Inspiring quote, but it doesn't mean standing out is always the way to go, especially when it comes to blending your sound into ensembles.
Most musicians know that if you play an instrument in any type of ensemble is to make it as if the ensemble is just a couple, or maybe even one instrument playing. This is what I call blending in (refer to the quote). Being able to achieve this can turn out to be quite a struggle for musicians. I struggle with blending in all the time!
The reason decided to make this blog post was because I have been thinking about a solution to this common struggle for quite a while. Then, all these ideas came to me! Just like that! I had to write them down before I forgot them! These ideas help me, but let me remind you, I have quite a crazy mind when it comes to giving advice!
1. Observe: Of course this is what the majority of the musician do when the recieve any new peice of music. However, if you struggle with blending in, then you are probably just staring at the notes. Not to get you wrong, you're doing the right thing if you are looking at the notes before having to sight-read a new peice! However, you are missing other important parts of the peice that make it an ensemble peice! For example, the dynamics of a peice! If you play a note with a forte dynamic while the peice says to play with a piano dynamic, this is when standing out isn't cool! I have seen this happen all the time, it happens to me!
There is a reason that the composer that wrote your ensemble music placed that certain dynamic in that certain measure! It is our job as musicians to express the feelings that the composer was feeling while writing that peice of music! It is our job as musicians to learn to express those feelings that the composer was feeling to an audience! If the peice tells you to play forte, maybe the composer was feeling angry! However, if you play the indicated forte dynamic as piano, then you are not doing a good job at expressing the composer's feelings that were felt in the work!
Also, don't just observe what is going on in the sheet music, observe what the players of a higher chair are doing! Notice what the principal player is doing, or maybe what the concertmaster is doing! For if you blend in, everyone will follow suit, and now everyone sounds as one!
2. Ask for Help: The more you ask for help, the better a musician you will become! There is a reason you take private lessons! When it comes to blending into an ensemble, some people are afraid to ask for help because they are afraid that they are asking a stupid question! There are no such things as stupid questions! Ask away, because no one is judging you, for they know you are trying to fix up your mistakes to makes a classical work transform into solid perfection! Good questions to ask would be:
"What dynamic are you playing this part in?"
or
"How fast are you playing this part?"
3. Listen to others: Listen to music made by renown ensembles. Watch some quartet performances on Youtube! Buy some classical music off of Itunes! Buy some cd recordings of ensembles! Observe how their parts all seem to blend into one! You will learn from this to become a better player in an ensemble by becoming inspired by these musicians!
(Whoa! I've never seen a viola like that before!)
Not only that, if you have friends that play in ensembles, ask when their next concert is so you can go watch them play! Last week, I went to go watch my friend play for her ensembles, and I loved the way they took blending in very seriously; the ensemble(s) sounded great! Just watching my friend play drives me to become a better musician!
I hope my advice helped! Wow, pretty good first serious blog post!
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