Lost in (Rehearsal) Space

Mats Holmquist has published The General Method, A New Method For a Tighter Big Band,  a book that's a must-read for anyone who plays in a big band. Far more than anything I could ever accomplish as an amateur, Holmquist uses his years of directorial experience to dissect all the errors that plague big bands, keeping them from sounding their best. In subsequent posts, I'm going to delve into some specific areas of The General Method and offer my own responses. 

Danger, Will Robinson! Bad rehearsal space!

The subject of the present post, however, revolves around something that isn't included in the book, but which is nonetheless critical for the band's well being. 

Everything in The General Method is for naught unless the band has a proper rehearsal space. To illustrate this point, here's a story about three bands that I play in semi-regularly. It's something of a natural experiment showing the impact of rehearsal space on a band's performance. 

Here's a description of each band's playing space:

• Band 'A' plays in a noisy, crowded restaurant.
• Band 'B' alternates between the banquet room of a not so noisy/crowded restaurant and a small auditorium inside a senior living facility. 
• Band 'C' plays in the downstairs meeting area of a church.

And here's my evaluation on how well they play as an ensemble:

• Band 'A' is stuck on the 'OK Plateau'. Their book is interesting but not challenging (nothing wrong with that). There's very little attention paid to phrasing, articulation, dynamics, and general music-making. They're playing the notes and not much else. 
• Band 'B' has a more varied and challenging book. Although they're usually aware of phrasing, articulation, dynamics, etc. but they aren't consistent about it. They also miss opportunities to apply knowledge gained in one chart to others. Their playing gets worse at the restaurant and better at the senior living facility.
• Band 'C' attempts some pretty difficult charts and usually does a decent job of making actual music from the notes. They also do this despite not playing as often as Bands 'A' and 'B'. 

The band's choice of playing space has two major effects:

1. You can't rehearse when you're in front of people who have to pay to be there (ex. restaurants). Like it or not, those people are an audience, and the band is performing, not rehearsing. Without rehearsal, mistakes become entrained and bad habits are reinforced. Quality inevitably declines. 
2. The insidious Matthew Effect works over a longer time period. Because of the first effect (above), bands with better rehearsal space tend to play better. This in turn attracts better musicians, which further improves that band. Vice versa for the bands with bad rehearsal spaces. 

In short, if the band doesn't have a good rehearsal space, they eventually reach the 'OK Plateau', where mediocrity rules the roost and music goes to die. If they have a good rehearsal space, there's the opportunity to work and improve. Taking full advantage of that opportunity is something else altogether, and I'll address how that can be done in future posts.