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Rehearsal Notes, Area 1 High School Ring-Out 2014
Wachusett Regional High School, Holden, Massachusetts
November 8, 2014
Krishna Ersson
Introduction
Greetings directors and ringers! Below you will find rehearsal notes for the three massed ringing pieces at this year’s Area 1 HSRO. Some notes are more specific while others remind you to focus on techniques that will make our performance more interesting and musical. Remember that the goal of any performance is to engage and captivate our audience. The most useful advice I can give for achieving this goal is: exaggerate everything and watch and listen! So to make the most of our time together, you must come prepared. The less time we spend learning notes is more time we can spend learning how to make music. With all that in mind, please bring pencils, erasers, open eyes and ears, an eager spirit, and an expectation of a fun day of intense music-making!
Gloria Hodie
This piece sets the mood for the entire concert. Keep it mysterious and energetic! We’ll really play with phrasing and tempo in this piece to make it really engaging, so be ready to mark up your music!
· M1: mallet roll starts pp and slowly cresc. to mf.
· M4: add rit. through M5.
· M10-13, M14-17: shape each four-bar phrase of the melody up and down in dynamic level.
· M22-23, M26-27: cresc. all shakes through to the rung chord.
· M48: suddenly slower and much softer!
· M74-75: we will accel. to faster than 120; target tempo will be around 130-140!
· M84-85: add accent on beat 4 of each measure. We will experiment with the length of the shake.
· M90: fully damp all bells on beat 3 with the RT and mart.
· M93: add sub. mp with a cresc. to M94.
· M94: immediately start random ringing; I will cue the D pitched bells.
Shenandoah
We will be as expressive as we can with this piece. Be ready to exaggerate dynamics and rubato throughout!
· M8: don’t rush the sixteenth note into the dotted-eighth; G6 don’t be early! Start mentally subdividing on beat 3 and 4 of the previous measure if needed.
· M36: circle the rit. and add a decresc. to beat 3.
· M37-39: really know/memorize your notes here as you’ll need to watch for tempo and dynamic changes.
· M39: add and circle a molto rit. e cresc. on beats 3 and 4.
· M40: circle the a tempo and f.
Antiphon
The grand finale! We will really push the tempo here so we’re as close to dotted half = 56 as possible; that means quarter = 168! Lots of energy!!
· For now, learn all written notes and markings. So if you have the 3-5 octave version, play all notes including the ones in the brackets. Depending on the instrumentation we end up with, certain choirs may omit certain sections to achieve the antiphonal effect.
· In general, the toughest part of this piece will be exaggerating the dynamics (especially the soft parts) as we push the tempo. Remember: you don’t have to be loud to be energetic!
· All shakes should have continuous circular motion. For example, at M87 the GA67 ringer should keep his or her arms in motion with large, beautiful circles while shaking.
· M87-100: for the GA67 shakes, this is one long, continuous 14-measure-long shake. All other shakes in this piece are not tied across measures, so leave a short “breath” between each chord so you can restrike the next chord.
· M129-130: write in molto rit. e cresc.
· M131-132: strike the chord in M131 at ff and immediately lower all bells close to the table, then start the shake at pp and, while raising the bells back into the air, cresc. to ff finally striking the last chord in M132.
