Big Ears

More Thoughts and Answers

by Gabe Globus-Hoenich on 02.16.09

-How has the residency related to your outside work? Has it reinforced parts of it? Does it hint at any new directions?

The residency relates directly to my outside work.  First of all, Patty and I play in a percussion quartet with two of our dear friends.  Playing with two other percussionists at the residency feels very comfortable for me.  However, I haven’t for a long time played percussion with a drum set player. With a drummer, we all tend to default to him for the time, as opposed to in a percussion group where we all share the time.   Ideally we should be sharing the time no matter if there is a drummer or not, but when push comes to shove, we follow the drums.   It is very refreshing to experience once more the support of a drummer other than myself.

In our percussion quartet, when we are dealing with complex compositions, we often have to create specific and precise cues throughout the piece.  This is one of the most fun parts in my opinion.  Usually, we’ll have a few rehearsals where all we do is sing through the music and figure out who needs what cue where.  It is crucial for us to know what each other is playing at any given moment.  More importantly, having an intricate web of cues adds a new dimension of material to learn, creating new challenges to master.   I felt very familiar and practiced with the cuing work we did with John because of the hundreds of times I have had to practice cuing during rehearsal and performance.  One thing we didn’t talk about was how the reception of a cue is just as vital as the sending of one.  Everyone’s cue is going to be slightly different and we have to memorize where the cue actually lands.  The same is true with conductors.  One conductor’s beat may be at his belt buckle (or lower…) while another’s might be at his chest.  Those are important details to learn in a chamber music or conducted situation.

I think the residency is going to help Patty and I take our percussion group to a new level.  John’s approach of practicing simple exercises as a large group was especially inspiring.  I think that our percussion quartet could benefit from daily group warmup’s of anywhere from 10 min-40 min doing things like quarter note warmups or subdivision work.  Also, long tones as a group would be very nice, especially if we want to really learn some new sound combinations with different instruments. I think a group should practice the way one practices their instrument: every day with a clear structure.  We should not just be learning repertoire but practicing group skill sets.

I hope there are many more applicable group skills to be learned in the next session!

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