Yesterday, we had a rehearsal with my performer for the upcoming concert next week! My performer, Wendy, has been practicing on my piece for the whole week. Yesterday's rehearsal was to revise my score and fix the stuff that wasn't clear for her. When I sent my piece last week, I thought everything was okay because I spent a whole day clarifying the things on my score by putting necessary tempo, dynamic and articulation marks on it. Apparently, I didn't do a great job because we spent half of the rehearsal time fixing my incomplete and misleading indications 😅 Wendy was very sweet and understanding though. She made me feel comfortable about my mistakes.
Finishing fixing score, Wendy moved on to playing my piece. To be honest, I was very excited and nervous at the same time before hearing my piece played by a real instrument for the first time. I only got to hear it from my virtual string sample libraries, which don't give you a great idea about how the piece would sound with a real string instrument. So, when Wendy started playing, I was quite surprised by how the difference was huge between what I imagined and the reality. I don't mean to say that the real one was worse though, it was just different. Also, the natural playing of a human was adding much more soul to it. The only thing I was not satisfied with the piece was its tempo. I planned it to be a slightly fast piece, however, it was difficult to play it correctly with my indicated tempo. So, Wendy was inevitably playing it slower. I mean, because it was my first time composing for a solo string instrument, I had difficulty making it playable. I tried my best to calculate what the best positions and stops would be for convenient playing, however, it was still quite hard to imagine them without having any experience with the instrument.
Wendy said that it was not impossible to play, though. She said she just needed more time to make it perfect. It was not a piece that you would be able to play at the first try, which is understandable. Still, I'm really looking forward to hearing it at the premiere next week at the concert. I'm sure the final recording will sound much better 😊