Throughout this semester in koto class, we have been practicing our piece Hikaru Umi for a couple months leading up to the spring concert, which was yesterday. After performing our piece, we were asked to reflect.
Firstly, I think I prepared myself enough for the concert. Due to not being available to practice during times as a whole ensemble outside of class, I made an effort to practice quite a lot at home. However, I should have practiced earlier because I didn’t memorize the entire song until about a week prior to the concert, and I should have made an effort to memorize it sooner. Also, I could have started focusing on the piece at home from the beginning, starting from two months prior to the concert, because I have realized over time how I can pay better attention to my own improvement with pieces instead of as a group during class.
There were many techniques and musical elements we had to remember to incorporate in Hikaru Umi as we were playing the piece. The presses were abundant, as were other sectioned techniques such as the ‘tsuruten’. Also, there were dynamics we used to make the piece sound more engaging and melodramatic, such as crescendo, ritardando and accents. Personally I feel as though I practiced enough at home with these, although during the final performance, as a group we didn’t sound wholly put together with the dynamics. The presses were a challenge for most of us as they were rife throughout the song. In order to practice these, I had to pay attention to and memorize the sounds I was playing with the presses. Lastly, another challenge we had was keeping together with the tempo. This is usually a very common challenge within our group and as an ensemble, I feel that we should improve on listening and slowing down for one another.
As for the presentation of our piece, I was quite nervous in the beginning and this could have weakened my presentation a bit. However, during the performance, I started paying more attention to the piece and to the group around me and I was able to calm my nerves.
If I were to give myself a score out of 10, I would give myself something around a 7 or an 8. As I mentioned, I tried to get my techniques to sound right. However, some of my presses were occasionally either flat or sharp. Also, as I mentioned, I should have started memorizing the piece earlier, but thankfully, I didn’t too many major mistakes during the concert. It would have been better if I had listened more closely to my peers as a group. Because of the tempo issue, it was sometimes difficult to keep up.
As a group, I think that we learned the importance of listening to each other. Furthermore, I hope we learned as an ensemble that practice at home is significant because we can to individually improve, and this can help us when rehearsing as a whole because everyone can practice at the same pace during class. I think I personally learned the significance of this as well, as I was rehearsing at home.
In conclusion, I feel that this performance might have been better than our last, but I still think we should listen to one another more and be together as an ensemble. It was nonetheless an exciting, nerve-racking experience as much as our other koto performances throughout the years.