Tips on Critical Listening: Ignore the Score
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- I'm often asked how valuable it would be to follow a score when listening, and if beginners are disadvantaged in some way by not having access to scores or not being able to read them. The short answer is, "No, you don't need a score." There are many reasons why this is so, and I suggest a few of them in this video.
Reading a score as I listen tends to make a piece easier to follow. Maybe I just need to get an attention span
I do find that sometimes a score will contain an instrumental part or finesse that I hadn't heard in a recording before. It's visual presence makes me listen out for it and thus learn to listen a bit better. To that extent, I think score-following can enhance the listening experience a little. Or, to take another example, I will often get absorbed when listening to some marvellous effect that Vaughan Williams manages to conjure forth and want desperately to know _how_ he achieves that effect -and am generally astonished at how, when you eventually look at the notes in the score, you say to yourself, 'Really? Is that it?! Can that lovely sound really be done with just those few notes here and those ones there'. Which, for me, enhances the appreciation of the composer's skill somewhat.
But yes, I agree with you: listening first and foremost. Score-reading as icing on the substance of the cake after.
Conversely, I've heard performers bring out a detail, a line. in a piece that had me running to the score to check it out. Often, I even highlight it in pencil and note the interpreter who brought it out.
Nothing beats that feeling of discovering that an amazing musical moment/piece looks baffling simple on paper. It’s like, “that can’t be it, right?” I’m always reminded of that Chopin quote about how simplicity is the highest goal, and I feel like that philosophy rings true in so many ways.
Agree. This is why I sometimes enjoy following along with a score even though I don’t “read“ music. Just a couple of examples:
Fritz Reiner’s recording of LVB’s Eighth with the CSO starts with a huge timpani thwack. It was so startling that I went to my ancient Dover score and - sure enough - there it was!
At letter “O” in the first movement of the Ninth, there are these ridiculously low brass notes I’d never heard before (this was the Isserstedt/VPO recording). Sure enough, a look at the score showed that one of the horns has notes way way down low. I just never heard them before; now I listen for them when I hear a recorded performance.
Good one Dave. In my younger days I used a score, now in my older days, I sit back and listen.
Another SLAM DUNK!!! ...I would have never guessed that a music critic -- or ANYBODY -- would ever bring up this topic, but he is absolutely correct! Because I am a composer, well, this started out as a conductor, I do collect and study scores. One of the first things I noticed, having HEARD a lot of music before ever seeing a score: typical GREAT recorded performances TOTALLY IGNORE dynamics, tempo and many of the indications that are written into the score by the composer. Usually listening to a GOOD recording when I choose to look at a score, my first thought is -- well, the performance WORKS ... & I realize that following precisely what is in the score MIGHT not be entirely necessary. My second observation comes AS the composer of a work -- hearing it performed by a different conductor than myself. Time and time again -- from the world premiere on -- a conductor or performer will let the music guide them into altering my written tempos, dynamics, articulation, etc., into a FAR better-sounding work. In many cases, without my marking the changes into my original score, MULTIPLE conductors -- unrelated to each other -- will make these same, very musical decisions. When I have time, I usually CHANGE my composed scores to incorporate these ideas. THE most important thing in ALL of music is to make it work, and LOVE it. If you don't love it -- you don't have to listen. In many cases in my life, I have either disliked or not cared about a piece of music until SOME great artist "pulls it off," and suddenly I realize how great that work is. A great performance can turn one of these into a favorite work of mine. All in all, I think Dave is the greatest musical critic -- what can I say? -- the world has ever known. These simple concepts (or as my orchestration teacher said to me: "Common sense ain't so common") are more important than anything else any critic has ever written. Pure wisdom & light here!
Your sentiment about the score being merely a recipe is the same as Frank Zappa’s. He used to say that you have to add ‘the eyebrows’ to the music, wich I totally get!
What a lovely and informative video, as always. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and passion.
Gilbert Johnson told me that back in the day(50's thru 70's) that you could by small study scores of repertoire for that night's concert in the lobby before downbeat.
He also told me that "Leopold" hated that.
I've following this channel for the past three years or so, for sheer coicindence, as I was juuuust starting my tiny little collection on my own without any knowledge whatsoever, only my love for music. Nobody taught me better. You did, and me, for insisting in listening to you. Now even my wife recognizes you voice on my phone, she says, "listening to that David again, huh?" She might be a bit jealous.
You helped me so much to understand music and listening to it. Dankeschön. ❤🎶🇩🇪
I'm so glad!
@@DavesClassicalGuide 😁🎶😎
For me, since I like to try to tinker with guitar arrangements for bits and pieces of classical music, I'll always start by listening to the music and trying to play it by ear (after I've become obsessed with it). But I do find it helpful to check out the score to make sure I'm on the right track, especially if it's an uptempo piece or if I want to check a particular voicing/inversion for harmonies. Otherwise, once I know a piece really well, if RUclips serves up a video with music and the score, I do quite enjoy following along as it's fascinating to see how much detail the composer includes. Not essential obviously but just fun.
The "most fundamental decision" to make is "whether you like the piece of music or not, and want to hear it again"--this is true when taking a subjective, hedonistic approach to listening (which is certainly the most common attitude). It is also possible to take a more objective, scholarly approach, treating the piece of music as a cultural artefact, and discovering what the piece consists of for its own sake. After all, it doesn't really matter whether any individual listener likes a given piece. And what one likes on first listening, may be annoying another time, or vice versa. (I often prefer to follow a score while listening, as it helps me focus more and I tend to notice more details in structure, harmony, instrumentation, etc., whereas without a score, it becomes more of mindless luxuriating in sound, which is not necessarily an inferior approach. The danger of not following a score can be zoning out, but then, that's no longer listening at all...)
I think your first exposure to a piece of music should be with your ears, if possible. Listen to it. Scores are for study and analysis. That can lead to greater appreciation and deeper understanding.
Thank you so much, Dave. This is one of the most beneficial of all the talks you've given, particularly the analogy of a score to a recipe. That tends to reflect how how I feel about all written texts: the printed page is a guideline, not the thing itself. Thank you for putting this into words.
I get your sentiment and rationale but i am not sure i fully agree. You can listen to music to enjoy it but reading the score can tell you if what you hear is what it should be. Interpretation and the making of the music is what for most of us makes it enjoyable of course. Lets not make reading and following scores in any way elitist either. Music brings joy in so many ways. When i couldnt get recordings i would read scores so i could listen in my head.
Interesting how my own opinion of a musical work can sometimes be ADVERSELY affected by following the score. Case in Point: I once heard Jean Martinon's own 4th Symphony ("Altitudes", in his Chicago Sym recording) on the radio and was totally fascinated by it. I ran to Chicago, found a score (at Carl Fischers') and a tape of the LP. Somehow, seeing how the magical SOUND of the music was put together technically on the page TOTALLY BLEW IT for me. On the other hand, sometimes it works in the opposite way. I've always enjoyed Franz Schmidt's "Hussar" Variations, but when I finally acquired a score and followed along, I came away with a MUCH greater admiration for the quality of the work. Go figure. LR
When I acquired the scores for the Martinu symphonies, my admiration for the recordings grew by leaps. Just listening, one doesn't realize how tricky they can be!
I think DH's comments are right on the money here. One of the saddest sights I've seen at concerts, is someone in the audience desperately trying to follow a complex orchestral score. I usually want to say to them,'You are probably only going to get one chance to hear this particularly performance, so give it your undivided attention rather than worry what page you are on in the score!' I have scores at home of music I care about (I've been a student of music the best part of sixty years) but I find scores most useful if it is a work I am unfamiliar with. I remember, for instance when I was a student at music college trying to get to grips with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring borrowing the score from the local library (B & H brown cover edition....beautifully utilitarian!) and it helped me initially to analyse it but only by listening repeatedly did I really start to love it - you can read on the page bass drum and timpani ffff, but you really need to hear and feel hit you in the solar plexus!
In my own experience, following a score when listening can sometimes be helpful if the music is difficult in some way, but it can also be a distraction. Certainly, the ideal immersive experience of music isn't helped by keeping the eyes busy. But there are occasional Easter eggs. Until I got the score, I never realized that the final note of Strauss' Alpine Symphony is reached via a downward glissando in the violins. Despite the entire orchestra playing pianissimo, it's too subtle a detail to hear easily on a recording.
Ding ding ding, yes! The score doesn't turn into music until a performer brings it to life. There's a lot of false modesty among performers trying to act like all the credit should go to the composer, but the performers wouldn't have to study and practice intensely for decades if their contribution were really so minimal.
As I kid I enjoyed music before learnining it and remember only being able to describe it as soup of melody and sound. I found learning the sounds of each individual instrument and eventually reading the individual parts gave me a keener awareness to what I was listening to and could finally identify parts and describe it in better detail which I believe enhanced the experience of listening.
So smart, Dave. What you said about opera, especially works like Vec Makropoulos, following and understanding the words is much more important than the notes on the paper.
With other genres, I think it helps to listen to a piece new to you without the music in front of you the first time through. For me, seeing a score the next time helps me grasp it better. But I've also loved many works and lived with them for long, like the Ives symphonies or Diamond's 2nd and 4th (most recently), that I later felt I had to own the scores to explore them further from the "inside."
Thank you Dave, I think you hit right on the most important part of music enjoyment! Helps greatly with a beginner like me.
Great advice. Just listen to the music. That's exactly what I do.
Really good video. A personal thank you for reviewing the Spohr Overtures disc. It was fun to hear your take on it. I write music in my spare time and one thing I've learned, is what you put in the score might not work in a real performance. As you said, it's a recipe and may need adjusting. Famous example: Adagio of Bruckner's 7th. He gives the tubas, if memory serves correctly, double note values. Requiring them to sustain the tone for an extraordinary length. But this is somewhat impractical, as brass players can damage their lips and be severely out of breath from such demands.
When a sound-bite on the news is indistinct, sub-titles are shown so that we can understand what's being said. Once you know what's being said, it sounds obvious enough -- yet you might never have figured it out, if you never saw the subtitles. A score can function in that way: it tells us what the viola section is up to, in a passage where we're not noticing the violas. Once the score has informed us about that viola part, we are afterwards able to hear it without looking at the score. In theory, we could have picked up on the viola part just by listening more carefully, but if we didn't, then reading the score can add something.
Analyzing a score is essential to understand why a melody or harmonic progression works
I'd love to see a (maybe very brief) discussion of your's on the use of full scores (of orchestral of vocal works) as opposed to piano scores/piano reductions. Obviously that's a matter of the purpose at hand. As a teenager i played timpanies in our music school youth orchestra. Back then i was happy when i was able to find full scores of the pieces we played in our local public library. This, together with a record, helped me immensely with figured out with understanding when it was my turn, without (mis)counting bars all the time.
Due to that experience, i always felt drawn to getting full scores of orchestral pieces. Only years later did it dawn on me that i (for my very personal purposes) was better off with using piano scores. This i s a lesson i kind of learnt the hard wayI understood that when i started to toy around with contrabass part of Handel's Messiah on an electric bass. Nowadays i try to avoid especially pocket scores with that absolute tiny print like the plague. I personally see no use case for these any more. (I don't mind other people finding them useful, obviously.) Instead i try to get a piano score, plus the contrabass part, if possible. Then, with a few notes with pencil concerning time stamps, based on my favorite recordings of the respective piece, i'm in good shape.
I always prefer full scores where an orchestra is involved, because for me the whole point is seeing what the composer wrote in full.
I feel bad for younger people trying to acquire hard-copy scores today: the prices are sky high! When I started collecting them, you could pick up Pro-Art, Eulenberg, even Boosey & Hawkes for a few bucks. Not any more. Pocket scores around $40 - crazy. The new Mahler pocket scores from UE are too pricey. As wonderful as IMSLP is I prefer a real printed on paper score just as I like real books, not eBooks,
When I started collecting, I would make a monthly "pilgrimage" to the legendary Carl Fischer store in Chicago's Loop; its second-floor orchestra score file cabinets housed what must have been the greatest collection of pocket scores in the country (certainly bigger than Patelson's in NY). Fischer obviously relished the idea that you could find ANY published score from anywhere in the world, starting with Antheil's overtures and symphonies. I was able to build a huge collection on my $80-a-month church organist salary, since the scores were DIRT CHEAP (eg: $4.75 for a Martinu Symphony). THEN I'd walk down the street to the equally-legendary Rose records and buy all of the budget-label LPS I could carry (I loved the Czech Phil/Ancerl on Parliament). True, today you can access many scores online, but back then, you could physically OWN them. LR
If your area has local library sales, you might check them out and get lucky. I found full pocket scores of the rarer Dvorak and Smetana tone poems for a buck each; a vocal score of Kodaly's Hary Janos (the opera); and just last week Bartok’s Mikrokosmos, Shostakovich 24 Preludes & Fugues, Ives 2nd sonata, the Haydn keyboard sonatas, all for next to nothing. As for IMSLP, I always print the scores and bind them, problem solved. Naturally, only the public domain ones. 🙄
Reading the score while listening to the music is a bit like reading the screenplay while watching the movie.
Hi Dave, in your recent video review of Wilson's Daphnis and Chloe, one of your major criticisms was his not following dynamic and tempo indications. If i didnt have access to a score, how would i know that it is a bad interpretation?
Because the fact that he doesn't follow Ravel's tempo indications only supports the initial conclusion: that the lack of tempo contrast when the music clearly demands it means that it's a bad performance. I thought it was bad first, then I looked at the score to confirm the reason.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I see, that makes sense. Thanks!
Dave is the greatest 🎉!! ❤❤
I felt that way about one of Karajan’s two dozen recordings of the Beethoven 7th Symphony when I heard it: The first movement lacked vivacity and rhythm, the second punctuation and weight-and the weirdly slow tempo of the first and weirdly fast tempo of the second contributed to this significantly. And I’ve never read the score to Beethoven 7!
And it wouldn't much help if you had, because the issue there isn't what Karajan does but rather the way he does it.
Question for Dave: I had a critical-listening experience recently that made me feel compelled to look at the score. On your recommendation, I listened to the entire Inbal/Frankfurt (Denon) Mahler cycle. I was struck when he got to the 7th. The ominous starting-stopping unison phrase at the very beginning. In every other recording I ever heard, that phrase ended in a half note in each bar (which is what I later found in the score). But with Inbal (and only with Frankfurt, not his later Tokyo cycle), the final half note becomes a torrent of 16th notes. It's really thrilling and fun, but it's the only time I've ever heard this, and it seems to have no basis in the score (or at least the versions I've seen).
Do you know what happened with this? It's a real head-scratcher. Sounds awesome, but perplexing.
Thanks! 😀
I always thought score reading is for sight-read training, and watching enough score video (while undergo solfège training) without developing the ability to roughly play a piece of music in head while reading a score then it’s all a waste of time
And when a detail is on the score but not brought out in a recording, or the music sounds too simple in comparison with the score, I would even think my listening ability is inferior to others
I had a music student friend who would take the score into the auditorium and read it while listening to the concert. We are no longer friends.
If you go to or watch a telecast of the Proms concerts in London, you can see the bespectacled score-readers in the audience. Looking yes, but not LISTENING!
?
They're not mutually exclusive. A score, if anything, encourages more careful listening by calling attention to details you might otherwise miss. The peformers typically use scores, and you can bet they're listening to what they and others are playing. (Though it's certainly possible to zone out as both a listener and player.)@@petertaplin4365
I've seen this.
A good way to ruin your eyes. Unless you're at the Met at one of the score desks.
I disagree