Maybe my most common request in rehearsals – aside from “fix the wrong notes” – is “MORE ENERGY!”
Or as an insightful student said last night, “More focused energy – we have energy but it isn’t going anywhere.”
Of course it’s hard – we have long days, we have a million things on our mind, and we want to protect ourselves. But it’s my belief that we’ll be equally tired at the end of the rehearsal whether we give focused energy or not, so why not deliver a musical product to be proud of?
So, yes, more energy. It’s our way of putting into the music as much as we can to make it come alive. We owe it to the composer who has gotten the music to us.