Starting Together

[Nancy Edwards]

I’m part of a duo, me on harp and cello and my music partner on cello and guitar. We’re new to playing together, and my partner comes from a contemporary music background and she’s used to counting in to start playing. What are some tips and ideas on how we can start playing a piece together at the same time? We always kind of hesitate when we’re starting, and we need to work on a smoother start. Thanks for any ideas.

[charles-nix]

My ensemble partner and I use a head nod up, then down on the downbeat. If you have rehearsed, you’ll know what tempo to expect. We let whomever is playing the melody give the nod.

[Nancy Edwards]

Thank you for this idea, Charles. We’ll try it.

[harpist123]

I play the harp, and my friend plays nyckelharpa. We change out who plays an intro and it’s always easy for the other guy to know where to start. Just something simple is all it takes. The song is always lovely, and we don’t even have to look at each other or do the nod thing 🙂

[wil-weten]

Maybe you’re interested in learning some more information about playing (and especially rehearsing) together. There’s a new free course on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/music-ensembles I love it. It’s meant for people leading music ensembles, but it provides interesting information for me about how to tackle pieces of music and playing together with other instruments.

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