3/25/11 - Reflections

I was glad that this week's readings focused on score study, one of my very favorite topics in instrumental music education. This topic carries over naturally from lasts week's readings on the importance of selecting good repertoire. Selecting repertoire is very important, but once the pieces are selected, you have to know how to bring the music to life. I am reminded of a quote from the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indiana Jones is teaching archeology in a college-type setting. He teaches the students that, "90% of all archeology is done in the library: research and reading." This is true of conducting as well. 90% of all conducting really revolves around score study - knowing your score and how to bring the music to life. If you don't know the score inside and out, you really have no purpose being up on the podium. It would be like a math teacher trying to teach her students about a complicated calculus problem without first reading over the material and creating a lesson plan. Music educators need to be proactive about score study. Even though I do not currently teach, I always have somewhere around ten scores open at once. I read scores like I read books; for me it is fun!

Writing or marking on the scores is one of the most important things we can do as conductors. In this chapter, there was a school of thought presented that it was a bad idea to mark anything in the score - ever! I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I vehemently disagree! The book states that writing in the score might cause us to be slaves to the page instead of directing our attention to the musicians in front of us. This is ludicrous. Marking in the score is a technique to help us during the preparation process so when the time comes to step onto the podium, we can be better prepared. I think the conductor who neglected to do his homework would have his eye in the score even more! Look at the scores of all the best conductors who have ever lived. Their scores are so heavily marked, you can hardly read the manuscript!

This chapter also discussed detailed harmonic analysis as a necessary part of score study. I agree to a point. Yes, we need to be aware of the general harmonic map of the piece of music we are conducting. But do we need to have every measure analyzed down to the very last detail? To me, this seems superfluous and an unnecessary waste of time. How much is it really going to help you on the podium if you know that in measure 173, the flutes, 2nd clarinets, tenor saxes, and euphoniums have a French Augmented 6th Chord in second inversion that doesn't seem to resolve into anything, all while the oboes, horns, and vibes are playing chordal clusters, and the tympani is rolling on the supertonic in the parallel mixolydian mode? While fascinating, this is the type of information that doesn't have to be written down on the page. It is cumbersome and useless. A good conductor's ear will hear all these things happening simultaneously anyway, and they can know how to balance this sort of musical texture by analyzing the score. While it may be worthwhile to do a dissertation on the detailed harmonic analysis of Music For Prague, it is not practical for podium use.