, fitting into the bass section, too.

How to be a substitute violist: