The Cellist’s Journey #6 Life with an Orchestra

May 8

I'm going to skip ahead a little bit today, and talk about what you can expect if you want to join an orchestra.

Even smaller towns may have their own local amateur symphony orchestra, or string orchestra. And if you don't have that where you live, there are plenty of different orchestra courses happening one or more times a year in a lot of different places in this so-called Western world.

And besides that,

I'll mention that when I was younger I really enjoyed playing along to recordings of orchestral music. It's hard to know when to start playing when you can't see the conductor of course, but apart from that it went pretty well.

Playing in an orchestra is simply amazing.

A good number of people getting together in one room to exchange sound waves with each other. No need to talk, just get lost in the harmonies, the rhythms, the different voices you hear all around you, the bass carrying it all, melodies being brought back into life from the sheet music that might have been written 400 years ago.

It's like a sonic exhibition. It's only happening in that moment and will never happen just like that ever again. There are no screens, no internet, no ads, no pop-up windows, and not much language to deal with except from terms in the sheet music, and depending on how talkative the conductor is.

When you have been practising the cello for some time and you're curious about how you'd fit in in your local orchestra, I'd recommend you get in touch with one of the cellists there and ask to see the cello parts for the current project. Ideally take a photocopy of them so that you can sit at home and see how challenging they are for you, and take them to your teacher and ask for a guided tour.

Maybe you can join the orchestra for the easiest pieces and skip the harder ones?

What you'll need to know before joining, is

how to tune your cello,
how to read sheet music, possibly in the tenor and treble clefs as well as the bass clef,
and you'll need to get acquainted with some of the most common words that describe moods in the music, and techniques on the cello.

Many of these words are common in cello playing in general, and you'll recognize words such as pizzicato and arco, as well as repetition signs and dynamic symbols. But it might be in the orchestra that you first come across con sordino, the fermata sign, or words such as divisi, solo and tutti, to name only a few. The words will often be Italian, they are sometimes in German, sometimes in French, and sometimes in English.

Aside from the terms and symbols in the sheet music, there are some good habits to have as well.

Arrive at the venue ahead of time, so that your cello can acclimatize and you have time to get seated by the time the rehearsal starts.
It's respectful to not play more than the necessary warm-up before the start of the rehearsal. It can be tiring for the brain to hear 20 different tunes being played simultaneously. Most people can't help themselves and they play anyway though.
Always have a pencil on your stand, so that you can write in an instruction from the conductor, or a different bowing from the cello section leader.
I'd recommend you use ear plugs if you can afford the type that is made specifically for musicians. Wind instruments and violins can be hard work on the ear.
When tuning your cello, play as quietly as possible so that everyone can hear themselves. In the orchestra everyone tunes at the same time, you know that familiar sound at the start of a concert you're attending where there's an A being played by the oboe in a symphony orchestra, or a violin in a string orchestra, and then you hear the clash of 5ths and 4ths and woodwind arpeggios.

I loved orchestra so much in my teens, that I recorded this particular sound of everyone tuning together and had it as my mobile phone ringtone for a while.

One trick here as cellists, if you tilt your head to the left so that the tuning peg of the c-string is on your ear, you hear your own cello very well and you can tune quietly.

When we are playing in an orchestra or together with others in general, the most important thing is the rhythm.

We can get obsessed with playing the right tones and in tune, but imagine if everyone on the orchestra had to wait for everyone else to adjust their intonation before moving on to the next beat in the bar… it wouldn't work.

So this is something that you can practice already now at home with the piece you're currently playing, however easy it is. Decide to at least once every practice session play from beginning to end without stopping. Keep your metronome going, and if you stop playing for any reason, just get back in as soon as you can.

It's a challenging exercise, cause we want to correct our mistakes as soon as possible, and going back to the beginning to start again will make us feel that we don't accept mistakes.

However, when playing together with others, the mistake is to not continue. Rather, we have to accept and move on in a split second.

Another thing you can do that will prepare you for orchestra playing is to play your current piece from memory.

Why am I saying that? Surely it's not the norm to play from memory in the orchestra?

No, but when playing with others, you want to know the music so well that you can focus on things in addition to the actual notes.

If you learn the piece you're currently playing from memory, you can play the piece while listening to the sounds you're making, feel your body and your breathing, be extra aware of what your bow arm is doing, be extra aware of how your left hand is feeling, listen to the direction in the music, and so on.

In the orchestra, you need to focus on how you are playing in regard to the rest of the cello section, you listen for the voices in the orchestra that you are accompanying, you're watching the conductor for changes in tempos, moods, and dynamics, and so on.

You can keep these things in mind the next time you play a duo with your teacher.

I hope you found some of this helpful.

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