Instrumental slzills learnt through quartet rehearsal, dress rehearsal and show.

In our Amazing Grace quartet that was made up of two keyboards, a clarinet and
a bass clarinet, I learnt to co-operate with the other three performers without
talking to any of them whilst playing.

First Mrs Lythell chose the piece that we were going to play. Since it was
Christmas we looked at Christmas pieces that were suitable. In the end we
chose Amazirtg Grace. Copies of the sheet music were then handed out so we
could see the music. Amazing Grace has three parts to it: Choir, Pan Flute and
Strings. I had the part of Choir which was the chords. I played this on the
Keyboard. Rebecca had the part of the Pan Flute, which was the main tune.
Rebecca played this using her Clarinet. Aimee played the melodic bass using the
Keyboard as weu.

Once we looked at our parts we then started to practise individually in the class
room and at home. Once we were fairly confident with our parts we then played
them to each other. After this we began to put them together starting with the
Keyboards. Aimee and I practised together whilst Rebecca was practising with
her clarinet. After me and Aimee were confident we then put all the parts
together. We then made individual corrections like timing. Next me and Aimee
chose our Keyboard sounds that suited our parts. I picked a choir sound called
Voice Ooh. Aimee and I picked Strings 2. Next we set our volume to the same
dynamics allowing Rebecca to be heard over the top of our Keyboards. Second
we practised the change of our dynamics in the piece.
My job in the piece was to set a beat that fitted Amazing Grace's three beats in a
bar rule. In the end I chose the Waltz beat. Rebecca then practised her
individual piece with this beat. The beat allowed us to keep in time and mark
que's of when to come in.

We decided to start with Rebecca playing one verse with the backing Waltz
beat that I controued. She would then stop the beat would stop with her and
then we would join in. We would play one verse and then Mrs Lytheu would
join in with her Bass Clarinet. We would then play one verse together and then
we would stop. To mark the end we would perform a Rallentando which means
to slow down gradually. This was led by Aimee. We decided to make it three
verses to ensure we had a long enough performance. This is because Amazirtg
Grace has very short verses.

Next we positioned ourselves in suitable places so that everyone could see us.
The placement we chose is the two Keyboards at the front facing outwards
mirroring each other and the two woodwind instmments in the middle behind
the Keyboards. Since I played the chords the Bass Clarinet had to sit next to me
because we both had similar parts to play. Because Aimee played the melodic
bass Rebecca sat next to her because they both played in the melody.

Once we had found our positioning we played it through three times in Situ just
to make sure we were playing it right and to f'm any final improvements.

When the day of the concert came we moved our instruments on and off stage
to practise taking and putting on the instruments before we performed. We
then looked at the technical side of it. We had to get extension leads for our
Keyboards and tables for stands. When we perfected this and sorted out the
technical side we practised our piece on stage to get a feel of what it would be
like.

When it came time to perform we did everything we did in our run-throughs.

When we finished our beautifiil piece we had to bow to show respect for the
audience.

Evaluation:

?.?n the future I am going to work on controlling my dynamics in order to

make it even more effective than it was by using a touch sensitive Keyboard
because I can then control my dynamics without having to take me hands of the
keyboard.

W'WW: I think that we were good at keeping in time and communicating with
each other. And I can start to practise with a metronome and I can increase the
speed when rm confident.

Cody Miller 1 0H2

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