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Mozart Piano Concerto Senior Project Reflection

Henry Wu

The best experience was playing my part in the second rehearsal, after most of the issues
in the first rehearsal were fixed. I recorded the rehearsal with a high resolution camcorder and
the rehearsal went smoothly, with only a few issues here and there. I got to play with strings and
woodwinds from other groups in the Santa Susana Instrumental Music department. The worst
experience was the first rehearsal. Many people who promised to volunteer and participate in my
piano concerto could not show up because the original date was cancelled due to Mr. Theisens
absence on that day, and most of them were not prepared for a sudden rescheduling of the first
rehearsal. Only strings showed up, and there were not that many participants at that rehearsal. I
forgot to bring my music, so I tried my best to memorize as much and play where I come in, but
I needed help from Mr. Theisen to keep track of my part that rehearsal. The volunteers had not
practiced much, so their playing was unrefined and unprepared. After the rehearsal, though, we
knew what to do to make the second rehearsal go along much better.
I learned along the way that scheduling and hosting rehearsals is difficult and requires a
lot of planning beforehand, because a music teachers schedule is usually filled up with all sorts
of rehearsals and performances for other groups or events. I learned how to balance my senior
project rehearsals with performances in music festivals and rehearsals for school concerts as well
as school concerts. I communicated with Mr. Theisen to make sure that we and the rest of the
department is ok with the rehearsal schedule and that there are no conflicts with other events or
meetings. Through playing music I can express myself, and playing the Mozart piano concerto
expresses my love of harmony and order, for the music is peaceful and for the most part
structured and orderly. This is reflected in the other parts of the concerto, such as the
woodwinds, brass, and strings. I demonstrate my ability to cooperate with other people and my
ability to organize my priorities and other people in events and meetings. Through my use of
video recording and my phone to take images of my music, I demonstrate my aptitude for
technology and ability to edit and publish videos.
I saw that organizing a piano concerto and getting everyone ready for the day of the
performance is tough but manageable if you begin early enough. I had to consider when Mr.
Theisen would be able to conduct my rehearsals, and when the volunteers would be able to
attend the rehearsal and practice with me. I was not surprised with the complexity of my topic
once I began my research and fieldwork project because I know that there is a lot of work behind
the scenes to plan the date of a performance and make sure all of the preparations are done to
ensure its success. I have been in many performances, and usually everything runs fairly
smoothly, though every once in a while there are some issues that need to be dealt with on the
spot, and slow down or compromise the performance. Conceptually, it was not difficult to figure
out the steps required, but actually recruiting volunteers and organizing a schedule for my senior
project was more difficult. Once I got a good group of volunteers and a schedule for everyone to
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follow, however, the process became a lot smoother and important things such as rehearsals were
done without much extra difficulty or hassle. I see the students that joined my rehearsals for the
performance and Mr. Theisen as people who really care about me and my ideas and who want to
help my ideas flourish. I am really grateful to them for allowing me to continue with my senior
project and get it to completion on the Spring Concert sometime in May. I learned that there are
many steps to having a successful performance, from getting dates sorted out to prevent
conflicts, to rehearsing and practicing the songs with the entire group to ensure that everyone is
ready and playing at the best of their ability, to the maintenance and crew needed to keep the
concert running smoothly and minimize problems that spontaneously arise at the site, usually a
performing arts center. I understood that performing a concerto takes patience, willingness to set
aside differences and work together with other people, and the determination to keep going even
when things get really tough.
The most challenging part of my senior project was finding music for a piano concerto. I
had gone through multiple piano concertos, such as Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major,
K. 467, and looked at score writing the music in programs such as Sibelius and MuseScore, but
the process turned out to be very slow, time consuming, and frustrating. Since there was no
easily available music for that concerto, I looked through other concertos until I got to Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459. The first movement in particular was somewhat long,
challenging yet not too difficult for everyone. Luckily, there were copies of all of the parts at
Moorpark College, and they were willing to let Mr. Theisen borrow it, so we could make copies
of each part and distribute it to the volunteers and give each one of them the correct part for their
instrument. It was a long and uncertain period of trial and error, but I eventually found a song
that would work for everybody and still demonstrate my high level of skill in piano. The
volunteers were enthusiastic about the song and really tried to practice their parts so they could
play it at a professional level at the performance with me. I never gave up searching for a song
that would work, even though I was worried that there would be no good classical concerto that
would be at a level low enough for everyone to handle yet not be too simple for me, and that
there would be parts available for all of the instruments in a concerto that met the previous
criteria.
Through working on my senior project I saw that big projects such as the Mozart piano
concerto can be daunting at first, but with careful planning and organization ahead of time, the
entire process can be broken down in smaller, more manageable parts. I broke down the senior
project into different sections: finding the music that will work for me and everyone else, finding
the parts for it, distributing the parts and getting the piano part for myself, setting a schedule for
rehearsal and performance dates, working on the digital senior project portfolio hosted on a
website, and practicing my part and putting in enough hours to ensure success of my senior
project. I try to be more compassionate and understanding of people and their needs and wants,
and working on my senior project changed the way I manage and lead other people. I know that I
should be patient and try to take into account as much as possible other peoples schedules and
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priorities, but I should inspire people to work on their parts of my piano concerto when they have
free time and set hard deadlines when too much time has passed without getting meaningful
work done. The more I worked on the senior project and got more done, the more confident I
became. I learned that being confident yet not arrogant helps my public image and projects to
people the feeling that I can get things done. I always try to present myself in a very professional
manner in public when advertising for my senior project, and I make sure I have done enough
research about what I am talking about so I give the most accurate information about my senior
project.