Full run-throughs and what they teach us
Okay, so this is the lesson where we stop working on pieces and start working on the piece, start to finish, no stopping. And I need to tell you up front, this is going to feel worse before it feels better.
Here's the thing though. Everything we've done up to now, the entrances, the cutoffs, the breath spots, the diction, we've done it in chunks. Four bars here. A tricky measure there. Small pieces, repeated more than seems reasonable, because repetition is honest and it works. That's the right way to learn something.
It is not the right way to find out if you actually have it.
A full run-through is the only place that tells you the truth. You sing the whole thing, front to back, no stopping for mistakes, and you find out where the piece falls apart when nobody's there to catch it. Not because you don't know the notes. Because you don't know them under pressure, at tempo, with forty other things happening around you.
What a run-through actually teaches you
A few things happen the first time through that never show up in small-section work:
You find out where you were relying on someone else. Maybe you've had that alto entrance down cold for three weeks, in isolation. Then you run the whole piece and it turns out you were following the piano the whole time, and today the piano skipped a beat because the accompanist turned a page late, and now you're lost. That's not a piano problem. That's information about you. Good information. Better to get it now than at the concert.
You find out where your stamina runs out. Singing eight bars perfectly is not the same skill as singing eight bars perfectly after already singing forty bars before it. Your breath support, your vowel shape, your pitch, they all get a little sloppier as you tire, and a run-through is the only rehearsal tool that exposes that.
You find out where the piece actually lives at tempo. Some passages that feel impossible at half-speed smooth right out once you're moving at the real tempo, because the rhythm carries you. Other passages that felt fine slow suddenly fall apart, because you didn't have enough air budgeted for the phrase. You can't know which is which until you run it.
How to do this at home, by yourself
You don't need a choir to practice a run-through. You need a recording of the piece, or a decent piano app, and a willingness to not stop.
- Pick a time when you won't be interrupted. Ten uninterrupted minutes is worth more here than thirty minutes with your kid walking in twice.
- Set a starting pitch and go. Don't warm up into it for five minutes first. Get close to how it'll actually feel on performance day, which is: you sing, cold-ish, and you go.
- Do not stop for mistakes. This is the hard part and it's the whole point. If you flub a note, keep going. Mark it in your head, or literally circle it on the page after, but don't fix it mid-run. Fixing mid-run teaches you nothing about the actual piece. It just teaches you to stop, which is the opposite of what a concert asks of you.
- After you finish, THEN go back and work the two or three spots that fell apart. Small chunks, like always. But now you know exactly which chunks matter, because the run-through told you.
I'll say the opinion plainly, since it fits here: a wrong note sung confidently is easier to fix than a right note sung scared. A run-through where you commit through your mistakes and keep moving is doing its job. A run-through where you go quiet and tentative the second you're unsure isn't a run-through, it's just nervous mumbling with good posture.
A word about your metronome
If you're running a piece with a click track or a metronome at home, here's a confession. I bought a used metronome on a DI run a while back for a dollar fifty, and it runs about six beats per minute fast. I know this. I use it anyway and just mentally subtract six from whatever I set it to. Cheap metronomes drift, old ones especially, and honestly most phone metronome apps are more trustworthy than the analog ones from the thrift store bin. Check yours against something else once in a while. If your run-throughs keep feeling rushed and you can't figure out why, that's worth a look before you blame yourself for it.
In the room
When we do this as a group, I'm going to ask you to sing through mistakes the same way. If you go blank on a word or lose the pitch, hum, la, whatever gets you through to the next spot you know. Don't stop and don't apologize out loud, save that for after. The choir next to you needs you to keep moving more than it needs you to be quietly correct.
I'll be counting us in with my voice, not my arm, same as always. My downbeat's still mushy. We'll live.
Before next time
Run the whole piece once at home, start to finish, no stopping, even when it goes sideways. Circle the two spots that fell apart and just notice them. We'll work those spots together next time, now that you know where they are.