It has been a great experience playing with Xpose in our most recent performance - 5th Sept at the Esplanade Recital Studio. I feel I've gained a new perspective of playing in such a ensemble.
To be honest, if you'd asked me 2 months ago, I would've told you that playing in Xpose was merely a watered-down experience compared to playing in Guitaresque. On one hand, I have Prime 2 (which is my current allocation in the Niibori ensemble) scores punctuated with single notes and lots of rest bars; and on the other, I am facing scores like Francis Kleyjans' Los Quatro Elementos or even the Nutcracker suite arrangement by LAGQ which tend to be littered with technically challenging chords, mazy runs and complex rhythms.
But after going through the last 2 months of rehearsals and the performance itself, I have to admit - it takes very different skills to be playing in either group.
In Guitaresque, the emphasis is clearly on individual technique and good understanding of the other 3 players' temperaments and strengths. The onus is usually on each player to do his homework, so that when we play together as a quartet, all we need to do it to put the 4 parts together. Understanding of one anothers' playing style is important, as often we instinctively know when the melody line player is going to inject his brand of expression into the music; or when the usual suspect(s) is going to give that speed-boost at the odd places. Navigating difficult passages (e.g. music which require a lot of coordinating runs, pauses, changes in tempos, etc.) require us to make eye-contact and the usual nods come in handy too. But the bottom-line remains: we play our own bit well, and we have trust in the other 3 players to do their part.
However, in a mini-ensemble like Xpose, it isn't always easy to do the same. And that's why the conductor is so important. He has to put all the different parts together to weave a complete picture - which is now made up of not 4 parts, but maybe 10 or more different parts (including percussions)! From a player's point of view, it isn't easy to always look-up a the conductor, and this spells disaster at times - especially when guitarists are struggling to hear one another amidst the powerful percussion instruments banging in the background. The other challenge is that it can be frustrating to hear 2 (or 3) "versions" of the music played on your left/right - esp. when neither seem to be following the conductor.
I admit I sometimes rush passages too, but all too often there's that niggling feeling that the whole ensemble is 'falling part' (in terms of the music we are interpreting), and I feel powerless to stop it. Whereas in a quartet, anyone of us can easily stop the playing and declared, "let's do it again, I think this part so-and-so are out with the rest of us"; doing so in an ensemble (to me) is a disrespect to the conductor. Furthermore, in a big setup it is often difficult to pin-point a particular section or player who is actually causing the problem. And because the bond between a group of 20 can never match the closeness and level of understanding that can be reached between a group of 4, oftentimes criticisms are not taken very well and sometimes feel like a finger-pointing exercise.
Regardless, it has been enlightening to perform with a group of guitarists and a great learning experience. Personally, I am certainly more inclined toward the quartet setup, but at the same time I am glad to have an opportunity to immerse myself in a larger setup as this allows for developing a different set of musician skills altogether.
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