3-4 Beat

The three of us in our string trio - two violins and a cello - finally got together last night. It is always hard to find a time we can all make. But for a moment the rest of life stopped and we had a great rehearsal.

It takes time for a new group to hear each other well. Once that happens an ensemble can more easily assess new work and develop a solid repertoire for performance. Until that point is reached - and there is no formula for this - simple things like misreading notes (oops!) can be jarring enough to stop a read through. Last night, it felt like we had passed a milestone. We seemed to play easily through glitches that had stopped us before.

One of the silly themes of last night was finding music in 6/8 time. Our trio can sight read that time signature the most easily, usually counted as two beats per measure subdivided into three clicks per beat. The musical works with four beats per measure don't flow quite as intuitively. Perhaps we like number of the beats per measure to match our own numbers.

I was thinking about last night's rehearsal on the way to the barn today. The new season is starting in a couple of weeks and I needed refresher training on helping with the hippotherapy sessions.

There were two new volunteers when I arrived and one of the barn folks was finishing up a riding lesson. She stayed in the saddle and pretended to be one of the therapy clients while the new volunteers were shown how to be side walkers. Side walkers are the people who support the client in the saddle as the horse is walked around the ring. I was leading the horse, and my job was to spot any signs of trouble or discomfort in the horse.

There are obvious signs that a horse is getting frustrated - shaking the head, the set of the ears or a move away from where you want them to go. But there are more subtle signs, one of which is a less settled rhythm to their gait. The walk, the gait used for therapy sessions, is a four beat gait. That is, it takes four strikes of a hoof on the ground to have lifted and put down all four legs. A trot is a two beat gait because two legs move together,  and a canter is a three beat gait. We never use a trot or a canter in a therapy session - it's not safe (and even if it was none of us can run that fast).

The horse I was practice-leading today is a wonderful character, but has barely been ridden over the winter and needs some time under saddle to get his springs kinks out. The wind was coming up, so the metal doors of the indoor ring were banging against each other at the rear of the barn. As we walked I was tuning into the rhythm of his walk, especially as we went near those doors. One - two- three - four one - two- three - four around and around... finding that last night's rehearsal was a good warm up for today even if I had to add a beat.

Tomorrow is the first orchestra rehearsal for Debussy's "La Mer", so the beats may get more complicated.