 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: MoonPatrol
Date: 2013-05-14 13:56
I get annoyed when conductors say "watch your key signature" when sight reading a new piece. When i sight read, I'm looking at rhythm first and trying to catch the other elements, dynamics, key second. If I miss a note I don't need a conductor to tell me. I know when I miss a note! Its the director's lack of understanding of a musicians's process for sight reading that tires me. No need to stop a band because of some missed notes during a first run.
On the player side, yes, six flats is hard to fly through but some players that complain about anything more than 3 or 4 sharps or flats don't get my sympathy. I know at the professional level key signature are not something talked about as it is like water, you just drink it.
How about when they ask you to play soft in the altissimo range? Or to come from a whole rest into a high F in a soft dynamic.
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Author: Tobin
Date: 2013-05-14 15:00
No offense Moonpatrol, all you've really just explained is that your priorities and the conductor's priorities are not the same. Happens all the time.
Yes -- I agree rhythm significantly increases sightreading accuracy. Doesn't make much of a difference. In whatever jobs you take in the future you'll have bosses whose priorities disagree with yours. If you make a big deal of it, it's going to be more your frustration than theirs.
James
Gnothi Seauton
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-05-14 15:51
If a conductor says "Watch your key signature" they generally have a reason for it. It may not be you that lost it, but you're just a small cog in the orchestral machine. Anyway, most directors are themselves musicians and have gone through this process themselves. The conductor/director's interpretation of the music is what you are striving to achieve. If you set yourself at odds with them then you're wasting everybodies time, including yours.
Tony F.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2013-05-14 16:51
There's something you need to understand about conductors: they are paid much more that the players, and therefore need to feel that they are somehow earning this bloated salary. Standing in front of an ensemble and just beating in 3 or 4 obviously doesn't justify this sense of self-importance, so straight away the conductor feels that he/she needs to SAY SOMETHING. Unfortunately (for us) these pearls pf wisdom are seldom, if ever, necessary or helpful. In any case, you'll get the most enjoyment out of your playing if you learn to just nod and smile at conductors, or even better: ignore them completely! Don't let a conductor diminish your musical joy.
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Author: MoonPatrol
Date: 2013-05-14 17:37
I am not mad at any conductors. My point is that many of them think that a musician doesn't know that he missed a key signature, so they point it out thinking the player will keep making the same error all the way up to performance. I just wish conductors at my level had more faith in us. We know when we are a half step off! We'll get it right the next pass, maybe. It's part of the process. An artist HAS to have a process or he is lost.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2013-05-14 17:52
"... many of them think that a musician doesn't know that he missed a key signature, so they point it out thinking the player will keep making the same error all the way up to performance."
Is that what the conductor tells you... or are you a mind reader?
"We'll get it right the next pass, maybe."
And maybe you won't. The conductor probably just wants to increase the odds -- and correct the error before it becomes ingrained.
Post Edited (2013-05-14 17:56)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2013-05-14 18:25
Liquorice wrote:
> ,,,the conductor feels that he/she needs to SAY SOMETHING.
> Unfortunately (for us) these pearls pf wisdom are seldom, if
> ever, necessary or helpful.
This is the crux of what separates good conductors from mediocre ones. If you see (and play for) good ones, you realize how much they can contribute. It's the others you just have to grin and tolerate, if "watch the key signature" and "it's too loud" and "watch my baton" are the best they can do.
To Glenn, however, rhythm first and everything else later isn't a fully developed approach, but a beginning. Yes, rhythm is of primary importance, but other things count as well, and the more you learn to get on your first reading, the more can be accomplished with the available rehearsal time later. If you're playing in a band of inexperienced players, learning to take in more at once is a process everyone in the group should embrace. The conductor may just have nothing more important to say, or he may be trying to push the band into a higher level of ensemble skills.
Observing key signatures, BTW, is not something a professional just does without thinking ("like water, you just drink it."). Even at the professional level players need to concentrate on key, whether there are one or 6 flats or sharps and whether the same one holds for the entire piece or changes every few bars (as Broadway shows or operas or late German Romantic symphonies often do). They can do it along with playing accurate rhythms, notes and expressive elements at the same time because they've trained themselves to.
Karl
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Author: eaglgenes101
Date: 2013-05-15 05:40
I label all notes affected by the key signature ahead of time. Works well for me.
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Author: rmk54
Date: 2013-05-15 12:11
It may work well for you, but it makes a lot of work for us orchestra librarians (erasing them).
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2013-05-15 12:40
At least we don't have to work about diction when we play.
When you put a piece of choral music in my hands to sight-read, you get notes or words but rarely both in the first go-round. Usually, though, I go for the notes.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2013-05-15 13:00
When I get a new piece for a first reading you sometimes get notes and words, but the words do not necessarily appear on the music!!!
Tony F.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2013-05-15 19:12
Don't you hate it when conductors actually have much to offer but the majority of a bitter ensemble ignores them out of "habit"?
-Jason
Post Edited (2013-05-15 19:12)
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2013-05-16 14:27
I'm an amateur with an audience of one cat, who conducts with her tail. Jane Feline does the one thing that used to drive me batty when human conductors did it: the tail goes swoop, swish, flick, jab, whoooooosh, without any obvious relationship to the beat. You know, the beat -- that little stack of numbers composers stick in there for some reason, right after the key signature. Sheesh.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2013-05-18 02:29
I play under several different conductors in a couple of community bands. The ones I respect most are the ones who look at the score and, when something goes wrong, can stop and say something like "let's take that a little slower for a couple of times, the clarinets (trumpets, flutes, saxes, etc.) have a tough passage/key signature there -- then we'll bring the tempo back up".
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2013-05-20 02:58
MoonPatrol -
The conductor is certainly not seeing the piece for the first time. If groups have had trouble with the key signature before, it's helpful and reasonable to save trouble this time, and it's a time-saver to say "Hey, watch out for the A-flats."
When I see a new piece on the stand, the first things I look at are the key signature, the time signature and the tempo marking. I consciously fix them in my mind. I assume that you're the first chair player, or at least in the 1st section. The conductor isn't making a condescending comment to you, but warning the other players of possible trouble ahead. The 2nd and 3rd sections won't get the key signature the first time unless they're warned. When you're the best player in the room, one of the important things you must learn is that the others need more help than you do, and not resent that.
Alex -
The key signature fixes the scales and arpeggios of that key in my mind. That means that I can let my fingers play "in that key" just by seeing the shape of the scale or arpeggio, without having to read every note. Ink is not expensive, but it's very intellectually expensive to have to figure out what key the music is in without the cue of a key signature.
Ken Shaw
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