# Do you read Scores?



## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

I regulaly get music scores out of my library and then buy the ones I want to study. 
One of my favourite past-times is to listen to my MP3 player while following the music through in the book. 
Does anyone else take a delight in reading scores?


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

c.f.: the thread "what's everyone reading nowadays?"

Perhaps we can devote that thread to books, and this one to scores

General rule of thumb: when I have three or more versions of a work, I consider it time to pick up the study score. (Sometimes, I even take the metronome off the shelf )

My music-reading abilities are more or less vestigial, but I can get into it if it's a work I love (see above- if I have 3 or more versions of it, I love it). 
Favorite score to read along with: _Gotterdammerung_. (The ensuing silence is the sound of no-one being surprised ) Why it's so fun... first of all, the actual textures made visible as well as audible, secondly, the stage directions laid out, and third, ability to follow the words with _all of the repeats_ made unmistakably clear (much better than a libretto).


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## LaciDeeLeBlanc (Jul 17, 2007)

Unfortunately, I own no scores. However, I do love reading a score with a friend, very cool activity. As a musician, reading scores improves music-reading capibilities, substantially. I enjoy this very much.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I also like to read scores while listening. I think it helps to fully appreciate what every musician is doing individually or as a group. 

I was very glad on one such occassion to have had the foresight of bringing along my copy of the score for a public performance of the Bach B Minor Mass. Some parts of that piece, at least for me, are rather boring, and having the score to read helped keep me awake  !


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## Frasier (Mar 10, 2007)

I don't often follow a score while listening because too much is going on to be able to take it all in. I'll study it while a performance is fresh in my mind. If the piece is difficult and I have a recording I'll isolate a passage, listen to that then study the score. Takes practice and it depends what you want to get from it. Beethoven's symphonies are excellent study for woodwind writing.


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

I do... when I play the piano (and did something similar when played violin in the past).  

I love following the music with the score, speacially with the large scale symponic works and operas. Unfortunately, where I live there's not a single store where scores can be bought, so I have to download the pdf files from the web and have them printed.

Sometimes I just read the score, without listening to the music, so that I don't have to follow the tempo, and I can read in full detail (eg: Mahler's 8th).


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## Kurkikohtaus (Oct 22, 2006)

Given my preferences and dispositions, I have found reading scores to be a very depressing thing over the past several years, but nonetheless I continue to do so on a daily basis, despite of the bad news that they are bound to offer:

Blue Jays 2 - Red Sox 4
Blue Jays 1 - Red Sox 7
Blue Jays 3 - Red Sox 9

Blue Jays 0 - Mariners 2
Blue Jays 6 - Mariners 8
Blue Jays 3 - Mariners 7

Maple Leafs 1 - Senators 3
Maple Leafs 3 - Rangers 4
Maple Leafs 2 - Sabers 6

_etc. ad infinitum..._


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