# To read, or not to read, that is the question...



## Forss (May 12, 2017)

This phenomenon says something about our fundamentally _sinful_ nature, and about our inability to attain _the ideal_:

Trained musicians rather _read_ the score than _listen_ to the actual music performed/interpreted by someone else. Aino Sibelius, for example, apparently loved to sit in her late husband's favourite chair and _read_ his scores, and I've also heard Barenboim say something similar. Personally, I can relate to this by preferring to _read_ the plays of, say, Strindberg or Ibsen rather than attending a staged production of them (with the possible exception of Ingmar Bergman, which confirms the rule, as it were).

Do you have an opinion as to _why_ this seems to be the case, i.e., whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, the slings and arrows of outrageous interpretation, or [if one is] to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Brahms said that the best performances were the ones he heard sitting in his armchair, reading his scores. Non-musicians, who can't "hear" music by looking at it, won't understand this.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

I would think that hearing in the head as the score is read is subject to the usual perplexities that any exegetical exercise involves and raises issues that are fundamentally hermeneutical in nature. Still, one less filter to go through, I suppose. Is hearing mentally necessarily what a composer/writer conceived at the point and moment of creation? I don't know, but I suspect - it ain't necessarily so...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Personally, I can read scores. But after reading this, I just picked up the score to Mahler's 1st symphony. Okay, maybe Barenboim can cram all those notes into his head at once, but for me, recreating a symphony in my head out of paper is like recreating the Mona Lisa through paint by numbers.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I think reading scores is interesting but no match for hearing music played without a score. I am a musician, a singer in church and choral society, and I tried to read the full scores for Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis when we performed them. I only used the choral score when I practiced and performed. I found no thrill or fun or enlightenment in reading the full scores. It rhymed with chore for me. I should also say that, when I hear music played, I "see" the score in my head.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I think it depends on both the particular work under question, and one's level of training. I can _follow_ parts in a score, and hear them, but I cannot _combine_, or _orchestrate_ everything in my head. As for plays, I find I much prefer _reading _Sophocles, Euripides, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson (et al), I think because of the older declamatory style of acting. With the rise of the more naturalistic, "method" acting style, and the experimental staging of the twentieth century, one gets a better sense of the playwright's vision by seeing them acted. S0 - it depends.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Forss, I have my doubts about the question. Brahms and the others you mention are performing the music in their heads, not reading it. It is hardly surprising they like their own performances better than those of others. One presumes that's why they thought it was a good idea to become performers in the first place, right? For those of us who aren't great performers, it makes more sense to listen to those who are.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

larold said:


> I should also say that, when I hear music played, I "see" the score in my head.


This is very interesting! Perhaps it is more common the other way round. Bernstein, in his famous _Norton Lectures_, refers to various parts of Mahler's _Symphony No. 9_ as this or that "page", and not as the very music itself.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Forss, I have my doubts about the question. Brahms and the others you mention are performing the music in their heads, not reading it. It is hardly surprising they like their own performances better than those of others. One presumes that's why they thought it was a good idea to become performers in the first place, right? For those of us who aren't great performers, it makes more sense to listen to those who are.


Yes, you are certainly right! I also understand "reading" as "performing the music in one's head".


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Forss said:


> This is very interesting! Perhaps it is more common the other way round. Bernstein, in his famous _Norton Lectures_, refers to various parts of Mahler's _Symphony No. 9_ as this or that "page", and not as the very music itself.


I can understand that. If I want to draw your attention to a particular passage I can't say "the bit that goes diddly diddly diddly dum" but I can say "three bars after figure 56" and you can go to that bit in the score.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

Totenfeier said:


> I think it depends on both the particular work under question, and one's level of training. I can _follow_ parts in a score, and hear them, but I cannot _combine_, or _orchestrate_ everything in my head. As for plays, I find I much prefer _reading _Sophocles, Euripides, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson (et al), I think because of the older declamatory style of acting. With the rise of the more naturalistic, "method" acting style, and the experimental staging of the twentieth century, one gets a better sense of the playwright's vision by seeing them acted. S0 - it depends.


I very much agree with you! Amen.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Here's a question for those of you who can relatively easily hear the music as you read it. Is there a significant difference between hearing the music from outside sources (concert performance or sound system) and simply hearing it as you read? That may be somewhat difficult to answer unless the difference is large enough. I'm specifically thinking of the emotional response since my understanding is that music strongly affects brain centers, such as the amygdala, which are related to emotions. If "hearing" music through aural senses rather then through visual senses stimulates these emotional brain regions more, then presumably there ought to be a difference.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> Here's a question for those of you who can relatively easily hear the music as you read it. Is there a significant difference between hearing the music from outside sources (concert performance or sound system) and simply hearing it as you read? That may be somewhat difficult to answer unless the difference is large enough. I'm specifically thinking of the emotional response since my understanding is that music strongly affects brain centers, such as the amygdala, which are related to emotions. If "hearing" music through aural senses rather then through visual senses stimulates these emotional brain regions more, then presumably there ought to be a difference.


Precisely! This is the accurate translation of my original question from the realm of philosophy to the realm of natural science.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

I hate to think of the numbers of kids who have been put off Shakespeare and other literature by reading it in class rather than seeing it performed by live actors.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Star said:


> I hate to think of the numbers of kids who have been put off Shakespeare and other literature by reading it in class rather than seeing it performed by live actors.


Oh, indeed - _students_ benefit _immensely_ more from seeing than from reading (hearing is a mixed case). As I mentioned, the level of training is a factor in the enjoyment derived from reading:

"I did not discover I could not read until after I had left college." -Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, American philosopher and educator/educational theorist.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Interesting. I've always imagined that it's quite possibly the most rewarding moment in an artist's life to actually hear his/her own music being performed (in a satisfactory way of course). My goodness, what's greater than hearing your own orchestral music live after it has been only in your head and on paper for a long time (or only played on a piano or something)? But maybe I'm wrong about this. If composers could actually hear their own music playing in their heads, all different layers at the same time, which I find remarkable and - quite frankly - hard to believe, I guess no performance could ever do it justice.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

The composer 'hearing' it and other people 'hearing' it from reading the score is probably different. When I make arrangements from piano scores I 'hear' in my head how e.g. the entire brass section expands and takes a particular passage, but it takes some work to translate that into written notes. 
I wonder if someone reading it first time hears exactly what I hear? (perhaps more, perhaps less). Maybe they do. If you're familiar with the sounds of instruments and how they combine and then you combine that with notes on a score, I suppose after a few readings and scanning various sections, you can build up a sound picture.

It's a lot more difficult with unfamiliar pieces you've never heard performed.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Forss said:


> Aino Sibelius, for example, apparently loved to sit in her late husband's favourite chair and _read_ his scores


As an aside, I recall her writing about listening to the composer pacing around in the next room while he was in the very act of composition, and her excitement whenever he would pause.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Star said:


> I hate to think of the numbers of kids who have been put off Shakespeare and other literature by reading it in class rather than seeing it performed by live actors.


With me it is the exact opposite. I had a good teacher in high school, who explained as we read through Macbeth, and in the process I developed an appreciation for it. But watch the plays or film versions? Without subtitles I understand quite literally not a single sentence, and just individual words here and there. They might as well be speaking German. In fact, without reams of footnotes I cannot make head or tails of Shakespeare even laboriously reading through it.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I cannot answer the question because I do not read music at all well. But I will say that I have never seen a performance of "The Importance of Being Ernest" that is half as funny as the one that plays in my head as I read it.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

brianvds said:


> With me it is the exact opposite. I had a good teacher in high school, who explained as we read through Macbeth, and in the process I developed an appreciation for it. But watch the plays or film versions? Without subtitles I understand quite literally not a single sentence, and just individual words here and there. They might as well be speaking German. In fact, without reams of footnotes I cannot make head or tails of Shakespeare even laboriously reading through it.


And that, brianvds, is exactly what I meant when I said that hearing is a separate case. Since nobody else will say it for me, I will say for myself that I am a _brilliant_ reader and expositor of Macbeth, and my students' assessments show that most of them do gain an understanding, if perhaps not an appreciation, of the play. But it cannot be just words: it _must_ be words with _passion_ and _emotion_. Relatively current studies show that most students gain little knowledge through _hearing_ - they gain much more through _doing_. But that is only really true in technical, scientific areas. Certainly, pre-civilized human males had to be shown how to make spears and arrows, and needed hands-on practice in throwing and archery. But in the evening, they still gathered to _hear _the ancients tell _or sing_ the tales of the tribe around the communal fire. And this has been going on through millenia. So I think there are applications here to the discussion at hand: reading music versus hearing and/or playing it. There is much more complexity to the interpretation of raw sensory data than most people realize, especially in the act of aesthetic appreciation.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Blancrocher said:


> As an aside, I recall her writing about listening to the composer pacing around in the next room while he was in the very act of composition, and her excitement whenever he would pause.


Did she find any unfinished Vodka bottles stashed in the cushions?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Triplets said:


> Did she find any unfinished Vodka bottles stashed in the cushions?


I believe that he left fewer bottles of vodka than symphonies unfinished.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Brahms said that the best performances were the ones he heard sitting in his armchair, reading his scores. Non-musicians, who can't "hear" music by looking at it, won't understand this.


I understand that what you are describing is not a performance.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Speaking as a musician, the ability to imagine the score in one's head means having the ability to recall the sound of the individual instruments and then be able to hear them together, such as distinguishing an oboe from an English horn, the timpani from a bass drum, the sound of a violin from the viola, and so on all at once. That's what composers can do that most listeners cannot. 

Even if Brahms heard the best performance of his works in his head, I do not believe he would trade that for a live performance, because the live performance is the act of sharing those imagined sounds with the rest of the world, and that's required for the music to live. But sometimes it's possible to look at a score and then hear whether the score markings, such as tempo or dynamics, are being followed in a particular performance, and there can be a special pleasure in that, even for listeners who are unable to imagine hearing the notes in the score. 

I find little comparison with literature in books, which is mostly intended to be imagined within one's head, and does not require the tonal skills of a composer or musician. Plus, literature tends to be more linear as one reads one line at a time rather than having to combine the entire range of instruments like within an orchestra. What can be imagined in literature, if done well, are the voice inflections and the emotional tone of the text.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Speaking as a musician, the ability to imagine the score in one's head means having the ability to recall the sound of the individual instruments and then be able to hear them together, such as distinguishing an oboe from an English horn, the timpani from a bass drum, the sound of a violin from the viola, and so on all at once. That's what composers can do that most listeners cannot. 

Even if Brahms heard the best performance of his works in his head, I do not believe he would trade that for a live performance, because the live performance is the act of sharing those imagined sounds with the rest of the world, and that's required for the music to live. But sometimes it's possible to look at a score and then hear whether the score markings, such as tempo or dynamics, are being followed in a particular performance, and there can be a special pleasure in that, even for listeners who are unable to imagine hearing the notes in the score. 

I find little comparison with literature in books, which is mostly intended to be imagined within one's head, and does not require the tonal skills of a composer or musician. Plus, literature tends to be more linear as one reads one line at a time rather than having to combine the entire range of instruments like within an orchestra. What can be imagined in literature, if done well, are the voice inflections and the emotional tone of the text. Even Brahms wrote to be heard whether the performance matched what he ideally heard in his head after finishing something. But it seems to be true that most geniuses, such as Beethoven, can hear the entire score as if it were being played live, and that must be a special thrill.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I've played the piano for a fairly long time, I can sight-read fairly well, done an awful lot of transcribing by ear, studied a lot of scores.....

and for most of the scores out there, I could not just read them and get a truly accurate idea of what they sound like.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

I can imagine it would be pleasurable to read and hear in your head certain less complex (from an orchestration standpoint) pieces, eg piano works, but I can't imagine it being very easy (even if you are a very experienced musician/composer) to be able to conjure all the individual sounds of orchestral instruments in your head with the same detail and wholeness as you would hear with an actual performance.


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