Band & Orchestra Etiquette

At some point, you may decide to move on to a community band or orchestra. 

Before you join one of those groups, you should know what they expect in terms of etiquette.

Preparation

Before the first rehearsal:

• If you are given a group manual, read it – every word
• If you are given the music, practice it and have it pretty well learned 
• Practice at many different tempos so you can match the conductor
• Find soundfiles for each piece
• Listen to soundfiles to understand the style and details

Note that we provide soundfiles for you to use but they likely won’t.  You will need to find your own.

Rehearsal Etiquette

• Be quiet in rehearsals & concerts and don’t talk unless necessary (obviously!)
• Mark your parts in pencil so that they can be erased
• Mark everything you need to mark so you make as few mistakes as possible 
• Mark what the conductor changes, adds, or emphasizes
• Always have all of your music and a pencil with you (there are generally no extra parts)

Attendance

Always let your conductor or your section leader know if you won’t be at a rehearsal.

If you are on time, you are late

(you have heard us say this many times!)

Arrive early enough to get ready, chat a bit and have a good warm up. 

Now obviously, you can’t ALWAYS do that, but as much as possible try to be at least 15 minutes earlier than when rehearsal or concert warm up begins. For us that means showing up by 6:25. Earlier is better.

Attendance Policy

In most groups, you are there to help the performance happen.

You don’t miss more than two rehearsals, and you DO NOT miss the concert! 

(Our group is here so that you can have a place to have fun with music and the concerts are almost beside the point in some ways, so it isn’t crucial to be at all rehearsals, or even the concert. We are purposely more relaxed!)

Concert Dress

Concert dress means concert dress. 

Don’t ever wear a beige shirt instead of white, or blue pants instead of black, or any other “close enough” type substitution. Dress shoes are assumed. 

Ladies, if you are wearing a skirt, it should come down well over your knees – you are up higher than the audience and the view from those seats is great! Floor length skirts are usually suggested.